Working with Final Cut and Premiere Pro CC

I do not want to bash Final Cut. I have used it for many years. I seen no reason to use Premiere. However, once I actually tried it, it blew me away. It has RGB curves and it's much easier to color correct and then do even complex grades, also it comes with Speedgrade CC. The footage looks at least 50% better on the grade than what I got from Final Cut.
HOWEVER....
I do not know how to use After Effects or Motion, and even if I did I would not want to take the time to do it every time. I like the pre made text options in Final Cut Pro. I like the bumper and openers, the transitions, etc.
I'm wondering how to combine the two? I want to export the final project out of Adobe Premiere CC 2014, as the Export options flat out amazed me, and Adobe Media encoder seems much better than Apples compressor.
Does anyone here work with both programs? What is your workflow when doing so?

delirium trigger wrote: ...Does anyone here work with both programs? What is your workflow when doing so?

In the past I worked with both CS6 and FCP X. We have a couple of editors still on Premiere, although most are on FCP. There are two main areas: personal preference regarding the tool itself, and workflow, esp. in a collaborative environment.

Re the tool, I really liked CS6. Timeline was always highly responsive. Import (ie conforming) camera native material was fast, and editing camera native stuff worked very well. It was conceptually similar to other editors being timeline and track oriented oriented.

However as project size scaled upward, it was increasingly difficult to organize the material. Metadata management in CS6 was very limited. We investigated CatDV a couple of years ago; it looked good but was not stable under high stress on Windows (it was originally a ported Mac app).

FCP X has extensive metadata and content management. It is essentially a database-oriented system. This takes a while to learn but pays big dividends later.

Re workflow in a mixed environment this is difficult. In theory you can import/export a project between Premiere and FCP via XML and this worked for simple demonstration purposes. However in my experience it didn't work well for large production projects.

When required, our cross-platform workflow is to edit in Premiere, export then import the video file, blade all the clips and finish in FCP X. Yes that is primitive and a hassle but it's doable. It also throws away FCP's strongest feature, which is content management. However we sometimes use an assistant editor to tag and organize using FCP, make the selects, export and pass those to the Premiere editor. Then after final content editing another exported file comes back to FCP X for finishing. It's such a crude system I'm almost embarrassed to describe it, but that's what we use.

From a color quality standpoint I don't see a big difference between finishing in Premiere vs FCP, but this varies based on tools. We use plugins not Resolve, so aren't high end finishers. For sound correction ZX4 works well on either platform. Our content doesn't require extensive graphics, so AE isn't an issue for us.

Re export options, Compressor works OK for us. If exporting to single-pass H.264 for web content (increasingly a factor for many producers), FCP X on an iMac is extremely fast due to Quick Sync. For whatever reason Adobe still doesn't support Quick Sync even on CPUs with that feature.

Obviously the all-FCP workflows are vastly better. Despite the talk about FCP lagging and slowdowns, IMO the strengths significantly outweigh the weaknesses.

What is a subscription costing per month for PPro now?

BenB wrote: What is a subscription costing per month for PPro now?

It's $49 per month for the CC suite. Premiere Pro alone is $19 per month but I don't think includes After Effects, Media Encoder, Encore, Audition, etc. You could buy a new iMac every three years for that.

Starting with CC, Adobe also essentially eliminated their previous discount for non-profit entities.

OSo PPro alone, for 36 months, costs you about $683 USD. I paid about $400 for FCPX, Motion, Compressor. Yep, that subscription is odd.

I agree that moving projects between different NLEs is always a hassle and never worth the trouble. Unless you are a freelance editor who has to know multiple systems, it's much better to have one NLE of choice and get proficient with that system than to constantly move from one NLE to the other while never really knowing either one of them.

If color correction and export options are you main concern I would really advise you to learn Resolve. It is a far better grading tool than Speedgrade and it has much better export and conform options than Media Encoder. It works flawlessly together with FCP X (you can send Projects back and forth between FCP X and Resolve without any issues) and... it's free.

If you want RGB cures in FCP X, you really should try out Color Finale.

- Ronny

Basically what I'm asking is this; When I export out of premiere pro to go into final cut, what codec do I use so that I do not optimize or transcode when going into final cut? Also, the same question the other way around, as I'd rather export from Premiere. So, what would I export out of for best results on Final Cut?

To the other person, the subscription is not bad for me, as I am mostly a photographer, I just hobby in video. So, I get photoshop and lightroom. When a new version comes out, I automatically get it. Same with premiere and speed grace CC.

There is a new version about to come out of Premiere Pro anytime now, you need to google it and look at the color features. They included a ton from SpeedGrade. I use speed grade to color grade after color correcting in Premiere. However, I believe I will be able to do both in premiere when this new version comes out, if you look at a video of it, it will blow your mind if you are like me and care a lot about color grading.

