Nice article.
I find it amusing that FCP users talk about what they didn't like in Premiere Pro CS4, 5 and 5.5.
CS6 is out, folks - and it's a whole different animal! Of course it's running circles around FCP7. That's to be expected, since FCP7 is an old piece of 32-bit software. FCPX is the current software from Apple that we should be comparing it against. The performance of Premiere Pro CS6 is very good. Extremely good! And the Open Timeline is familiar to all of us.
A few things need to be set right here:
1: There are HEAPS of plug-ins for Premiere Pro, but most people don't realize it. Most plug-ins for After Effects work in Premiere Pro. And we all know there are a LOT of plug-ins for AE. Pick your choice.
2: Premiere Pro does NOT always recompress. Actually it does Smart Rendering with DV formats and Uncompressed video, and has done so for a while. Yeah, I know these are kind of special cases - but it IS Smart Rendering. And who knows what other formats it can Smart Render in the next version? Push your feature requests! What it can't do is make a QuickTime Reference video - that's a QT thing.
3: There are so many ways to customize the keyboard shortcuts that I've found absolutely nothing that I can't use shortcuts for in my workflow. But of course, I never had the urge to have different transition times available as shortcuts, and I don't think I ever will. As for adding a 30 frames fade up/down at the start/end, I would use an Opacity Preset for that. But that's me.
Tip: You MUST add shortcuts for "Ripple Trim Previous/Next Edit to Playhead". These enable you to do Top-n-Tail editing, and there's simply no quicker way to do a rough cut. For the fine cut, use the keyboard shortcuts to tune your edits with precision. Or use the Dynamic Trim. WOW. Just WOW!
Premiere Pro CS6 is by far the best NLE I've ever used, and if you're using Photoshop and After Effects, the integration saves you a lot of time while at the same time keeping the highest possible quality.
Don't like it? Don't use it. That's good for me, because I can finish my edits quicker than you, and deliver better quality. Your loss. :-)
OK, I'm highly biased:
http://www.premierepro.net
