abpowell
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Is Adobe Premier Pro worth the price compared to Ultra 2?
I've been using the Pinnacle Media Suite V.10 Titanium edition (whatever that means, it still has serious performance issues). I am tired of all the issues with Pinnacle. Currently shopping for new Video Editing software. I love the Adobe products but I only use this software for personal use. That's not to say, I just want a basic package. I do create a lot of video's for customers, my kids sports teams, church groups etc... So I need a solid reliable and very versitile program. I would like to go with Adobe Pro but don't know if it is worth the price. Especially since Ultra is owned by Adobe. I am hoping it will be compatible the Photoshop and Audition packages I have already. There are not many current reviews to be found on the Ultra 2 however so that may be a bad sign. What is the best package for the money in the $300-$500 range (or even less would be better)? But if Adobe Pro is the only way to go, then I'll wait till I can afford it.
Thanks in advance for your input
Thanks in advance for your input
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I agree with some points avgavg made
BUT
Here are a few other points that need to be emphasized about using Premiere
If you want to run Premiere - be prepared to invest $4-5 grand in a pc that can handle it
you are not going to go to be able to use a consumer level machine and get any performance out of premiere
perhaps some of the new dual core type machines will run it a little better, but I doubt it
the main problem is premiere really requires DISK SPEED
and I haven't seen one yet running on IDE drives that could handle premiere
and the ones i've seen running SATA are not that impressive either
the only pc's i've seen that run it well are using U320 scsi in a stripe - and that is big dough!!
MSP however runs just fine on consumer level pc's, but of course, faster is better
ALSO - I have heard the multiple track "most important feature" thing re: premire before, and I think it is very overrated
mainly because along with the "unlimited" options you get "unlimited" problems
I eat very well (hence the big in bigbilly) helping videographers figure out why thier compilations are crashing in premiere
They think it is a computer problem and call me in
And it turns out they've just maxed out premiere in what they are trying to do
one of the tracks has a bad clip - or a transition is causing it to foul up
and I end up showing them the technique I use in MSP to get around all of that
its called rendering!
rather than have 30 tracks of stuff trying to get slammed together, you break them down into individual projects
then you end up with 3 tracks that are more manageable - video 1, video b, and effects or overlay tracks
I know that gets premiere jockeys panties in wads when they cant have thier impressive looking timeline with all of the tracks and stuff going on
but for small scale productions, it works just great
I just want to point out that if the cost of Premiere is what is holding you off
wait until you see how much it costs you in hardware and tech support and plugins
Premiere is a SERIOUS video application
Cut your teeth on MSP and learn the important aspects of NLE video editing and DVD production
The skills transfer nicely, and you'll be glad you didnt have to spend $15k to add a title to your video of the Easter Play at church
Good luck and God bless
bbdc
BUT
Here are a few other points that need to be emphasized about using Premiere
If you want to run Premiere - be prepared to invest $4-5 grand in a pc that can handle it
you are not going to go to be able to use a consumer level machine and get any performance out of premiere
perhaps some of the new dual core type machines will run it a little better, but I doubt it
the main problem is premiere really requires DISK SPEED
and I haven't seen one yet running on IDE drives that could handle premiere
and the ones i've seen running SATA are not that impressive either
the only pc's i've seen that run it well are using U320 scsi in a stripe - and that is big dough!!
MSP however runs just fine on consumer level pc's, but of course, faster is better
ALSO - I have heard the multiple track "most important feature" thing re: premire before, and I think it is very overrated
mainly because along with the "unlimited" options you get "unlimited" problems
I eat very well (hence the big in bigbilly) helping videographers figure out why thier compilations are crashing in premiere
They think it is a computer problem and call me in
And it turns out they've just maxed out premiere in what they are trying to do
one of the tracks has a bad clip - or a transition is causing it to foul up
and I end up showing them the technique I use in MSP to get around all of that
its called rendering!
