Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Which app is best for web video - FCX or Premiere?

geese

geese

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 23, 2003
525
0
London, UK
Hi,

I'm need a video editing app. I work in a big museum where we need to be able to edit video clips. These clips are usually in h264, or MPEG-2. But sometimes Quicktime, and AVI. A lot of these video clips are quite old, and small.

I've been using iMovie '09 with some success. But its a bit too basic, and it cannot import many MP4 video's for some reason which is a killer.

I've been trialling Final Cut X. It almost does everything i want.

But when I import a clip into the timeline, it tries to set video properties to 640*480px, or larger. Not what I want when I'm editing small 432*240 sized clips.

And then I have to buy Compressor to so I can export the video to our occasionally strange video specs. I have no idea whether Compressor will do what we want it to do.

So I wonder, is Premiere CS5.5 better for web video? Or does it have its own issues?

Thanks
 
ppc_michael

ppc_michael

Guest
Apr 26, 2005
1,498
2
Los Angeles, CA
H.264 and MPEG-2 traditionally do not play well with NLEs because of the way they are structured. However it is my experience that, of the two packages you are asking about, Premiere does a better job of handling these formats without first converting them to something else.

There should be a full-featured 30-day trial version of Premiere CS 5 available for download from Adobe's website; try it for yourself!
 
C

cgbier

macrumors 6502a
Jun 6, 2011
933
2
Compressor will do the trick. You can roll your own export presets.
Both, Premiere and FCP X will do the trick. As you are used to iMovie, the step into FCP X will be easier for you though. On the other hand, Premiere will swallow about any format you throw at it. FCP is a bit finicky in that regards.
 
K

Kevin Monahan

macrumors regular
Feb 23, 2011
161
1
cgbier said:
Compressor will do the trick. You can roll your own export presets.
Both, Premiere and FCP X will do the trick. As you are used to iMovie, the step into FCP X will be easier for you though. On the other hand, Premiere will swallow about any format you throw at it. FCP is a bit finicky in that regards.
Click to expand...
You can edit video in their native formats and at their native size, even if it's non-standard. For example, drag and drop your small format clips onto the New Item button and you'll create a sequence at that size. As was mentioned, no transcoding is necessary. To compress clips, use Adobe Media Encoder which is bundled with Premiere Pro. You can make watch folders to create a variety of output formats (including the ones you mentioned) in one fell swoop.

The free trial is indeed a good way to try out the workflow: http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/tdrc/index.cfm?product=production_premium
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom