@rbna Have a look at this: http://newsletters.creativecow.net/

If it's Avid or Premiere is up to you. I'll never go back to Avid, since they screwed me badly after years of promoting and teaching their system. But that's just me, they seem to be a more humble company by now.

I switched to FCP and was a loyal follower for years. Then they screwed me. So, time for a change again.

When Premiere was at version 5, I thought "what a silly joke from a company that brought us Photoshop". It's not a joke any more, they became serious about editing.

We have a pretty large arts university lab here and are switching to Premiere because of: similarity of handling to FCP, integration with AEFX, native support of H.264 and REDcode and educational pricing. But you need heavy machines to really enjoy it.

Remember, Apple is a phone company now. They won't fix FCP.

@Zaven13 No, its manual Q.

*** NEW **** Quantum v8 BETA - The Q Theory/Rate Control. An experimental beta.

A new theory for trying out different Q on the range of REC MODES. Limits will look strange as Q has been analysed, bitrate settings may look strange to you (but they will record considerably lower than bitrates entered), and frame limits have been adjusted according to Q. The whole theory here is about rate control in h.264 AVC codec and seeing where bitrate is allocated to the amount of detail. Its still early days on this, so I expect failures. Take a look and report to me. I need real world tryouts - not neccesarily static death charts (you can take the 1080p frame limit back down to around 6080808 if you want death charts recorded) - and before you ask, YES, I expect streamparser graphs to now move up and down on all settings and adjust bitrate according to the details in the picture. Let me know how you get on. This is NO replacement for other versions of Quantum, just a new theory to test. 50p/50i will be addressed in beta v9 over the next day or so. Thank you.

Nick

@rbna yes, I would also add the advantage of going from premiere to after effects and vice-versa, always using your mts files until export. In premiere you can edit in real time (helps if you have a certified GPU) no render needed

@sohus Count me in as another Premiere fanatic. Didn't use it till FCP fiasco and CS5.5 has been an absolute dream. It looks and feels like what FCP8 could have been.

Absolutely right. It did suck big time, since its inception. And fcp was so much better for so long. And everyone did also suddenly change their mind when fcpx came out. CS5.5 became 'hip.'

But since CS5, it really has been fantastic. What happened w/ fcpx was this: NLEs are difficult to master, and always are very unappealing when first used because of the lack of familiarity. It wasn't until fcpx went so wrong that people had any incentive to get past that initial discomfort. By that time, Premiere had become really great, in many ways that weren't even on Apple's map. I was a pre-fcpx switch over, because I needed more.

Relax. You are happy with Avid, and have every right to be. It is a great software renowned for its rock solid stability - I can say it never crashed while I used it. What I do want to share is that, after I became familiar w/ Premiere and how to use it best (like we had all become with fcp, knowing every little workaround for its quirks), I have to say that I love it.

Another Sample of Driftwood´s Quantum 7. Thanks to all, starting with VK, who have turn GHx owners really proud! This is a great comunity!

Premiere CS5.5 is the new FCP, fwiw. It even has the FCP keyboard shortcut set built in. Avid is quite different.

@rbna, did you import the clipwrap generated mts into FCP7 as well? That is our preferred workflow at the production company I'm at now. That said, we're always recording separate sound (DR-40 via a Mix PreD) so we have a clean audio track and can paper over any audio gaps (though I'm not aware of any so far).

As for premiere, sorry, can't help. This is actually my first time using FCP in about five years. Since then I've been on AVID, mainly at large procos where simultaneous access to media and crash-free hour long sequences are needed. Out of the price range of most individuals though, I know -- except if you're a student, in which case you'd be a fool not to take advantage of the educational price and four years of free upgrades. But if you're working primarily for web, I can see why the others would be just as good if not better.

@JDN @onionbrain Interesting - imported the MTS files directly into Premiere, and alas, it was fine. BUT: I also imported the Clipwrap generated ProRes (normal) file into Premiere, and while it did seem to get the video correctly, there was a tiny break in the audio. (I'm using the Sandisk 45Mb/s, with the I next to SDHC). So you guys cut on ProRes (and haven't had the audio break issue)?

@JDN Do you also work on Premiere, or does your GH2/Clipwrap/ProRes/FCP workflow work?

A la Dvx:

"Just to clarify: this patch does not have a 1080i option. By boosting 720, 1080i is made unstable because it is entwined. It is only for 720p 60 SH, and 720p 50 H (60 H will do for spanning). For the extreme, its an unstable 720p 60 SH, and a stable 720p 60 H."

Agreed, 60i = no good with Sage's hack.

Gonna go back to Q7 in the future for 1080i shoots and have Sage's on stand-by for narrative work.

@ignatius I suspect your noise problems on ETC mode relate to the ISO. If I can, I steer clear of anything above 640 unless I'm going for noise -- ETC with quantum on 160 and 320 looks great. Also, this may no longer be an issue but I recall early tests with the gh2 saying that the "top line" of ISO's (160 onward to the right) produce better results and for whatever reason the 200 multiples of ISO below it (eg 800) produce a lot more noise. Can't recall how scientific those observations were, but just a thought...