Some readers may be asking: “What about ATI? Aren’t they involved with OpenCL too?” Well, ATI was purchased by (or merged with) AMD back in 2006. That’s why there is reference to AMD in the above paragraph, rather than to ATI.
Ever since the launch of MacOS 10.6 (Snow Leopard), we’ve been waiting for FCP to support OpenCL.
Fortunately, all of the professional interfaces I know for the Mac —from AJA, Blackmagic, Matrox, and MOTU— will work fine with both FCP and Adobe. There may be some new drivers released shortly after CS5 is shipped, since this is a common occurrence. That’s the good news. However, the GPU issue is much more uncertain. Fortunately, Adobe has already published its recommended GPUs for Mercury. Check out this page at Adobe, at the bottom where it says: If you’re interested in upgrading your system today, the following graphics cards are supported by the Mercury Playback Engine. I am linking to it rather than listing the cards here, since Adobe will be updating the list as new appropriate cards are released.
However, since Apple hasn’t yet a released a version of FCP that supports OpenCL, we don’t know yet which GPU cards Apple will support. Ideally, a user would want to invest in a new GPU that will continue to work with both if at all possible. Hopefully, there will be a common denominator among supported hardware. That’s why I really hope that Apple will at least announce such details around the time of NAB 2010, even if Apple chooses not to show the new version yet. Apparently, Apple’s engineers have been concentrating on the iPad, but hopefully they can take a short break just to announce their roadmap for Final Cut Pro (and Final Cut Studio in general)… as long as Apple desires to continue developing those products. If for some reason, Apple no longer plans to pursue that, the honorable thing would be to inform the public about it ASAP.
Over the past few months, I have conversed with friends who edit with Final Cut Pro. So far, about 80% of them say that they will await patiently until Apple adds OpenCL support. The other 20% were quite open to the idea of changing. Their only concern was the issue raised above: making a significant investment in a GPU replacement without being sure that it will work Final Cut Studio, both during the transition, and as a fallback. Of course, they know that they could re-install the old GPU if necessary, but that would be an undesirable hassle.
Obviously, my casual conversations with about 10 friends does not make a scientific survey. That’s why your are very welcome to comment below. Please state whether you are an FCP editor, and whether you would consider switching to CS5 due to Mercury’s benefits, whether you would not, and why in either case.
Premiere Pro and FCP are so similar in operation that I think FCP editors can pick it up with relative ease. I’m going to try and use PPro CS5 for all my 7D stuff. I will be encouraging clients who are becoming frustrated with FCP to do the same .... If they don’t want to try Avid Media Composer. I fear the Creative Suite price might keep some away. And then there’s the Apple / FCP fanboys who wouldn’t switch editors if you gave them a better option for free. That’s probably the biggest hurdle to get FCP editors to try PPro CS5.
Posted by Scott Simmons on 04/05 at 09:57 AM
As a long-time Premiere editor, it will be interesting what happens with FCStudio this NAB. When Adobe re-inserted PPro for Mac into the Creative Suite, I was initially puzzled…but now I get it, with bells on.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 04/05 at 03:02 PM
As a long, LONG time Premiere Pro editor, I finally switched to FCP after CS4 made me declare, “I’m made as hell and not going to take it anymore” after the umpteenth crash of the day. Bottom line, FCP is simply more stable than Premiere day in and day out during long edit sessions. Adobe CS4 bugs and glitches abound - not only in Premiere, but Encore and After Effects as well. FCP Studio may have some minor annoyances, but failure to perform reliably is not one of them. Adobe has a long history of promising esoteric wonderful new technology that, when you’re in the trenches, never seems to quite work as promised.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 04/05 at 08:34 PM
If Apple decides it doesn’t need to sell any Mac Pros, then they’ll stop developing Pro Apps.
Until that time, they will slowly but surely develop a competitive product for post prod work.
Having the largest (and most cracked) install base has really slowed the development of FCS. And it’s made Avid and Adobe much better competition.
I’m all for using both CS5 and FCS3 until one of them has the full feature set of the other for post prod. Right now Adobe doesn’t have a killer color app for video (not AE!) and Apple’s FCP doesn’t have the equivalent to a Mercury Playback Engine, nor does Apple have a great Compositor (Motion is good for certain things but not nearly as powerful as AE.)
So until one of them has “all” the necessary tools, I say use both on a decent GFX card. And yes, I know CS5 is optimized for Nvidia Quatro vs FCS’s optimization for ATI. But the NVidia’s work well for in FCP and are “useable” in other FCS apps for the most part.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 04/05 at 09:07 PM
My first NLE was Premier Pro that came with the Matrox RT-2000 analog capture card. This was before digital camcorders were affordable. I built a killer dual Athlon-CPU Windows system. I think I was able to edit one project on this unstable system. I always blamed Windows as the unstable element, not Premier.
Long story short ... I switched to Apple FCS once I got a digital camera and all has worked fairly will since. (I still love the look of that Canon L2. It sits on the shelf like a trophy now.)
Stability is much more important than features to me. I am considering switching back to Premier if FCS continues to lag. But not before I’ve seen many posts about how stable PP is on Windows 7-64.
So tell me more about PP stability. Inquiring minds want to know.
Posted by Rob on 04/06 at 01:09 PM
I’ve already spent thousands of dollars on a full Mac pro system. I have already pushed myself to a full apple FCP workflow, I go for what’s most streamline and stable. I started editing young on PP, then learned FCP, then went to Avid, and realized FCP was more economical than Avid even though I liked editing on it better.
Bottom line, I’ve also had some pretty bad crashes with PP Cs4, and Cuda/Mercury is optimized for NVIDIA. It puts me in a difficult position because most or all Apple ProApps are ATI optimized. IE. Motion, and I believe Color. Two programs I use very often.
I’m probably going to get CS5 just for 64 bit photoshop and AE, as for PP, I probably won’t use it much unless certain factors are fixed.
Media Encoder, clunky.
PP: Unstable, Also still a tad clunky but easy to get used to.
Unified hardware support. Either Nvidia, or ATI, or both. This kind of stuff is gonna go back and forth for a eternity, next FCP will probably come out with 64 bit support super engine plus epic black hole inducing ATI support.
Sometimes you just have to stick to what works, cause by the time your done re adjusting yourself and reconfiguring, and all the money is spent, something else will be out.
Posted by Thomas Wong on 04/07 at 04:27 PM
As a CS5 beta tester here in Norway…
There are going to be a lot of very surprised people out there regarding CS5 features and its stability.
Exciting times ahead for video editors.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 04/08 at 01:53 PM
I’m another beta tester and I have to say that I totally understand the need for stability over new whiz-bang effects. And I’m happy to say that you’ll be very pleased that Adobe has listened to it’s customer base and made CS5 VERY stable! And for studios like ours that are using DSLR cameras as their primary footage, you will be blown away with being able to edit in real time, color correct, etc then output with fast exports using the nVidia CUDA cards. Seriously folks…no more transcoding DSLR footage to a different format, or working with footage that barely plays back.
I don’t understand all the technobabble about OpenCL, etc. nor do I know if CS5 will make people abandon their Macs and FCP. But I do know that Adobe is taking Premiere very seriously, they have listened to our concerns and they want to make a kick ass product that works. I have been very vocal about needing real-time DSLR editing, and now I have it. I’m blown away and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Mac users that have DSLRs make a switch.
Posted by LauraRandall on 04/08 at 02:54 PM
Thank everyone for their comments.
Laura:
Thanks for your comments too! I just want to clarify that switching from FCP to Premiere CS5 does not require abandoning the Mac, since CS5 will also be available for Mac, and there are Adobe-approved CUDA cards for Mac too.
