Cloud drawbacks as I see them.

[Aindreas Gallagher]

[Richard Cardonna] “Maybe if we could prepay for the year it might workout specially for those who upgrade everyear. “

that makes a fair ton of sense – if they are utterly determined to go software as service – bulk forward payment kind of gets to the nub of, and answers, a freelance editor’s insecurity – its the equivalent of buying an underground season ticket.
You can just stop thinking about it for a year?

basically i want to know that I have secured operation of the software in a cash payment over a reasonable horizon.
The essential feeling of my entire livelihood suite being dependent on a successful bank call every single month in perpituity would drive me a little mad I think.
Plus I bank with santander – they couldn’t butter bread apart from anything else

It would just feel precarious. I don’t think I could ever be totally comfortable with it – granted I’m paying more a month for the guardian, Empire, and vanity fair subscriptions on the ipad than I would be here… ahem – but it’s a psychological issue as much as anything.

Adobe allowing a one time 12 month pre-purchase of the subscription would lessen the freakout at going to subscription I think – or it goes like maintenance as the other guys have said. that would be dandy too.

Or, you know, they just let me upgrade to Production 7 for the three hundred odd quid as they have been to this point…

https://vimeo.com/user1590967/videos http://www.ogallchoir.net promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics

[Tom Daigon]

[Petros Kolyvas] “Thankfully I still can buy the perpetual license.”

Petros, they haven’t released any price or terms of use info yet, but Im not sure you WILL be able to buy the perpetual license. From all the Cloud marketing, Im getting the feeling that we CANT. And I hope I end up being proved wrong.

Tom Daigon
PrP / After Effects Editor
http://www.hdshotsandcuts.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxPrG3WUyz8
(Best viewed at 1080P and full screen)
HP Z820 Dual 2687
64GB ram
Dulce DQg2 16TB raid

[Tom Daigon]

I suggest all concerned folks that are on Twitter express these concerns to @Adobe. They do listen, their wonderful software can attest to that. