Are there any and what are the advantages of Premiere over DaVinci Resolve?

[Takeone.Digital]

I have accumulated about 500 hours of editing on three different softwares including Adobe Primere in which I underwent 60 hours of training. Until now I edited as a hobbyist but the business I am establishing is starting to gain momentum and I have to make a decision. This is not the (big) cost difference with the subscription model. If things were working smmothly I wouldn't be looking for a replacement.
I got lots of frustration with Primere as a beginner and it's clear that learning a new Editing software will take valuable time. Perhaps it's a corporate logic according to which the user needs to experience the ecosystem and instill loyalty to the design language on the platform (Like Google, FB ads systems) The bottom line is that this is the most unintuitive interface among all the editing programs I've come across as a hobbyist alongside the glitches and complications I've experienced. What I do want to understand - espcialy from you - the more experienced, is whether there are any advantages (beyond popularity and sharing projects with other editors) in which Premiere is better?
The reason I'm asking here and not on general editing FB group / da Vinci forum/  is because there is a chance to find die-hard fans here who will provide arguments and reasons that I hadn't thought of.

[Michael Grenadier]

It's not a hobbyist's tool, it's a professional tool.  I have extensive experience with avid, FCP1-7 and a decent amount with Resolve.  Premiere's my tool of choice.   

But you're going to have to do your homework to learn and become fluent in Premiere.  There are comprehensive sets of tutorials on LinkedinLearning which is not cheap, but I thnk there's a free trial.     And there are lots of tutorials on youtube but a lot of crap to wade thru...

But maybe you don't need all the bells and whistles...   

Another plus for premiere is it's integration with photoshop, illustrator and aftereffects.  Of course those aren't simple programs to learn either...    And gotta say, there's a great community here and you learn an awful lot just scanning all the posts...  I can't say I've ever had a problem with Premiere that I haven't been able to solve or workaround often with the help of others on this forum (not to mention Kevin Monahan's the moderators help).  

I recently supervised the restoration of a 16mm documentary from the 80's.  The post house worked in resolve and when I was brought on board, the director of the film had about 10 notes of issues the post house was not able to solve...  I was able to fix most of them in Premiere...  Happy to describe some of them if you're interested.    That's not to say that they weren't fixable in Resolve...  just beyond the capabilities of the post house.  

But the fact is, any professional level NLE will probably do the job with sufficient investment of time and patience.    And I gotta admit that if I have a color correction problem I'm having difficulty with, I'll move it over to Resolve.  It's interface feels much more sophisticated for color correction and much more responsive but it's also got a very steep learning curve when you get to the more complicated issues.  And there are many things that I move over to AfterEffects to do and to Photoshop and/or Illustrator which are more difficult and cumbersome to do in Premiere.

[Takeone.Digital]

Thanks Michael. the point is this- in the new business I have to shoot, direct, take care of the lighting and audio and also edit. I'm a good editor as a novice and I want to know how to edit better and I even enjoy it, but I have no intention of becoming a professional editor - one who edits other people's projects -and ertainly not to learn additional Adobe software. Primere's inlogical interface failures and bugs make it very difficult to progress in learning. I'm just trying to figure out if I'm missing major failures or shortcomings in Resolve vs. Primere. e.g -example from today - synchronizing identical sound clips from an external recorder worked better in Primere compared to Resolve. that's sort of things I want to find out before I make the decision. P.S. If you know good channels for learning on YouTube (I learn from videos) I would appreciate the links.

[Michael Grenadier]

really can't help answer your question.  to me, they both seem to have the same level of difficulty.   Hopefully someone else here can answer.    And as I said in my post, checkout linkedin learning.  I think there's a free trial... and the tutorials are organized in sets and comprehensively address their subject matter.  So there may be a set of tutorials for premiere beginners, or about the latest set of updates...  and for me if I needed to learn a program from scratch which I found unintuitive, it would be worth the cost for a month or 2, rather than potentially wasting a lot of time searching and winnowing the youtube tutorials...  There's lots of things I hate in LinkedIn which I'd be happy to share although this doesn't seem the appropriate place...  but this is one area where it shines.