Allan Tépper
Posted by Allan Tépper on 04/08 at 03:02 PM
Just goes to show that I’m a PC girl! LOL!! 
Posted by LauraRandall on 04/08 at 03:05 PM
I’m another beta tester and I can confirm what reported by my collegues. I want just to say you I was dreaming this release since the 4.2 (1997’s version not the 2009 pro). Believe me Premiere CS5 is a milestone in all the adobe premiere history!!!!!!
Posted by davide pepe on 04/08 at 03:10 PM
I’m a final cut editor as well, but I’d have no problem switching - I use Premiere CS4 sometimes and learned to edit on Premiere 5.1, not to even mention after effects integration - the only thing that really keeps me from switching is that I’ve gotten so used to my customized keyboard layout in Final Cut that I’ve gotten quite fast with it - and it doesn’t translate to Premiere (uses the number pad keys for many functions, and last i checked those weren’t customizable in Premiere CS4 without a modifier key).
But if CS5 offers that big a speed boost I’d have to give it a serious look, especially since I’ll have it once I update the Production Suite.
Being an Nvidia user anyway (on both mac and PC) this isn’t an issue - I’ve been looking for a reason to upgrade my 8800GT and well you won’t have to try too hard to convince me
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 04/09 at 11:21 AM
@ Scott: Adobe has a reference guide that can help you map your FCP keyboard to Premiere. This document is referring to CS4 but shouldn’t change when CS5 ships. Check out page 14 & 15 to help you out. http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/production/openworkflows/pdfs/AdobePrpProforFCPUsersReferenceGuide.pdf
We will update this document when Premiere Pro CS5 ships.
Posted by Michelle Gallina on 04/09 at 12:26 PM
Hi thanks Michelle - what I meant was that I use (for example) the 7, and keys on the numeric keypad for insert and overlay edits respectively, but while I can program the keys, the keypad keys are “reserved” for typing in timecode. I can use SHIFT-NUM7 and SHIFT-NUM8, but not just NUM7 and NUM8—at least this was the last time I checked (and was confirmed by Adobe support).
If I’m wrong, I’ll be more than happy to hear it though
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 04/09 at 12:29 PM
Oh, let me check on that, Scott.
Posted by Michelle Gallina on 04/09 at 12:46 PM
@ Scott: For CS5, we will have a preference in the keyboard setting that allows you to use FCP 7 keyboard commands.
Posted by Michelle Gallina on 04/09 at 02:12 PM
Regardless of the warm reception here, the proof will be whether countless professional FCP editors are willing to convert hours of native FCP ProRes resources. I am skeptical whether many will willingly abandon an application so familiar to them and risk a platform that has a less than stellar record and MUCH smaller user base. For pro users, there had better be amazing results with XDCAM and RED workflows otherwise Adobe will remain a distant third after Avid and FCP.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 04/09 at 02:26 PM
As an FCP editor myself, and a very big fan of the pro res workflow, I think I’m just gonna test the waters with CS5 first before i make my final decisions. See how a cineform PP workflow ends up, or even pro res in PP. and see how much flexibility i get in the interface, along with how i can integrate FCP and color with it too. It should be a interesting year, I don’t discount it if it will make my life easier, but as long as post houses and small to large companies stick with FCP and AVID as their primary edit suites, it maybe still be difficult for me to give up a industry integrated NLE that could potentially get me more work.
Let’s see how much of a standard and precetent PP and Adobe finally set. They did it for the still photography world, they did it for the VFX world, now their challenge is in the Video world.
Posted by Thomas Wong on 04/09 at 02:42 PM
@Michelle - thanks for that but I’m still confused. My FCP 7 keyboard settings are also custom - they are not the default or standard keyboard shortcuts that come with FCP. The trouble I was having was matching my custom FCP settings to a custom Premiere setup. The only keys that were not mappable that I needed were the numeric keypad keys. I was told they were only for punching in timecodes to jump to that time.
