On Wed, 26 Feb 2003 05:02:08 GMT, dhaynie@jersey.net (Dave Haynie) wrote:

>On 25 Feb 2003 16:58:52 GMT, radiobyfm9@aol.com (Radiobyfm9) wrote:

>>I was also a user of Premier from 4.2 till version 6. I've seen it evolve

>>quite a bit-even used it on an RT system....But I also saw how clumsy it was to

>>do things, and how it got more clumsy to do things in later versions...Too many

>>right clicks and menus for simple stuff.

>

>Part of the problem with Premiere is history. This was a tool written

>to do video on a PC long before PCs could really do video. All of that

>pre-rendering stuff, the user interface origins, etc. just scream

>that.

>

>The problem is, as with anything that becomes an accepted standard,

>you change that standard are your own peril. So Adobe has to upgrade

>the interface without radical changes, or risk incuring the wrath of

>thousands of entrenched Premiere users. As with any mature program,

>they make far more money on upgrades than new sales, so that is

>something Adobe cannot afford to do. Unless there's some compelling

>reason.

>

>An erroding market share would certainly be one reason; between Vegas,

>MSP, and Avid's lower-end tools, Adobe is certainly aware they're not

>the only guy on that particular block anymore. Does it matter to them?

>Don't know. But if Premiere 7 comes out with a markedly retooled

>interface, the answer would presumable be "yes".

The Premiere interface and method of use can be changed

to one that is a more intuitive "hands on the tape" form.

See: www.David-Ruether-Photography.com/premiere.htm. With VV, I had

trouble opening enough video/audio tracks to do multi-camera

editing due to the window attached to the bottom of the VV

timeline...

>>Audio waveforms were never that good anyway, and the rubberbands are

>>clumsy. Vegas was a multitrack audio program first, and it shows it...

>

>Premiere never did audio well. Ulead didn't either, and far as I could

>tell, nothing else did. Vegas began life doing audio well -- I used it

>as "Vegas Pro", before there was any video. When they added video,

>they basically had me at "hello'. I suspect the same would be true of

>any "audio guy now doing lots of video", if not necessarily the old

>video hardcores.

Hmmm...;-)

As "an audio guy", I'm somewhat mystified by the

above - audio handling/mixing/filtering seems pretty

straight-forward in Premiere (though I do take the WAV

from the edit out to Cool Edit for noise-reduction and

for checking for clipping - no big deal to do...;-).

>Quite frankly, given the capabilities of modern computers, I never

>understood why ANY NLE would limit the number of tracks of either

>audio or video in any way. Ok, I do understand why Avid DV Express

>does -- they have intentionally crippled it, so as not to steal from

>their higher-end offerings. But the others in the $500-$1000 range are

>all top o'the line, and should have no such limitations.

Is 99 tracks a limitation...? ;-)

BTW, I liked most of what I saw in my brief encounter

with VV, but my impression was that it tended to automate

processes, whereas Premiere allows you to determine

exactly what happens. This makes VV easier to use for

"fancy" things, but it may not produce optimum results.

Also, BTW, I detest software that "second-guesses" the

user's intent with automation - I prefer nothing to

happen or be selected unless I request it...

>>The only thing it doesn't have going for it is RT hardware card support...But

>>for me the inconvienience in rendering is not a big deal because of the

>>enjoyment of using the software.

>

>There is a time in the history of anything, such as media creation, in

>which dedicated hardware is the right answer. There was a time when it

>was the right answer for audio work, and that put Digidesign on the

>map. Today, PCs are so dramatically fast, they outperform dedicated

>hardware on nearly anything you're likely to do. The dedicated

>hardware is sold on the basis of being more reliable, or The Gold

>Standard, or whatever. Knobs are nice, too, but you get over it. When

>it's all software, you spend $500 for an upgrade in a few years and

>double the performance of everything.

>

>Video, I think, is now at this point. An RT card may be nice, but it

>will be inherently limited, just like anything else. It's not perfect

>RT rendering, it "RT rendering of N composite layers" or whatever,

>basically saying, you don't get to do N+1. Or you do N+1 n.r.t. Just

>as you would on a PC. Thing is, when you spend the money on the PC,

>you get that "N" for compositing in realtime with an app like Vegas.

>And you get that to apply elsewhere, like on your MPEG-2 rendering. Or

>a circuit board layout. Or Warcraft 3 (my kid plays it). Next time you

>upgrade (an upgrade which, if you spend wisely, probably costs less

>than the next generation RT board anyway), you get your 2N or 3N

>performance, and it works everywhere.

>Dave Haynie | Chief Toady, Frog Pond Media Consulting

>dhaynie@jersey.net| "Get get get get over it!" -Ok Go

>"Deathbed Vigil" now on DVD! See http://www.jersey.net/~dhaynie/dbv

So far, I've avoided "RT", since it is not complete. I

prefer to handle everything done in the program the same

way, without a mix of RT and non-RT, using "Alt-key"

scrubs and short renders to check what I'm doing...

When a true RT system appears at a reasonable price and

with no compromise in output quality, I will be

interested. For me, editing is not about speed, but

about getting it right...