Premiere or iMovie?

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Been using iMovie, however, importing/exporting takes FOREVER. Wondering if Premiere is any better with this.

Also wondering if you can correct the lens distortion in Premiere. Been using Photoshop to do this but it also takes FOREVER to export the video from Photoshop. Add that to the time it takes to import/export to iMovie and it adds a LOT of time to editing.

Thanks.
 
For quick & easy - download GoPros Studio. Final Cut Pro for highly detailed and a ton of editing options.
 
EMCSQUAR said:
For quick & easy - download GoPros Studio. Final Cut Pro for highly detailed and a ton of editing options.
I'm not using a GoPro though.

I've heard good/bad about Final Cut Pro (well, same thing with Premiere). I already use Adobe Creative Cloud so it would be easy to add that. Have to look into the pricing on FCP.

Is it faster than iMovie (import/export) and can I correct for lens distortion in FCP?
 
I've only used GoPro Studio and Premiere. I would go with Premiere all the way. Way way way less bugs. Timeline is easier to understand and it accepts more video format than GoPro Studio. Just don't let the endless editing option daunt you. :D
 
I've just started learning Final Cut Pro, but from what I'm told there's little difference between FCPX and Premiere Pro, and if you're used to using Adobe products and have a CC subscription, I'd be tempted to go with that.

iMovie really is for home use though, and it's nowhere near as fast as FCPX for processing videos.
 
Delgado said:
I've just started learning Final Cut Pro, but from what I'm told there's little difference between FCPX and Premiere Pro, and if you're used to using Adobe products and have a CC subscription, I'd be tempted to go with that.

iMovie really is for home use though, and it's nowhere near as fast as FCPX for processing videos.
Thanks. iMovie does more than what I need it to do but I can't take the amount of time it takes to import/export.

Anyone know if I can correct for lens distortion in Premiere? I'm guessing I can since I can in PS and LR (both Adobe products of course). But want to make sure.

Thanks.
 
I use Premiere Pro. It has a lens-correction effect that can deal effectively with the distortion of the Phantom 2 Vision+ camera. It is called Lens Distortion, and it can be found in the Video Effects/Distort bin. Setting the Curvature parameter to -20 is a good starting point. Here is a short video showing how to use it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vsQq8X-0_k

Unfortunately, this effect has a very major side effect: it uses so much CPU power that it makes real-time playback of your footage impossible. My 8-thread/4.1 GHz/16GB system simply can't render the playback fast enough to watch; it seems to manage about two frames per second.

The workaround isn't so hot either: apply the effect, fine-tune it so that the distortion is minimized, then disable the effect. This will allow you to preview your footage at real-time during editing, but then "your footage" is misleading, since the images you are looking at while editing are not what your video will look like when you re-enable the effect!

I just dealt with this distortion problem on this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkLl0HuEHmY

Between 0:20 and 0:30, as I fly by City Hall, the distortion made the tower look like a banana. I couldn't deal with the playback problems, so I ended up importing the footage into After Effects, where I corrected the distortion with the Optics Compensation effect. I also did color correction and tonality adjustments (with Color Finesse 3) and sharpening (with Unsharp Mask) in After Effects. The Unsharp Mask effect is available in both After Effects and Premiere Pro, but it also makes real-time playback impossible. Then I exported that footage to H.264, and imported that into Premiere Pro. That gave me distortion-free, color-corrected and sharpened footage that played back in Premiere Pro in real time.

This page shows how to use the Optics Compensation effect in After Effects:

http://provideocoalition.com/jfoster/st ... dobe-cc/P2

And this video has lots of info about color correction in After Effects; I think you can safely ignore the 'color grading' parts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZrAk3w_afc

I usually avoid an intermediate step like this, as it results in two separate transcode/export stages, and that necessarily reduces the quality of the video. But it worked out OK for this one.
 
InterMurph said:
I use Premiere Pro. It has a lens-correction effect that can deal effectively with the distortion of the Phantom 2 Vision+ camera. It is called Lens Distortion, and it can be found in the Video Effects/Distort bin. Setting the Curvature parameter to -20 is a good starting point. Here is a short video showing how to use it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vsQq8X-0_k

Unfortunately, this effect has a very major side effect: it uses so much CPU power that it makes real-time playback of your footage impossible. My 8-thread/4.1 GHz/16GB system simply can't render the playback fast enough to watch; it seems to manage about two frames per second.

The workaround isn't so hot either: apply the effect, fine-tune it so that the distortion is minimized, then disable the effect. This will allow you to preview your footage at real-time during editing, but then "your footage" is misleading, since the images you are looking at while editing are not what your video will look like when you re-enable the effect!