rather than have 30 tracks of stuff trying to get slammed together, you break them down into individual projects
then you end up with 3 tracks that are more manageable - video 1, video b, and effects or overlay tracks
I know that gets premiere jockeys panties in wads when they cant have thier impressive looking timeline with all of the tracks and stuff going on
but for small scale productions, it works just great
I just want to point out that if the cost of Premiere is what is holding you off
wait until you see how much it costs you in hardware and tech support and plugins
Premiere is a SERIOUS video application
Cut your teeth on MSP and learn the important aspects of NLE video editing and DVD production
The skills transfer nicely, and you'll be glad you didnt have to spend $15k to add a title to your video of the Easter Play at church
Good luck and God bless
bbdc
after I read my post above I just want to say
I LOVE Premiere and agree with AVGAVG 100%
I just wish I could afford all the stuff to run it
I do videography - subcontract out to local photogs/videogs
and I primarliy use MSP for editing and Sony DVD Architect - and the results are quite favorable
I just wanted to point out the cost factor with Premiere
Another VERY important thing is YOUR DIGITAL CAMERA
I LOVE Premiere and agree with AVGAVG 100%
I just wish I could afford all the stuff to run it
I do videography - subcontract out to local photogs/videogs
and I primarliy use MSP for editing and Sony DVD Architect - and the results are quite favorable
I just wanted to point out the cost factor with Premiere
Another VERY important thing is YOUR DIGITAL CAMERA
oops - hit submit
Just because you have a miniDV camcorder - a $500 miniDV is not on par with a $5k miniDV
IT ALL ABOUT THE OPTICS
I purchased what was at the time the BEST Sony miniDV Prosumer camera about 7 yrs ago
but it only had 1 ccd (albeit large at 1/3) - comprared to the 1/6 single ccd's they put out today
IT IS AMAZING HOW MUCH BETTER THE VIDEO IS WITH MY CAMERA
Then I started using a 3ccd Sony when I went out on contract shoots - AND WOWWIE
So - I would say spend the money on a good 3ccd camera and save the money on your NLE
cheers
bbdc
Just because you have a miniDV camcorder - a $500 miniDV is not on par with a $5k miniDV
IT ALL ABOUT THE OPTICS
I purchased what was at the time the BEST Sony miniDV Prosumer camera about 7 yrs ago
but it only had 1 ccd (albeit large at 1/3) - comprared to the 1/6 single ccd's they put out today
IT IS AMAZING HOW MUCH BETTER THE VIDEO IS WITH MY CAMERA
Then I started using a 3ccd Sony when I went out on contract shoots - AND WOWWIE
So - I would say spend the money on a good 3ccd camera and save the money on your NLE
cheers
bbdc
To add a little to what BBDC has posted, Ulead and Pinnacle products are without doubt far more user-friendly than Premiere and can get the job done for most home (and home-office) productions with ease - everything is intuitive and you don't even require the help files or a tutorial to make your movie the way you want it.
But as I said, once you get comfortable with Premiere (all you really need to do is to try out the tutorials that come with Premiere and you are off to a professional video production career) and you are over the slightly steeper (compared to Ulead and Pinnacle products) initial learning curve, you wouldn't use anything else because few other packages give you total frame-by-frame control over movie clips, transition effects and all video and audio tracks.
The multiple tracks are as easy to use as a single track - each track can be hidden or included in your final complilatin at the click of a button (as in Photoshop layers) - and can be very useful, for example - simply put different language voice-overs on different tracks and include as many background music tracks as you like (up to 99 of course) each in its own audio track. Mixing betwen all the audio tracks (to make sure the voice over does not go under the music at some point!) is as easy as adjusting the level on each track and previewing the result (you can do this for a small portion of the timeline till you get it perfect while synchronizing it perfectly with the video track(s). You will appreciate this when you are trying to synchronize stock audio with your video clip - like synchronizing stock audio of footsteps to a clip of a person walking.
I must also say that Premiere does not really require any special hardware and runs fine on most standard desktops (Premiere Pro can be installed only on Win XP but earlier versions upto 6.5 perform well on Win 2K and older OSs) because I have been using Premiere since the Win 95 days.
Of course, for all video editing, the speed of rendering and previewing depends on these factors in descending order of importance (from my experience) - processor clock and FSB speed, type and amount of RAM installed and hard disk speed.
