-
Survey about CS4…
Any one looking to upgrade to CS4? What are your reasons? (I am trying very hard to come up with a good excuse to do so… at least for my wife!! Haha… Nothing is ringing…)
Perry
-
22 Replies
-
“There plenty of workflow updates, further speed and workflow enhancements with DLink AE, Encore and PPro. Like Mike said the BG rendering App AME is well worth the upgrade.” – by Jon (in previous posts).
None of these are any attraction for casual users like me. I don’t use DLink, AE… BG rendering? Why do I need to render anything nowadays? Don’t we simply do the cuts and when done, render it out? Do you actual render while working on the timeline?
Perry
-
ACVHD support is reason enough for me.
Alan Tone
thevtpros.com
myvideospokesmodel.com
flvmgr.com -
Why do I need to render anything nowadays? Don’t we simply do the cuts and when done, render it out? Do you actual render while working on the timeline?
Perry
Perry,
I don’t know the needs you have of your production workflow, but I generally have several projects on the run at any given time. I would love to hit render form one program and then continue working on another project – with CS4 I can do that.
Sounds like you need to wait until CS4 has been out for a while and you hear about similar prod co’s upgrade experiences before you fork out the money.
My reasons for upgrade are mine. I’m not saying it should be for you. Please don’t use this space to bash my comments for why I would upgrade to push your own disapproval of the tools you’ve already invested in.
Jon Barrie
aJBprods
http://www.jonbarrie.net -
My personal belief is that I won’t be making the jump anytime soon. It took the better part of half a year or more to get any help from Adobe to figure out why many of the programs in my Master Collection wouldn’t work. (Seems that many parts of the press pre-release version didn’t uninstall using the Adobe Unistaller and so we had to go through a bunch of undocumented tests to get it to work. I appreciated the help but still, six months to get things to work is unreal. So, call me a bit queasy on new releases but I don’t think that I am up for another round of nightmares.)
Considering that I wasn’t the only one getting these kinds of issues and that other users were citing similar things, I would have expected a bit more out of Adobe support. In fact, there’s a bunch of people that ganged up on a thread called “I Hate Adobe Activation” in the blogs section here at the COW. Considering the multiple nightmares listed and my own personal variety, I plan to avoid this upgrade like the plague.
Your mileage may vary,
Ron Lindeboom
creativecow.net -
[Perry Cheng] “”There plenty of workflow updates, further speed and workflow enhancements with DLink AE, Encore and PPro. Like Mike said the BG rendering App AME is well worth the upgrade.” – by Jon (in previous posts).
None of these are any attraction for casual users like me. I don’t use DLink, AE… BG rendering? Why do I need to render anything nowadays? Don’t we simply do the cuts and when done, render it out? Do you actual render while working on the timeline?”
Uh, Perry?
Why exactly did you ask the question when it sounds like you knew the answer?
Since the Adobe Media Encoder now runs as a separate app, I can cue up PPro sequences, AE Comps, and just any raw video/audio files with transcode and render specs and start the cue and get back to work. There are many other feature additions, tweaks, etc…the entire suite is actually getting too large to even have one conversation about anymore…
If these features aren’t something you need, that’s fine. Don’t upgrade.
But I will restate my mantra that workflows differ widely from user to user. So many users come on these forums and assume that everyone in the world does things exactly like they do. If a product isn’t useful to them, they proclaim it useless…
Many will make the leap for one or two features that some may never use, but it makes an obvious difference in their particular situation.
Is CS4 worth the upgrade? Is it not worth the upgrade?
Yes.
TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,CPO, Digieffects
-
Sorry I haven’t been to the Premiere forum here for a while but I thought I could add my 2c worth…. I have had EVERY version of Adobe Premiere since 4.0 (still got the discs of all versions) and I got the upgrades as soon as they were released. So this will be the first time I will NOT be upgrading.
This has also got a lot to do with the fact that 3 of my 5 edit suites are now running FCP and thats the way I like it.
The only PLUS I see with CS4 is that it might kick Apple into introducing a few enhancements into their product eg. Xdcam importing natively! Other than that it is the big ho-hum.
Baz
What would I do without the ‘UNDO’ button!!!!
-
Well, those of us eagerly waiting on our CS4 to arrive (hopefully this coming week) can share how much we like it when it gets here…I personally think it looks tremendous – I use DL all the time, and the enhancements to that look very nice, being able to import just the PPro project into Encore and Soundbooth ( I wish it was Audition too though) without rendering a file is a welcome new feature, and the new batch rendering…an answered prayer. And as someone who use On Location quite a bit, the new version looks like it has some very nice new features.