I just dealt with this distortion problem on this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkLl0HuEHmY

Between 0:20 and 0:30, as I fly by City Hall, the distortion made the tower look like a banana. I couldn't deal with the playback problems, so I ended up importing the footage into After Effects, where I corrected the distortion with the Optics Compensation effect. I also did color correction and tonality adjustments (with Color Finesse 3) and sharpening (with Unsharp Mask) in After Effects. The Unsharp Mask effect is available in both After Effects and Premiere Pro, but it also makes real-time playback impossible. Then I exported that footage to H.264, and imported that into Premiere Pro. That gave me distortion-free, color-corrected and sharpened footage that played back in Premiere Pro in real time.

This page shows how to use the Optics Compensation effect in After Effects:

http://provideocoalition.com/jfoster/st ... dobe-cc/P2

And this video has lots of info about color correction in After Effects; I think you can safely ignore the 'color grading' parts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZrAk3w_afc

I usually avoid an intermediate step like this, as it results in two separate transcode/export stages, and that necessarily reduces the quality of the video. But it worked out OK for this one.
Lots of great info. Thanks so much.

That kinda sucks. I do find the same thing with Photoshop though, it doesn't play back smoothly when I apply the correction. It plays fine once I import it into iMovie, however. Maybe it's an issue with how Adobe is rendering the preview.

At least I know I can do what I need to do. Thanks.
 
GadgetRick said:
That kinda sucks. I do find the same thing with Photoshop though, it doesn't play back smoothly when I apply the correction. It plays fine once I import it into iMovie, however. Maybe it's an issue with how Adobe is rendering the preview.
I think this is related to your earlier comment about how it takes "forever" to import your footage into iMovie. I think that on import, iMovie is transcoding the H.264 video into some other format, which 1) takes lots of time, and 2) reduces video quality.

Premiere Pro, in contrast, is able to edit H.264 video natively, without transcoding. An import of an H.264 clip into Premiere Pro takes about a second or two, and you can then do real-time playback of that clip, even when most effects (such as color correction, tonality adjustments, etc.) have been applied.

The only playback problems I have had with Premiere Pro are with the Lens Distortion and Unsharp Mask effects. There is a 'Sharpen' effect in Premiere Pro that works real-time, and looks pretty good. Just not quite as good as Unsharp Mask.
 
InterMurph said:
GadgetRick said:
That kinda sucks. I do find the same thing with Photoshop though, it doesn't play back smoothly when I apply the correction. It plays fine once I import it into iMovie, however. Maybe it's an issue with how Adobe is rendering the preview.
I think this is related to your earlier comment about how it takes "forever" to import your footage into iMovie. I think that on import, iMovie is transcoding the H.264 video into some other format, which 1) takes lots of time, and 2) reduces video quality.

Premiere Pro, in contrast, is able to edit H.264 video natively, without transcoding. An import of an H.264 clip into Premiere Pro takes about a second or two, and you can then do real-time playback of that clip, even when most effects (such as color correction, tonality adjustments, etc.) have been applied.

The only playback problems I have had with Premiere Pro are with the Lens Distortion and Unsharp Mask effects. There is a 'Sharpen' effect in Premiere Pro that works real-time, and looks pretty good. Just not quite as good as Unsharp Mask.
Makes sense. I understand exporting can take some time but the importing is killing me. Going to have to see about adding Premiere to my Creative Cloud subscription. I really appreciate all of the info you've provided. Extremely helpful.

I'm good with editing photos but just learning about editing videos. Got a ways to go....
 
I'm a Premiere Pro user, so I'm clearly biased. But many people have been switching from Apple to Premiere Pro because of what they perceive as Apple's lack of commitment to and development of its video-editing software.

Adobe, on the other hand, is fully committed to its video-editing software, and continues to make improvements to Premiere Pro, After Effects, and SpeedGrade.
 
I have found that when doing video speed editing of lense correction that I get a lag in the playback within Premier but once i export into a quicktime video that it plays smooth through out the cut. Is this maybe a RAM issue?
 
No, it's a CPU issue. Premiere can't execute all of the calculations necessary to produce a corrected frame in the time available to render it (usually 1/30th of a second).
 
InterMurph said:
No, it's a CPU issue. Premiere can't execute all of the calculations necessary to produce a corrected frame in the time available to render it (usually 1/30th of a second).

InterMurph is right. The only way to be able to playback without this issue is with a Dual Xeon processor computer. (my friend has one) I am running a machine with an i7 Haswell overclocked and it still struggles. If you render the timeline it should then play ok. If you have a green line and it still stutters then it could be a video card speed problem.
 
Check your quality settings for export iMovie for me works well.
I don't try and correct my lense distortion from hero 4 I like it but it may slow you down in rendering yes.
Can you try a smaller video with I editing to see what that gives - your machine may not be up to it and if that's the case which software won't matter.
One interesting issue is that iMovie tends to copy video when you make projects
 

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