So, While I procrastinate the writing of my next, exciting, Magnetic Timeline post, I thought I’d throw up (pun intended) this little nugget. I recently watched a demo of Premiere CC running on a new Mac Pro. There was a little section on real-time interaction with the app, followed by a demo of mixed format 4k real-time performance. Like many of the Mac Pro demos, it was pretty impressive. What got my curiosity up though, was the first section about real time interaction with the app, i.e., editing while playing back. The media used in this section was not specified, but I doubt it was 4k, if anyone knows please chime in. Have a look below. The relevant portion begins about 2 minutes in and is about 2 minutes long. The rest of the video is cool, but irrelevant to my pointless demo…
So… after watching this, I was curious how FCP X (And PrCC) would perform with a similar timeline on the computer I happened to be on at the time. It was not a Mac Pro… So, I grabbed some 1080p H264 clips and did a little test, which runs about 4 minutes:
Then, to be fair, I did the same thing with PrCC. This takes a little longer, about 8 minutes:
So, that’s 15 minutes of your life you’ll never get back. What’s my point? Didn’t really have one, just thought it was an interesting comparison. I own rent Premiere. I use it, and FCP 7 for that matter, when I need to. I much prefer FCP X.
Anyway, I think the takeaway here is that I want a Mac Pro, no matter what I’m gonna run on it. Also, Halloween Parties are fun. 🙂
Addendum: It was pointed out to me that the Pr “Dust and Grain” effect (analog to the “Aged Film” effect I used in X) is not GPU accelerated, so that may be why Pr choked near the end of the “demo”.
Final Cut Pro X Babbling 
Hilarious!
This is such a fucking FLUFF and brown-noser (to the obvious SPONSORS) piece that it hurts.
Anyone else notice how he never played back the nine stream sequence in the beginning after applying any of the effects? 😀 Of course not, since that would only play back in real-time without rendering in… you guessed it… FCP X. What a sad attempt at making Premiere look like a modern, performant NLE. Never mind the embarrassingly lame 80’s style transitions… LOL! Oh wow, and he actually plays *one whole stream* of 4K at a time… amazing. *snicker* And then he acts like THIER development makes for fast rendering times. What a disingenuous ass-hat. The dual GPU support and acceleration comes from OPEN CL and not ADOBE!
Multicam? Really? At *⅛th* resolution? Funny how I can do full res with FCP X…. oops … what a joke.
They should go back to trying to copy Final Cut Pro *7* (very poorly) with some FCP X features (even MORE poorly) strewn in and give it a rest…
Pathetic.
How do you really feel Andy? 😉 Anyway, My point wasn’t to bash Premiere. I use it, it works just fine. The 9 stream bit didn’t really play perfectly in X or Pr on my Air after FX were applied either. Though I’m guessing it would have been just fine on a Mac Pro. Actually, I know it would, as I got a hands on Demo of X playing 16 angles of mixed 4K in real time with basic effects applied.
On my MBA, FCP X seemed to handle things a little better but again, this was by no means a “scientific” comparison.
I Just had too much time on my hands and 2 NLE’s to play with. 🙂
But that’s clearly the biggest irony by far. The fact that you used AN AIR for a comparison! At first I thought “WTF??”, but when I saw (the extremely surprising I must say) performance on essentially the *worst* possible Mac for editing (at least for FCP X, given the GPU) I thought it was hilarious since Adobe was praising “their” optimization on the *best* possible Mac. 😉
The “unscientific” part was the best part. And yes, I just edited a TWELVE stream multicam on a nMP with FCP X on best quality setting. It kicks the pants off of Premiere in so many ways till Sunday, not just speed. 😉