Is Adobe Premiere The Ultimate Video Editing Package

[sahill01]

Wanted to get some thoughts from the forum.

Is Adobe's Premiere package tops in the industry as far as video editing goes? Obviously there are far more complex packages available for the top professionals working on Motion Pictures in Hollywood and what-not. But, for your experienced amateur video connisseur and mid-level professionals, is Adobe's offering the best there is?

And on a side note, what are the software packages that Hollywood movie editors use? Are all movies filmed using DV these days or do the movie guys still use film and manual editing techniques.

Thanks,

Enquiring Mind

[lordsmurf]

Which industry?

I think edDV did a good job with this post:
https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?p=1312026#1312026

... the choice often depends on your goals and the peer group you will be working with.

It roughly breaks down this way for the big four.

AVID
- Professional film and episodic TV production.
- Cable and local TV feature editing (inhouse)
- Ad Agency (inhouse)
- TV station news editing

Adobe Premiere
- Corporate multimedia departments
- Graphics and print oriented production facilities (multi-use media)
- Academic, engineering and scientific use
- Niche market independents.
- Home video editing, small share

Apple Final Cut Pro
- Post houses - Light duty edit and prep bays using freelance editors
- Ad Agency, second to AVID but growing
- Independents (local ads, wedding video, business media) - second to Vegas
- Home video editing, small share

Sony Vegas
- Independents (local ads, wedding video, business media) - very strong market share and growing
- Home video editing, highest prosumer share

I would add this:
- The defacto standard for video editing (computer NLE) has long been Adobe Premiere.
- Final Cut Pro is an Apple software aimed to compete with Premiere several years ago, and it has done so very well on that platform.
- AVID is pretty new to NLE software, but has long standing hardware foundation.
- Vegas is relatively new, and its impressive, though not without it share of aggravations. It also "looks cheesy" compared to more traditional NLE setups.

So ULTIMATE? I don't know if anything gets that recognition, but it's quite good. I've been editing some rather advanced DVD menus and a short music video for the past few days here myself, and I'm using Adobe Premiere.

Another thing to add is that most NLEs operate fairly similarly. Timelines, filters, controls, etc .... they are all pretty standard. So once you learn one, it's generally not too difficult to learn another one. For example, I can use Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere with pretty much the same ease, and I don't even own FCP (just use it at other locations, from time to time). Image editing and audio editing software is the same, easy to cross over when needed.

Another good function of AVID, Premiere, Vegas, etc ... is realtime editing cards. With Premiere, for example, you can use a Matrox RT.X100 card, see http://www.matrox.com/video/products/rtx100xtremepro/home.cfm

[edDV]

Avid and Adobe are the long term players (late 80's).

Avid started as a highly specialized off-line NLE for film production (motion pictures and espisodic TV). From there they have expanded into TV news, documentary and feature editing. The high end motion picture and broadcasting markets are highly unionized and divided into narrow specialties. Avid is structured for that environment.

Adobe as a company is centered on desktop publishing, business communication and "multimedia" production tools. Premiere is one of a suite of products.

Final Cut Pro and Vegas are the new kids on the block and are best positioned to ride the fast growing DV, HDV and MPeg driven freelance and independent production segments. These appeal more to the subcontractor or small budget production specialists. FCP is focused more narrowly on editing and is MAC only. Vegas is more of a one-man band do-it-all package (except graphics). It is particularly good at video effects editing, audio and DVD authoring.

...

And on a side note, what are the software packages that Hollywood movie editors use? Are all movies filmed using DV these days or do the movie guys still use film and manual editing techniques.

Thanks,

Enquiring Mind

Avid is strong in this space for editing scenes together but many other products are used for effects, audio, color correction, graphics, animation, compositing and so on.
http://www.avid.com/solutions/postproduction/index.asp

Most motion pictures and TV series are still shot on film. Sony has been working hard to get its high end HDCAM-SR package accepted for movie acquisition and has had success with various film styles (e.g. Star Wars II and III, Collateral and Sin City)

Sony and Panasonic HD cameras are used to shoot some episodic TV series using single camera "film style" technique.
http://www.panasonic.com/business/provideo/app_hd_qanda.asp

Many studio sitcoms are shot in multicamera HD, some in film.

Much of what you see on cable networks (e.g. Discovery, National Geographic, InHD, HDNet) is shot in DV or HDV formats.