If this has changed, I’ll be a happy camper - but I understand that I’m probably in the minority (of 1 even?) that considers this a necessity - I’m just so used to my personal settings, and I carry they around on my flash drive!
Allan - hope you don’t mind my mini-hijack of your comments area
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 04/09 at 02:47 PM
My take on CS5:
I have been a tester for Adobe since 6.5 and I have to say without a doubt that this is the best version I have eveer worked with. Much faster, I can’t begin to say how much more stable with short “and” longer format projects, and all around a much more sound and developed product. I have to admit that after CS4, I was a bit let down because to me it was not as stable. I have to be honest. But CS5 is going to shock many! I know it has me!
This time, it is more about performance and stability versus bells and whistles(which for me, is most important). It allows you to do what you need to do in a faster and more “care-free” way. No longer do I have the fear and feel the need to make sure I save frequently. I just have at it, and if I save every now and then(not counting the autosave), then I am fine. The stability has been there and the focus since the beginning of this beta. That, along with the performance and listening ear to all of those that have “to me” asked for things all along.
I can’t say that it is going to make FCP users abandon the application, but I am sure it is going to turn some heads at the very least. With it being integrated with the other applications, I cannot state how fast, fun(yes, I said fun. For me at least again), and productive it has been. It’s been a great cycle and the end product is going to be even better and more enjoyable to work with than it has ever been.
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Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 04/10 at 06:55 AM
Let’s not forget that Adobe fumbled the ball way back when FCP was better and thus able to get entrenched with the film school and videography edu market sectors.
Until the schools feeding the ‘pipeline’ of graduating student-editors is persueded that Adobe is better, Apple will be perceived as better and continue to dominate the market.
If I had to guess, unless Apple gets on the 64bit bandwagon soon, the educational adopter/decision-makers will soon be rethinking their allegience to FCP.
Personally, as a career-long Adobe user, I’ve never had a problem with transcoding to Cineform to get easy editing long-form and complex timelines, and on a laptop when that’s convenient.
One thing I’ve lusted for on Adobe is transparent, smooth integration with Adobe’s multicam function. Mercury will supposedly give me that - even with 4 streams of Red Raw, I’m told.
Transcoding to Cineform increases the I/O precision of an 8bit video file to 10bit so I wonder if Adobe could give us that too. Then there’s Cineform’s Firstlight non-destructive color correction. And Cineform doesn’t rely on a GPU for its realtime performance.
Of course, haven’t FCP users had Apple’s ProRes at their disposal for quite some time now, to do much the same as what Cineform does in allowing realtime editing of long GOP?
Anyway, it’s nice to anticipate that I’ll get less “tsk-tsking” from my friends who pledge undying allegience to FCP.
Posted by wsmith on 04/13 at 11:36 AM
I use AVID and Final Cut Pro, and I have never liked the interface on Premiere Pro very well. I would love the speed boost and performance additions, but I have an ATI graphics card and am not ready to re-invest with NVIDIA at this point.
I do find it funny though that everyone talks about Premiere replacing Final Cut, but no mention is made of AVID, which even with Media Composer which will now work with ProRES and is not 64 bit even with Version 5.0.
Personally I will wait and see what Apple has in store next before even considering giving up FCP for Media Composer.
Posted by Jonah Lee Walker on 05/10 at 04:32 PM
OpenCL gives any application access to the Graphical Processing Unit for non-graphical computing. The GPU had previously been available for graphical applications only. The GPU memory would be available to the operating system and or applications essentially as faster system memory than the main system memory. Thus, OpenCL extends the power of the Graphical Processing Unit beyond graphics (General-purpose computing on graphics processing units). OpenCL is analogous to the open industry standards OpenGL and OpenAL, for 3D graphics and computer audio, respectively. OpenCL is managed by the non-profit technology consortium Khronos Group.