[Oğulcan Tokar]

For me, short answer, no. You just lose Dynamic Link & Customizable layout, that's it. Resolve easily wins in pretty much every other field. However Creative Cloud is very useful, so i am keeping that.

I would recommend taking couple days off and prepare hotkeys and defaults, get used to ui.

[John280371953ssc]

currently i use dr. WHat is adobe compared to it honestly. I use dr cause its free and does a good job. Is adobe better?

jw i mostly do youtube videos

i mostly do editing and add effects, music and thumbnails.

thanks

[Michael Grenadier]

Personally, I vastly prefer Premiere Pro for editing, and prefer DR for color correction.    Premiere's integration with photoshop and AfterEffects is a plus.  But doesn't sound like you need that... If DR is working for you, not sure you need to switch.  

[John280371953ssc]

just wondering if its worth switching

[Michael Grenadier]

If you're able to accomplish what you want and it doesn't seem to take longer than it should, I'd stay where you are...

If any part of your workflow seems to take too long, tell us about it and we may be able to say whether premiere will handle it better.  

One thing I've found frustrating with the "free" version of DR is the fact that when you're trying to figure out how to do something either googling or searching the documentation (such as it is), it's not always clear whether it's included in the free version.    I've spent a fair amount of time trying to figure out why certain workflows don't seem to be available before finally realizing that it's not included in the free version.  For the most part at least in my experience, these are fairly advanced features.

[Ann Bens]

Moved to videolounge.

[John T Smith]

>I use dr cause its free

Premiere Pro by itself is $20 per month (the last time I looked, could be more now) and when you stop paying it stops working

[SinhVTruong]

I recently started using Davinci Resolve Studio and life has improved dramatically. I don't have to run proxies, turn off FX, or do anything with my Sony S-Log footage. It scrubs so smooth and I can preview my timeline without any hiccups or noticeable lag due to a motion graphic. Lastly, in addition to Davinci's superior color grading and node structure, the export times are night and day. An edit I just did on both Resolve and Davinci exported in 30 seconds on Davinci vs 20 minutes on Premiere Pro. 

I am running a Mac Studio with the M1 Max and 64gb Ram 2TB. 

Why is Premiere so much slower? This is the latest version 23.1

[R Neil Haugen]

I run both daily on PCs. And work for/with/teach pro colorists, mostly based on Macs.

First, like all these pro video apps, they are coded from different perspectives on how to best utilize the computer resources for the broader user base. So there are major differences in 'parts' usage outta the box.

As a color app primarily, Resolve is coded to use the GPU more than Premiere, which as an editing app is more CPU based. If your GPU has some of the H.264/5 capabilities, Resolve can be better at using those at times than Premiere. And much S-log seems to be H.264/5 long-GOP media ... that might be the part right there.

Second, my desktop is a 24 core Ryzen 3960X, 128 GB of RAM, 2080Ti, two internal Nvme's, one for OS/apps, the other for all cache files. Premiere and Resolve work pretty identically to each other on my rig. In most any format/codec/effects setup.

My 4 year old Acer Triton laptop is loving Pr2023 more than previous ones (why, no clue) and is such a dog with Resolve 18 I uninstalled that app on it. Others get vastly different results.

For preference of working, I prefer the Pr UI. I do not like the locked-down Resolve UI at all. I can work in it of course, and yea, the color tools are deeper being as it is still primarily a grading app getting better at other parts. I don't enjoy working in it however.

And on your Mac, Resolve is clearly doing better. Great!

So as these apps are nothing but fancy hammers ... tools ... use what works for your clients & floats your boat. And get outta that room and back with the family as soon as possible.