Basically, because I'm a professional in photography, one of the things I enjoy now that cameras have video, is to basically do photography with video. In other words, if I go to take landscape photo's of a beautiful area, I also take video of that landscape.

Now, the Raw photo, I can make look amazing of that landscape, but in Final Cut Pro X, I could never make the video look flat out amazing. I could make it look okay.

I tried premiere Pro CC and Speedgrade CC on trial before I bought it, I already had bought the photoshop/lightroom package which is 9.99 a month.

When I tried it, even without speed grade, I was able to make it look exactly like I was making my photo's look like in Camera raw/Lightroom and photoshop. In fact, the features even look the same, as they are both made by adobe. For example, you get Luma/Chroma curves. You get RGB curves. So, say I want to boost the blues in my mids, but a very specific part of my minds, not ALL Of my minds, I could do so. With Final Cut Pro X, in order to do that I'd have to create mask and all sorts of secondary color corrections.

In speed grade, and now in the new version that's about to come out of premiere, it actually has the color wheels and curves laid out for each specific thing. For example, in your shadows. You don't just get three little balls to move up and down, you can get VERY specific.

The strange thing about it is, SpeedGrade is one of the most powerful color grading tools out there, it's even used on Hollywood movies, yet with a few YouTube tutorials, you'll find it's very easy and simple to use.

The reason I used Final Cut Pro X all those years is because I thought Premiere was like the old premiere. I had no idea that they had taken on Final Cut head on.

Download a trial of it and look at what it can do just with color options, even on the current option. Download speed grade. You can use both for 30 days for free. Its flat out amazing.

I predict if most people knew what premiere Pro CC 2014.2 could do, they'd switch. It's just they aren't aware of it, at least I wasn't, and neither were most people that I know who use Final Cut. They are aware of the premiere from 5 or 6 years ago, this premiere is nothing like that at all.

If you have a good GPU, and I do, and if you have a retina macbook or any macbook that has a GPU in it, most of the 15 inch models do, Premiere supports Cuda.

What ends up happening, is you import your native footage, you don't transcode it or optimize it, you can throw powerful color grading on it, such as from speed grade, and the footage will still play back without rendering. It's not transcoding it in the background either. It will transcode if you want it to, but the new version is built so you don't have to do that.

I had no idea anything like that existed with color in video. Being a photographer I always wanted that in Final Cut. But the only time I seen anything capable of doing what I wanted it'd be these programs like magic bullet that cost like 2 thousand dollars and I knew I'd never buy that software as I don't make money off of videos.

Googe "Premiere Pro CC gets a huge update." Find the article from this month, it includes many videos on it. Look at what it does. If that doesn't excite you... It's hard to excite you. lol

Premiere Pro by it's self is 20 dollars a month. It's worth it to get all of those tools. I don't think most people need speed grade with the new version of premiere pro thats about to be released, because as I said, it includes most all of it's tools.

Now seriously: why on earth would you want to go between Premiere and Final Cut Pro X or vice versa? Just stay in Premiere or stay in FCP X, it does not matter. Jumping between NLEs is simply not something you should do. And if color correction is what matters most to you: you really, really should use Resolve. It beats the pants out of anything else and it's free. AND you can easily exchange projects between FCP X and Resolve without any quality loss, which you cannot do with Premiere. So you have the best of both worlds.

- Ronny

Between Color Finale and Resolve, NOTHING can beat that pair. Not even for the price.

And yes, stay in PPro or stay in FCPX, there is no need at all for you, a single hobbiest editor, to switch back and forth. What's the purpose?

I'd also say that most folks are very well aware of what is in PPro, what it can and can not do. Speed Grade is not all that, not compared to Resolve and the other pro level color grading tools that have been used for films for many, many years now. Speed Grade can't touch them.

delirium trigger wrote: The reason I used Final Cut Pro X all those years is because I thought Premiere was like the old premiere. I had no idea that they had taken on Final Cut head on.
Download a trial of it and look at what it can do just with color options, even on the current option. Download speed grade. You can use both for 30 days for free. Its flat out amazing.
.

Fine. That's called guerilla marketing.

edit: Adobe is always getting more agressive on marketing prior NAB.

More plant than the vegetarian stand at a Day of the Triffids convention.

Adobe Media encoder seems much better than Apples compressor.

Oh dear god no! Media Encoder sucks the big one! For example, when making an M2V file for Blu-ray at 1080p 30, there is no option for progressive. You have to choose upper or lower field. Also it doesn't seem steady on the frame rate when encoding M2V for Blu-ray. I see dropped frames all the time when playing back the disc. Plus there's compression artifacts where there should be none. With Compressor I can choose an actual 1080p 30 progressive file. I can choose my GOP structure. It makes MUCH nicer encodes than Adobe Media Encoder does even when Compressor is using a lower bit rate. Much better job all around on ALL fronts. Oh and Compressor is about a billion times faster, too!