A movie with two audio and 9 video tracks (mostly titles and graphic overlays created in Photoshop) that used to take me about 10 hours to compile on a Win 95 machine (I used to let it run overnight) with Premiere 4 now compiles in less that 30 minutes on my desktop which only has a Pentium D processor with 800 MHz FSB, 512 MB DDR2 533 RAM and 7200 RPM HDD.
Your best bet would be to download trial versions of the software that you are considering and then see which one you are most comfortable with before you buy - especially if you decide to go for Premiere (you only need to register at http://www.adobe.com for free to download a free trial version which is fully functional for a limited period).
Good Luck!
But as I said, once you get comfortable with Premiere (all you really need to do is to try out the tutorials that come with Premiere and you are off to a professional video production career) and you are over the slightly steeper (compared to Ulead and Pinnacle products) initial learning curve, you wouldn't use anything else because few other packages give you total frame-by-frame control over movie clips, transition effects and all video and audio tracks.
The multiple tracks are as easy to use as a single track - each track can be hidden or included in your final complilatin at the click of a button (as in Photoshop layers) - and can be very useful, for example - simply put different language voice-overs on different tracks and include as many background music tracks as you like (up to 99 of course) each in its own audio track. Mixing betwen all the audio tracks (to make sure the voice over does not go under the music at some point!) is as easy as adjusting the level on each track and previewing the result (you can do this for a small portion of the timeline till you get it perfect while synchronizing it perfectly with the video track(s). You will appreciate this when you are trying to synchronize stock audio with your video clip - like synchronizing stock audio of footsteps to a clip of a person walking.
I must also say that Premiere does not really require any special hardware and runs fine on most standard desktops (Premiere Pro can be installed only on Win XP but earlier versions upto 6.5 perform well on Win 2K and older OSs) because I have been using Premiere since the Win 95 days.
Of course, for all video editing, the speed of rendering and previewing depends on these factors in descending order of importance (from my experience) - processor clock and FSB speed, type and amount of RAM installed and hard disk speed.
A movie with two audio and 9 video tracks (mostly titles and graphic overlays created in Photoshop) that used to take me about 10 hours to compile on a Win 95 machine (I used to let it run overnight) with Premiere 4 now compiles in less that 30 minutes on my desktop which only has a Pentium D processor with 800 MHz FSB, 512 MB DDR2 533 RAM and 7200 RPM HDD.
Your best bet would be to download trial versions of the software that you are considering and then see which one you are most comfortable with before you buy - especially if you decide to go for Premiere (you only need to register at http://www.adobe.com for free to download a free trial version which is fully functional for a limited period).
Good Luck!
ASKER
Sounds like Ulead is what I shuld go with. I have a decent computer an Athlon dual core, 2 gig ram currently because it runs faster. I've got another two I can install for heavy graphics. Also 10K RPM WD Raptor as main drive. 2 storage HDs and Raptor waitind to install to use only for video editing. As stated before I aleady own pinaccle but am tired of the crashes. Is that common with all $100 programs or just really bad with pinnacle? I don't want to buy Ulead and end up with the same issues. All other heavy graphic programs run fine (mostly games but I do have 2 GeForce 7900s in SLI). Am I just going to get more of the same? I'll stay with pinnacle if so because I've aleady bought almost every plug in they offer.
I'll probably open a thread on sound effects so please check back for link if you have some good tips.
Thanks for the help.
I'll probably open a thread on sound effects so please check back for link if you have some good tips.
Thanks for the help.
ASKER
No comments on the typos from the previous message please. I really like my new bberry 7130e at first but the typos are killing me.
You will find Ulead much more reliable than Pinnacle though you cannot absolutely rule out a system hang for no apparent reason (very rare though).
Your machine's configuration is more than sufficient for any of the products discussed.
If you do have a broadband connection, it would be a good idea to download a trial version and actually try it out before you decide to put down more money!
http://www.ulead.com/msp/trial.htm
Good Luck!
Your machine's configuration is more than sufficient for any of the products discussed.
If you do have a broadband connection, it would be a good idea to download a trial version and actually try it out before you decide to put down more money!
http://www.ulead.com/msp/trial.htm
Good Luck!
ASKER