Neil

[Takeone.Digital]

Thanks for the detailed answer, Neil. My average work process after arranging the material in directories / bins and creating a proxy:
1. Rough cutting
2. Synchronization of audio clips from an external recorder
3. Connecting sections, adjusting background music
4. Framing, polishing connections
5. Audio polishing of music and recording
6. Work on color

I shoot 8-10 bit on Sony's A7 cameras in 4K with a different image profile including Slog/h-log etc. Assuming I won't enter the hardware race and stay with my modest laptop - 8 GB RAM, SSD drive, 3-year-old Intel processor, and a simple video card - does DR have an advantage over PP?

[R Neil Haugen]

As to which works better on any kit, you gotta test. On that kit with your media.

The Sony A7 media I've worked with has all (as far as I recall) been long-GOP H264/5 stuff, even the S-log. So whichever works better with that media is a factor.

Neil

[Warren Heaton]

We can run both Adobe Premiere Pro and Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve side-by-side.   You could try Premiere Pro for 14 days for free and of course the free version of Resolve indefinately - then subcribe or purchase based on what you find better meets your needs.

A laptop with 8 GB RAM, SSD drive, 3-year-old Intel processor, and a simple video card meets the minumum system requirements for both Premiere Pro and Resolve.

We would leverage the same features in either NLE to edit 4K source footage:

• Be patient, especially if the Intel processor is i5 instead of i7 or i9.
• Use Proxies.
• To create proxies:  After importing the 4k source clips into a Premiere Pro project panel right-click the clips and choose Proxy > Create Proxies or after importing the 4k source clips into a Resolve project Media Pool right-click the clips and choose Generate Proxy Media.  In Premiere Pro, you'll be able to continue to work while the proxy files are being created, but it will likely lag too much.  Blackmagic Design recently added a separate applicaiton for creating Proxies outside of Resolve.
• Benchmark the time it takes to create proxies:  You'll want to bench mark how long it takes for each NLE to generate proxies for planning your workflow.  Try a ten minute or sixty minute clip in each by itself and use that as a reference.  If it takes ten minutes to turn sixty minutes of footage into a proxy, you can extrapolate how much time you need to allow for this on a full project.
• Enabling/dispabling Proxies:  In Premiere Pro, use the Toggle Proxies button in the Program tab or Source tab to switch between Full Resoulution media and Proxy media.  In Resolves, use the Proxy Handling option in Playback pulldown. to switch between Original media nnd Proxy media.  In both, expect lag when Proxies are not in use.
• Help with smooth playback:  In Premiere Pro set the Playback Resolution to 1/2, 1/4, or 1/8 or while in Resolves set the Timeline Proxy Resolution to Half or Quarter.
• Quick color correction whle editing:  In Premiere Pro, create an Adjustment Layer, place it in the top most Video Track of the Timeline, and apply a LUT with the Lumitri Color Effect.  In Resolve, create an Adjustment Clip, place it in the top most Video Track of the Timeline, apply a LUT to the Node Grade.
• Mezzanine CODECS (Smart Rendering/Optimized Media):  The camera original from a Sony A7 is optmized for the Sony camera, not editing.  A 3-year old Intel laptop with fast storage media should handle 2160p ProRes for editing and finishing without the need for Proxies.  In Premiere Pro, this is called "Smart Rendering".  In Resolves, it is "Optmized Media".  In each NLE, ProRes source in a ProRes Timeline exports to ProRes or H264 much faster than Camera Original Source in a ProRes/DNx/Cineform/All I-Frame MPEG Timeline to H264. 

[Takeone.Digital]

Thanks Warren. as I wrote -I'm already an Adobe monthly customer (unfortunately) and have been doing all of the advice you listed. An hour ago while editing I wasn't able to copy a section to the track marked in the time -line. I had to turn to YouTube (agian) to understand that the engineers decided to change the copy-paste feature and added "Paste to same track".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qb9cGEBF6Io
In the last year, since I started editing in PP, I have come across dozens of inconsiderate idiotic defects of this type. Another example - it's impossible to synchronize an external sound file with proxy files. And of course you realized that ONLY after the files were created... I don't think these are "human errors" on the part of Adobe's engineers. I used to think so.