Sunday 14 November 2010

Final Cut vs Adobe Premiere

Final Cut vs Premiere

Having applied for quite a few jobs now, the most pressing requirements for a lot of companies appear to be the ability to use and manipulate video in either final cut or premiere. What are the two, and what are the differences?

Having recently completed an MSc in Biological Photography and Imaging, where we predominantly used Final Cut and Motion, I have had quite a lot of experience in the advantages and disadvantages in that system, but quite recently, I have been lucky enough to use adobe premiere.

Final Cut Studio is the main video editing software for Apple Macs, while Premiere tends to be for windows, however, premiere is now supported by macs, and I am not sure if the same can be said for Final cut on Windows. Generally, Final Cut is the choice of the professional editor, however, this could be seen as the mac system winning over the Windows, less reliable and slower system.

Initially, I was blown away by the similarities between the two. There are a few small technical differences in the two, which for me, Final Cut is better for (a lot of the tools and viewers just seem more sensible), however if you are looking for a reason to buy one or the other, this doesn't seem a strong enough argument, and once you use it for a while, you will soon adapt.

My main issue with Final Cut is its compatibility with Motion compared with that or Premiere, which integrates well with After Effects and Photoshop. Now, I don't claim to be an expert on either of these, only using them mainly for titles, logos, idents and DVD menus etc, but I find After effects a lot easier to use, using keyframes rather than behaviors, and hugely more powerful! In addition to this, After Effects is a 3D program, where Motion is not.

Personally, I cannot afford the packages, so I am going to buy whichever I can find cheapest, since the difference in the actual editing software is so minimal that it has little to do with my decision. Since I am more comfortable with Final Cut, I guess I might just play safe and get Final Cut Express, until I need something a bit better!

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