NLE software – different is not better

Webspace of Eric Brodeur

I recently spent time using Adobe Premiere CS6 to edit a promotional piece. It joins the ranks of Avid Media Composer and Final Cut Pro 7 in my toolkit.

Rather than bore you with all of the things it gave me trouble with (AAF, OMF, XML, EDL, and overall performance) I’ve drawn some conclusions about NLEs.

DIFFERENT ISN’T BETTER

There is a standard set of features which every editing software should have. To make it easy, just rip off Avid’s implementation then improve upon it.

Premiere doesn’t necessarily improve the core feature set. They add something new here, leave out options elsewhere, or just do the same thing differently. Remember Final Cut X’s initial release and how it handled audio tracks and OMF support?

Different isn’t better.

INSTABILITY

New product features means new software code and new bugs. How many times a day does your software spontaneously crash? Is it repeatable or completely random?

Computers are complex systems and it’s impossible to fix every bug, however the time wasted with reboots and reinstalls isn’t acceptable.

Software developers need to take a break from implementing the latest buzzwords into their products. Take three months and perform a thorough pass to fix bugs. read more..