New Premier Pro User Introduction and Comments

Question

Just wanted to introduce myself as I plan to be a frequent reader and hopefully contributor to this forum and in the hope that a few of the comments below will be useful.
First, to show my age, I began video editing back in the early 1990's with the Amiga and the Video Toaster.  Later I began editing in Vegas Pro and Edius. In 2007 I largely left the PC platform for Macs, and almost immediately purchaed Final Cut Pro which I have used as my NLE on an eight core (2.8 GHz) 3.1 Mac Pro equipped with a 2 TB Raid 0 array of SATA drives as well as an external Raid 5 8TB SATA system for backups.  Although video editing is just a hobby for me, I am serious about it and feel fairly competent in FCP.
With the arrival of the MPE and 64-bit support for Adobe's Premier Pro, I was attracte to trying this editing package which I had obtained in a purchase of the Production Premium package for the Mac. When I received the PP package a few months ago, I installed all the software and briefly tried PP and the other software components in the package but I did not do any serious projects with PP at that time.
Recently, I was involved in video recording a three camera shoot of a piano concert given in my home by my pinao teacher.  We used two HDV cameras and my Canon 5D Mark II for the video and an Edirol R-09HR recorder optimally placed for recroding my Yamaha grand piano. I wanted to do a multicamera edit of the one hour concert, but I found this possible but very contorted to do in FCP (with the assistance of PlurarEyes for synching the externally recorded audio with the video).  It was at that point that I became serious about learning and using PP CS5.
To get into PP CS5 in the fastest possible manner, I purchased the Learn by Video series on PP CS5 presented by Maxim Jago and Jan Ozer.  I feel this is an outstnading video tutorial on using PP CS5.  I also decided to upgrade the video card in my Mac Pro 3.1 from the Ati 2600XT card (which does not support the MPE with CUDA) with the nVidia GTX 285 which does. I was able to purchase a new overclocked GTX 285 on eBAy and installed it in my Mac Pro.  I also purchsed PluralEyes for PP for synching the external audio in PP.
My experience with this rather large multi-camera project hs been excellent.  Not one crash in many hours of work on the project!  The GTX 285 easily handles rela time playback with no dropped frames in the timeline.  I am impressed with the ease of doing a multi-camera edit in PP CS5 and in general very pleased iwth the program.  The most difficult thing I have had to adjust to is the difference between PP CS5 and FCP in terms of getting video and audio into the timeline where I want it in PP.  It's not difficult to do, but just sufficiently different that I found the PP CS5 video tutorials that I had purchased very useful in learning how to move video and audio around and patch to precise locations in PP.
Well, enough for now.  I have much yet to do to complete this multicamera project, but I have been actively monitoring this forum for months now and simply wanted to say thanks for all I have learned here as well as to just say "hello".
Tom

Answer 1

just took me a while to find it as I don't think I have ever even visited the Video Lounge.
Tom,
Now that you have discovered our "little secret," do not be a stranger. We're a pretty loose, but friendly crew around the forum - both in the Lounge and out in the technical product forum.
Though some technical "stuff" does get posted here, one is usually better off in the product forum, as more users will see the post. Now, "technical" is a slightly abstract term. We've had mic. options explored here, camera options, and of course snakes. When the technical aspect gets to Adobe products, then the main fora are obviously the best locations.
There is also the Hardware sub-forum, and it's great for technical discussions on hardware. Most of that discussion revolves around using Adobe products on said computer, but a lot is general computer talk and questions.
If the discussion gets to authoring DVD/BD, then the Encore Forum is the right place, even though Encore now only ships with PrPro. One reason to break things off there is that some Encore gurus do not hang out here. Considering your audio background, one such individual is Neil Wilkes, the Encore audio-guru. He seldom shows up in the PrPro fora, but is usually not that far away in the Encore forum.
That's just a little breakdown of these fora.
Enjoy PrPro, and thanks for the intro and the thoughts,
Hunt