Adobe Slow Your Roll Please

[David Roth weiss]

There, finally a calm, well-reasoned, balanced, and constructive criticism of the state of the Adobe’s art as it stands today. The one thing I might inject here in defense of Adobe’s development is that they are not playing in a static environment, Apple’s constant changes to OS X, and the constant rewrites of drivers that requires, are a moving target that keep every developer behind the eight ball continuosly. So, the problems are not by any stretch all the fault of Adobe.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions

David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.

[Ann Bens]

Premiere has never been backwards compatible.

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Adobe Certified Expert Premiere Pro CC
Adobe Community Professional

[David Roth weiss]

That’s an over simplification Ann. There’s more to this discussion, as we are no longer talking about major updates and upgrades as we have in the past, nowadays users are getting bombarded with a constant stream of upgrades (many of which are or seem mandatory) that are just one all to easy click away from creating a potential disaster, and there are no warnings to indicate a potential hazardous update vs. a simple non-hazadous update.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions

David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.

[Walter Soyka]

After Effects only changes file format on major updates. Their minor feature updates do not affect project file compatibility. Ae CC 2014 v13.0 can open files last saved in Ae 13.1 and 13.2.

I think this is a very sensible approach, and that the Premiere team should adopt it, too.

The way to make sure your voice is heard is to file a feature request [link].

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Ann Bens]

No major update or upgrades the are all gradually but ….
For example CC14 is an seperate install from CC7 there for you could call it a upgrade.
You can open CC14(8.2) in CC14 (8.1) but you cannot open it in CC7 whatever version.
This was the same as previous versions such as CS6 or even CS3 for that matter.
You can open CS6.05 in CS6.0 etc.
Basically its all still the same. But you need to be very carefully in which version you start or save.
CC14 looks very much like CC7 so it very easy to make a misstake. Altough CC14 now has a blue UI.

Only recently AE offers an option to save in a previous version.

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Adobe Certified Expert Premiere Pro CC
Adobe Community Professional

[David Roth weiss]

Ann, the thread here is not about backward compatibility of projects, it’s about updates that can all too easily screw-up a working edit station.

FYI, I am the #5 leading poster of all times here on the Cow, and for years I have been advocating that ALL users create a clone before unleashing any updates or upgrades to a working edit system. However, today upgrades and updates come at users much more often than ever before due to the new subscription model Adobe has adopted, and, as I said before, “users are only one all too easy click away from a potential disaster” that could render their edit stations dead in the water. At the very least, Adobe needs to add very conspicuous warnings to updates and upgrades warning users that they might encounter a whole host of issues if they click on the install button. Better yet, Adobe should coordinate with Apple and hardware manufacturers to insure that everyone is onboard with new drivers etc., BEFORE Adobe software encourages users to hit the install button for their upgrades and updates.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions

David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.

[Dennis Radeke]

[Walter Soyka] “After Effects only changes file format on major updates.”

This is true as a rule for Premiere Pro as well. The exception to this was Premiere Pro 8.1. There were so many important new features that we wanted to get in that we had to make changes to the project file format that go around. That includes features like masking and transcode&consolidate, which I think we all would say were important additions.

But again, only major, full version updates do you generally expect a project file format change.

Dennis – Adobe guy

[Robert Withers]

Thank you, Chris. I switched from FCP7 to Premiere because Apple jettisoned the idea of compatibility of editing tools over time. And now have learned that Adobe is taking the same approach with the frequent revisions that change functionality and interface. I’m still using Pr 7.0.1 “2013” because of issues with 2014 and because issues with further “upgrades” echo all over the discussion groups with each release. Unlike some, my cinema projects don’t develop as fast as Adobe’s software. And I need to be able to access them over years, not months.

Documentation and training is a real problem too, since neither Adobe nor third parties seem able to keep up with the changes. Features and buttons appear and disappear, and you are more likely to learn about them through the grapevine than any other way.

Robert Withers

Independent/personal/avant-garde cinema, New York City

[Dennis Radeke]

Robert,

See my note above in the same thread. We do work to have project files compatible at all times with a variety of options. I explain this year’s exception above.

Cheers,
Dennis – Adobe guy

[Steve Connor]

Adobe are obviously keen to show us CC subscribers that their pace of development has quickened so I’m not surprised this is an issue for some. I can’t remember, is there a warning about project compatibility when you upgrade?