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Adobe Premiere... should I get hip to it?

M

Maffmatix

I got a free copy of the new Premiere through a job I did, but I have barely used it.

I've been a FCP fiend for many years now (as many of you are I'm sure) but I remember back in high school I used Adobe Premiere all the time and loved it. I remember making an awful Star Wars fan film on it, using Photoshop and Premiere together to rotoscope light sabers.

Should I start figuring out the new Premiere? I hear it's good. I hear it's worth it. But I love me some FCP. It must be similar.

Who uses Premiere on this forum that can give me a good review?
 
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Premiere 5.5 seconded! FCP7 has been left in the dust and FCP X is far from ready for professional use. Right now, Premiere is the way to go. No transcoding, codec-less sequences, and stuff just works. Also, it communicates well with After Effects.

I do recommend getting a shuttle control. Handy things, those.
 
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The best thing about Apple waiting so long to "Upgrade FCP7" is it forced me to start using Premiere CS5 and now 5.5. From my point of view I wish I would have changed to Adobe a long time ago. Well maybe not that long ago but 5.5 BLOWS FCP 7 out of the water!! I don't miss anything about FCP 7. And now that I am fluent in Premiere I don't have to worry about Apple getting rid of MAC PRO. Don't want to switch to windows but I can with very little effort.
 
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If you're used to FCP7 or lower, you'll find Premiere very easy to get used to. You also get much more modern editing technology. I've attached a screenshot where I have 16:9 DSLR footage inside a 2.4:1 editing sequence. Each shot has a hot-pixel removal filter attached and I'm doing realtime editing and playback at full resolution with no rendering necessary.

Edit: Looks like there an image-size restriction on file attachments, so here's the full-resolution screenshot.
 

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I have been meaning to ask this for some time and your reply sorta acted like a reminder...

I have footage shot 25frames interlaced at FULL HD..1920x1080..Standard sony camcorder nothing fancy...While shooting my film I knew i'd want to crop it in 2.35:1 aspect ratio and kept that in mind while framing..however shooting in tight spaces where I had no room to go back further sometime I have more leg room than I would have liked and sometimes its more head room..
I mean if i apply a standard crop 100px to all videos it wont work...so i was thinking that can i create a psd file with 100px x 100px rectangular black bars top and bottom and keep the middle transparent..then i use that as an overlay over the entire time sequence.. that way I can individually move the clips position to get better framing...
Would that work? Does anybody have a psd already that they can share?
Many thanks
 
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I can just re-frame my 16:9 footage inside the 2.4:1 sequence by dragging it up and down. I'd recommend doing this instead of cropping your footage inside a 16:9 sequence. You can always throw your 2.35:1 master edited sequence inside a new 16:9 sequence to get your top/bottom black bars (for exporting to DVD and whatnot).

Also, you get to avoid having to layer a PSD on top of your footage, or having to manually apply cropping directly within Premiere. Oh! And you get more vertical room since your viewer window doesn't have to account for the black bars (as seen in my screenshot).
 
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Hey thanks..yea that would work too I imagine..
So if im looking to ultimately author dvds and blurays of the disk, would you still recommend putting it on 2.35:1 timeline? I just create a new sequence and copy paste the sequence? Any other setting I'd have to do?
 
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eraserhead_in_time said:
Hey thanks..yea that would work too I imagine..
So if im looking to ultimately author dvds and blurays of the disk, would you still recommend putting it on 2.35:1 timeline? I just create a new sequence and copy paste the sequence? Any other setting I'd have to do?
Click to expand...

Yep. I would highly recommend working in a sequence that has the same dimensions as your intended cropping. This is the great thing about Premiere -- you just slog your footage around and it works as you would intuitively expect. That's a bit of a surprise compared to most other editing software I've used.

What I did was to create a new sequence preset for my 2.4:1 aspect ratio (1920x800) with a preview codec of... I don't really remember, honestly. The preview codec isn't really that important since when you go to export your sequence you select what output codec you want to use for the final render.

Interlacing might be kind of an issue, though, so make sure your incoming footage and your editing sequences all have the same framerate and interlacing settings you want.
 
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hey escher dude how i customize the aspect ratio to 2.4:1 is preset?
I checked AVCHD 50i and then customize it but i dont get any options for ratio...
I'll keep an eye out for interlacing..usually i just drag a clip to sequence it automatically makes a timeline with appropriate settings..
 
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eraserhead_in_time said:
hey escher dude how i customize the aspect ratio to 2.4:1 is preset?
I checked AVCHD 50i and then customize it but i dont get any options for ratio...
I'll keep an eye out for interlacing..usually i just drag a clip to sequence it automatically makes a timeline with appropriate settings..
Click to expand...

Right-click in your Project view, then select New Item->Sequence.

In the window that pops up, pick a starting point (for instance, if your footage is AVCHD 50i, might as well start there), then select the middle tab called "Settings".

In Settings, ensure that the Timebase looks right. Under video, set the frame size to the proper size. If your video is 1920 pixels across, then a 2.35:1 frame will be 817 pixels tall. Pixel Aspect Ratio should be set to Square Pixels (1.0). Make sure your Fields setting is the same as your input footage. Display Format can be anything you want.

Audio settings should also match your input footage.

You probably won't have to change anything in the Video Previews section.

At the bottom of the window is a Save Preset button. Click that, give it a name and description, and save it! Now you have a 2.35:1 editing sequence preset you can select when you make a new sequence.
 
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Or if you're away from the web:

If you have an aspect ratio h:v (horizontal:vertical) and want a resolution x * y (where you already know x -- the width in pixels of your image), the formula to get the height is:

y = (x * v) / h​

This will let you calculate the dimensions of any aspect ratio w/out having to fire up a web browser.
 
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wheatgrinder said:
wow, a few months ago there was actual debate FCP vs PPro... looks like its pretty much over for FCP...
Click to expand...

Final Cut X was a huge self inflicted wound in the pro community. It may be totally over and in a couple of years Final Cut will be a pure consumer product.


I've actually got CS 5.5 on my "to get ASAP" list. I'm stuck using Vegas right now until I can afford the upgrade.
 
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wheatgrinder said:
wow, a few months ago there was actual debate FCP vs PPro... looks like its pretty much over for FCP...
Click to expand...

I'm a HUGE Adobe fanatic. I have used Premiere as my primary editing tool for the past 12 years. I have edited features in Avid and Final Cut as well. Adobe Premiere CS5.5 is every bit as good as Final Cut in every single way. With XML and OMF support, they can actually be used in a professional arena in ways Adobe had never been capable of.

That said, Final Cut Pro is probably not done forever. Final Cut Pro X is probably never going to be the professional tool or industry standard, but that doesn't mean later version of Final Cut in a year or two don't bring back what customers need and professionals require.
 
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