If you want to see a few very large thumbnails in the bin, simply crank up the slider. But more importantly, the thumbnails are completely resizable. While not as fluid as FCPX’s skimming, it’s a quick way to see what a clip contains. List and thumbnail are obvious, but what needs to be reiterated is that the thumbnail view enables Adobe’s hover scrubbing. Premiere Pro uses a more traditional approach and features three primary modes – list, thumbnail, and freeform. FCPX went deep down this hole with Events and Keywords. It’s the first level of project organization. You could start with a completely blank project (no imported media clips) and work directly between the Media Browser and the timeline if you wanted to.īins – Editors rely on bins for the organization of raw media. Furthermore, the editor can directly edit clips to the timeline from the Media Browser, which then automatically also imports that clip into the project in a one-step process. Media Browser offers the same scrubbing capabilities as for clips in a bin. It’s not just a view of folders in a clip name or thumbnail format to be imported. Media Browser – Premiere Pro includes a built in Media Browser panel that enables the immediate review and import of clips external to your project. It’s not just the ability to show/hide panels, but unlike other NLEs, it’s the complete control over their size and location. Make it as minimalistic or complex as you need and save these as workspaces.
The truth is that you can completely customize the look, style, and complexity of the interface by re-arranging the stacked, tabbed, or floating panels. Not a deal-breaker, but meanwhile, Premiere Pro has continued to become more responsive in the same period.Ĭustomizable user interface – Users first exposed to Premiere Pro’s interface may feel it’s very complex. I have seen such differences across multiple Macs and hard drive types over the eight years since its introduction with very little improvement. The reason seems to be that FCPX is constantly writing each action to the Library in a “constant save” mode. The same action is nearly instant in Premiere Pro. When I click to select a clip in the timeline, it takes a fraction of a second to respond. For example, in my Final Cut Pro X experience – which is an otherwise fast application – it feels slower for this type of response time. I’m not talking about media handling, but rather the time between clicking on something or commanding a function and having that action occur. Responsive interface – I find the Premiere Pro user interface to be the most responsive application of any of the NLEs. Whatever the reason, the following is a short list (in no order of importance) of why Premiere Pro becomes such a good option for many editors, given the available alternatives. Some have even worked with Final Cut Pro X, but find Premiere Pro to be a better fit.
Yet many Premiere Pro users have gone through several software or system changes in their careers and are no strangers to a learning curve. The less benevolent FCPX fanboys like to think these editors are set in their ways and resistant to change.
Stability questions aside, why do so many professional editors prefer Adobe Premiere Pro given the choices available? The Final Cut Pro X fans will point to Premiere’s similarities with Final Cut Pro 7, thus providing a comfort zone. Realistically, if our experiences were as bad as many others proclaim, we would certainly have shifted to some other editing software! Over the course of the past three to four years, Premiere Pro (as well as the other Creative Cloud applications) has performed solidly for us across a wide range of commercial, corporate, and entertainment projects.
Nevertheless, I currently manage about a dozen Mac workstations between home and work, which are exposed to our regular pool of freelance editors. All software crashes on occasion and usually at the most inopportune time. While I routinely bounce between Final Cut Pro X, Media Composer, DaVinci Resolve, and Premiere Pro, the latter is my main axe at the day job.īefore I proceed, let me stop and acknowledge those readers who are now screaming, “But Premiere always crashes!” I certainly don’t want to belittle anyone’s bad experiences with an app however in my experience, Premiere Pro has been just as stable as the others. In any case, the market I work in and the nature of my clients dictate a fluency in Premiere Pro. Some seriously gave FCPX a go, yet could never warm up to it. But I seriously jumped into regular use at the start of the Creative Cloud era, thanks to many of my clients’ shift away from Final Cut Pro. I’ve been involved with Adobe Premiere/Premiere Pro as a user on and off since Premiere 5.5 (yes kids – before, Pro, CS, and CC). Over my career I’ve cut client jobs with well over a dozen different linear and nonlinear editing systems and/or brands.