As a long time PPro user, I can’t remember being this excited about a release.
—Eric
-
[Baz Leffler] “The only PLUS I see with CS4 is that it might kick Apple into introducing a few enhancements into their product eg. Xdcam importing natively! Other than that it is the big ho-hum.”
Hey Baz,
MXF P2 and XDcam native edit modes are popular features of PPro, like native HDV editing is as well.I think it’s interesting if you look at all this in terms of lineage…
Waaay back when Premiere was first released by Adobe, and Avid first popped up about the same time…within six months of each other I believe…the Avid was aimed squarely at traditional video editors. The offline edit control mimicked our traditional CMX or Sony tape-based gear.
Adobe Premiere was a different animal as it edited (and layered, etc) computer media files and without an added board or augmentation with additional software, really wasn’t yet capable of interacting with a pro VTR with deck control, etc. (I’ll admit I used v1 with early QT capability and couldn’t figure out what use edited 240×160, 10fps QT clips would ever have…).
The last 7-8 years PPro has taken it on the chin (and deservedly in some cases) for having some weaknesses in deck control, TC handling, etc…traditional video editing features that really matter in a production company or television operation where tape is the acquisition and mastering medium. This set of users did not perceive PPro to have the features they needed in many cases, so they use FCP or Avid (and others).
FCP has had Avid in their sights since their, much later, beginning and has really modeled their feature set to largely meet the needs of that customer group. Avid users tend to be doing the most traditional of our field’s work (for the most part), television commercials, feature films, TV series, etc, etc. That’s certainly a fine place to be, and FCP has been making inroads on Avid’s marketshare in the production boutique slice of their market.
However, now that the world is moving away from tape as an acquisition medium and expanding well beyond television and traditional film as delivery venues, Adobe’s historically more data-centric approach is starting to show some merit for many users in my opinion.
Transcripts derived from the audio in a video interview clip…the ability to handle layered Photoshop files, a video encoder that is very fast, actual native support for MXF, I can now create an Illustrator art board and dump it right into Flash and start manipulating elements…and of course, depending on what sort of work you do, the list of notable features may be different for CS4.
I think with Flash having taken over video distribution via the web and non-tape aqcuisition and mastering increasing very quickly, the features we all think about as being ‘must have’ will keep evolving…
As I said above though…if the feature changes in CS4 aren’t significant for what you do…don’t upgrade. FCP has an upgrade on the way, so they may be preparing to unveil some big changes as well…
TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,CPO, Digieffects
-
Jon,
First off, did my comments or the quote I copied from you seem that offensive? I am not trying to bash Adobe or push any personal agenda. I sincerely am asking for a good reason for “Causual user” like me to upgrade. Like Tim said, there are many different users, I acknowledged that. That is why I am asking those “Causual Users like me” to throw in their opinion of what attracts them to upgrade, not necessary the professionals. DL is nice, I don’t have it. Using multiple Adobe programs and flip back and forth is nice, I can not afford it. Still, I asked, why do you have to render when the preview quality is usually good enough, perhaps just for me, “causual user”… haha…
I just can’t help myself on this forum to notice so much “excitments” around CS4!? I know I am being sarcastic, I am sorry if that offended the Adobe loyalist, oo, that’s me also. Let me state that once more, I sincerely want to find a reason for myself to upgarde. All the public info out there are not attractive to me, I don’t use AVCHD. I don’t know much about the tweaks… I wish I have more info about them. I only know the ability to apply mulitiple effects at once, that might be good, but certainly not worth the upgrade. Honestly, the only thing that somewhat attracted me was OnLocation upgrade! I really hope Adobe has a beta version for people to try… currently the version I have does not agree with my laptop at all, no realtime image is displayed.
Well, thanks for your help, I will reframe myself from posting any new CS4 thoughts from now on. Have a nice day.Perry
-
Perry,
I think we are rapidly approaching a point with most software where added features won’t be attractive to all users. I don’t think there’s a problem with not needing a new rev of any given piece of software.
Many of us work with lots of different video types and not everything is real-time, not mention heavy effects use on the timeline (color correction, etc.) can get into rendering.
I think the thing with Jon’s post is that a few of us took it as staging an argument instead of adding detail to your situation…
I wouldn’t refrain from posting, but maybe the traffic in the thread would be more ‘signal’ and less ‘noise’ for you if the subject line asked about “CS4 benefits for the casual user?” or something similar.
None of us are apologists for Adobe…we’re just here to help users.
TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,CPO, Digieffects
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up