Is Premiere the best Amateur Film-Making, NLE Available?

Vamp · Post by **Vamp** » Wed Dec 03, 2003 2:14 am

Or is Ulead Media Studio Pro, better?

insert_coin · Post by **insert_coin** » Wed Dec 03, 2003 11:31 am

id say it is the best...

foxwood · Post by **foxwood** » Wed Dec 03, 2003 8:01 pm

God not unlead that is nowhere near as good as premere. Premeare has only one equal in the PC market and that is Sonic Foundrys Vagas Video 4, which looks like a basic NLE but is as powerful as Premeare. Premeares advantage over Vagas is that premeare is bult to work right in with the other adobie products. So ya if you have it its the best you can get, but don't discount Vagas, and if your on a Mac, well then its Final Cut Pro.

U.S.Amateurfilmaker · Wed Dec 03, 2003 10:53 pm

The look of Vegas can be pretty decieving, because it looks just like the $99 two track Screenblast version. But if you look through the menus and options, there is a LOAD of stuff that Screenblast Studio doesn't have, especially in the rendering and track customization department.

Jerry Jones · Post by **Jerry Jones** » Thu Dec 04, 2003 12:04 am

What I always suggest is to take the opinions of other with a grain of salt.

Instead, I recommend that each individual download the FREE trial version of each NLE.

Why?

Because individual needs are very different!

Each individual should make up his or her own mind based on the specific needs of the project.

The best software companies usually offer a FREE trial download on their Web sites.

For example, Ulead's FREE trial download can be obtained from the Web page at the following link:

http://www.ulead.com/msp/trial.htm

As there is no charge, the individual who downloads and installs the trial versions really has nothing to lose.

Jerry Jones
http://www.jonesgroup.net

Vamp · Post by **Vamp** » Thu Dec 04, 2003 12:45 am

The problem is, the trial version of Media Pro doesn't come with things like CG Infinity and Video Paint etc.

Post by **Matt** » Thu Dec 04, 2003 1:07 am

I think Premiere is great but I would agree with Jerry that people should at least try other NLE software. If you don't use the features of Premiere then it is very expensive.

Go for the trial versions. Maybe buy an older version off eBay and then decide which one is best for you after you've used a few. There is no denying Adobe's popularity but the competition is always snapping at Premiere's heals. All good for us because it keeps the software developers on their toes

padawanNick · Post by **padawanNick** » Tue Dec 09, 2003 4:16 am

First, I totally agree with Jerry that it is really personal choice and you should try-before-you-buy to get a feel for a few programs.

That said, personally I switched FROM Premiere TO Media Studio Pro because I found it to be more powerful and useful for in the DV editing arena.
There's no question that Premiere, Final Cut Pro (Mac only) and Avid are the leaders in the broadcast and film editing worlds.
Of these, only Premiere is both affordable and available for PC in a full featured version, so it gains quite a bit of popularity, even though it is more expensive that Vegas and Media Studio Pro.

What I have found is that Media Studio Pro alone, can do many things that Premiere can't without the help of Photoshop and/or After effects. Some of these features, Vegas doesn't have at all.

The big obvious one is rotoscoping.
Most everyone knows that rotoscoping (painting changes frame-by-frame) can be used for lightsabers and is generally very tedious.
1) MSP makes it much less tedious by providing a genuine rotoscoping tool.
This is not a file export that gives you hundreds of frames on a single image like the Premiere filmstrip export to Photoshop.
This is a real, open your AVI, MOV, WMV, whatever and start working tool
Realtime playback while you work = realtime feedback on how it's going to look.
Hotkeys and menus to automate actions forward through frames. (not copy-paste-move, copy-paste-move)
Other visual work-aids include a flick tool (to see a few frames of animation) and onion skinning (to layer frames within a single panel to visualize motion.)
2) Rotoscoping has very practicle uses beyond "lightsabers" too.
In a paid video project, the client gave me an outdoor shot done with a handheld camera where a guy on a two story high scafold smashed a few thousand pounds of ice blocks with his fist. Trouble was, the tractor used to postion the blocks was in the shot and the client wanted it out. With MSP's rotoscope tool I just opened the clip, painted over the tractor with a new background, complete with parking lot, grassy area buildings and sky, right over the tractor. Then I could replicate the new background forward with a few keystrokes, tapping the cursor keys a bit as I stepped through frames to keep the background aligned with the hand held motion of the original shot. The entire process was done in five minutes while the (very happy) client sat next to me at the console. This could not have been done in Premiere without extra tools.

Compositing.
I've found the compositing features of MSP to be much better than Premiere.
One big difference is that MSP can produce complex, animated garbage matte using it's CGInfinity tool.
Premiere can crop, and if you combine the title tool with some moving paths and tricks with nested projects you can approximate a garbage matte to help your composite.
In MSP, just "Switch" to CGInfinity, put your raw video into the background and add as many complex shapes as needed, then animate with a drag & drop movement over time to blott out any unwanded areas (or "tag" areas to be blurred or otherwise processed). Save and your garbage matte is done. Using the matte in The editor is as simple as clicking Overlay Options and selecting the CGInfinity file as a video(moving) matte. All done.

There are loads of other great features, of course, and MSP users like Jerry and myself (and I'm sure loads of Premiere users) would be happy to answer any questsions. A general question like "Which is better?" isn't really going to yeild much in the way of useful answers.
It may be a good idea to post some specific questions about what it is you hope to do in your amateur movies asking how these things could be done in one program vs another.

My personal feeling is that Premiere is gunning for Avid in the high-end market. They have a lot invested in putting more and more high-end hardware compatability (with 4-2-2 capture cards, advanced EDL, offline editing, hardware interfaces, etc) and you end up paying for this stuff that (as an amateur movie maker) you're basically never going to use. Meanwhile, a product like MSP is targeted squarely at your needs. Tons of DV editing flexability and effects power, without all the extra cost. (BTW: MSP will have fully native, no plugins required, HD capture, editing and output by year's end.)

Anyway, feel free to keep in mind that this response is from a very happy (therefore biased) MSP user that has no need (or plans) for switching back to Premiere.
Good luck with your product evaluations!
Have fun!

Carnage7p · Post by **Carnage7p** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 2:07 am

ok i also a agree taht it is best to try out the programs before you buy them but sometimes if you arent familiar with the format you dont get a great feel for the program's capabilities because it takes time to learn to use a program. it took me quite a while to get used to premiere because i started out on a simple pinnacle program which was good for basic stuff.

firebreathnfish2 · Post by **firebreathnfish2** » Sat Jun 12, 2004 7:59 am

I sue Vegas 5 and i find it to be much betetr at video and audio than premiore pro and ulead. vegas also offers more fefects and transitions and its a blank work areaso your not deinfed to were the tracks have to be layed out at you can omve them around and shirk them or make them bigger

Jass Films · Post by **Jass Films** » Sat Jun 12, 2004 8:14 am

Um let me think about that, NO! Final Cut Pro is by far the best. But for PC, Vegas is the best as it is far more stable than Premiere. Premiere is just more popular, but that oesn't make it better.

Epsilon · Post by **Epsilon** » Sat Jun 12, 2004 8:33 am

I wasn't aware Premiere was unstable... but as for preference it is all personal opinion. Just try demos out and choose which one suits you best.

ssj3gohan · Post by **ssj3gohan** » Sat Jun 12, 2004 9:12 am

Oh, yes, about that unstable thing. Premiere is unstable on both of my computers (900 MHz and 3.06 GHz) but that has got to be a computer-specific thing. Vegas is stable and is, at least for me, much more user-friendly than premiere. This is however not really an argument as most people find premiere the more userfriendly variant. Anyway, I work with vegas for compositing and MSP for its GREAT CG Infinity program, it's a real help as you can do much more with it than most CG plugs in the professional NLE's. MSP is the cheap program, offers much less but is very user-friendly, intuitive and straight-to-business. Vegas is a bit more expensive, has everything to offer that an NLE should offer and Premiere is about the same as Vegas. However, both vegas/premiere and msp have their own (dis)advantages, so I'd go for a combination of the two. Oh, and get a fast audio editor too (ulead audio editor in msp works fine, but I like audacity more).

bangoker · Post by **bangoker** » Fri Jun 25, 2004 4:38 am

about what padawanNick said, well in a one-on-one basis, he is probably right. HOWEVER you gotta take in consideration that Premier is extremly compatible with other Adobe products, such as AfterEffects, Photoshop , illustrator, and even Encore, which is to burn dvds.

I think that if you have one of those products, specially AfterEffects (althogh photshop also helps) thats when the things you can do really skyrocket. AfterEffects has an amazing Composition power, you can also rotoscope "in the go", real time with Vector Paint, for precise things, or you can just make rotoscoping much much easier by drawing and animating masks with splines.

it has many powerfull effects, and the compositing is great, really really great. plus all the mask and layers lets you do all that padawanNick says and much more!

the thing here is, do you have those other products? are you willing to get them if you dont?