First impressions: Editing natively in Premiere Pro 5

As an avid DSRL shooter and passionate editor, I got overly excited when I first heard Adobe's Premiere Pro CS5 would offer a workflow to edit DSLR footage natively without the slightest problems. The big day of the new production suite's release arrived recently, and since then, I've played with it for a while to get a feeling of what it's like to tackle these H.264 files without having to convert them to ProRes or something else.

I never used Premiere Pro before, so I considered myself to be a newbie to the platform. That said, I was happy to realize that it pretty easy to learn as someone who mainly uses Final Cut Studio. The interface is very similar and so are the workflows, and the only thing that takes getting used to are the different shortcuts, although those can of course be adjusted.

So then... what are my first impressions? In short, I love to work with these native files in Premiere Pro. The whole thing runs fast enough on my MacPro, but it even works very well in terms of speed and power on my MacBook Pro. Importing the files is as easy as can be, and boom, you're ready to edit your DSLR footage carefree in a matter of minutes.

Wait... carefree? Not quite. To tell you the truth, I almost got to the point of saying bye to Premiere Pro forever. Okay, I was really angry and had to finish a project I started, but still, I did run into several annoying issues during my first weeks of editing in CS5. The main thing: that annoying scratch disk problem. It's an annoying one for sure, and it takes getting used to after working with scratch disks so easily in FCP.

Basically, once you dumped your footage in a folder on a hardisk or drive and you start a project in Premiere Pro, you're pretty much stuck with that one computer and destination. Whereas it's so easy to grab an external hard drive and edit on different computers in FCP by simply resetting the scratch disks, Premiere Pro limits you in terms of what computers you use to edit, especially if you store a project/files on an external hard drive.

This sucks, especially because I am used to grab my drive and edit my project on my compyuter at home and on different laptops. Nope, not with Premiere Pro. At first, I couldn't believe it, and surprisingly, I didn't even find all too much on the subject online. I guess long-time Premiere Pro users are used to this, but as someone working with FCP this much, this can be a tough sale.

On top of that, I had Premiere Pro CS5 crash a couple of times as well. Sure, it happens to every software, but it happened a lot more here than it does with FCP. Other than that, I can't complain too much. I ended up starting from scratch and got my project done fast enough, and everything went smoothly. Exporting presented a challenge for a bit, but I figured it out, and I am happy to share with you my first project I edited natively in Premiere Pro CS5. Take a look at it below. It was shot with two Canon 7D DSLRs.

I want to know from you all: what has your experience been editing natively in Premiere Pro CS5? I love it for sure, but I also admit I prefer doing it in the new Avid Media Composer 5. I will post my thoughts on that in just a bit!

Comments

[Gloda]

Great results there! Native HDSLR footage editing is going to save me a lot of hassle in the future. It works pretty well for my needs on my 2009 MacBook Pro. I had almost given up on it before I even got started though because an obscure bug stopped me from playing back anything whatsoever. I hope I'll get a chance to finish a whole project with it soon; seeing your project here (and having seen the final episode of House M.D. which they shot on the 5D) makes me want to dabble with film a bit more.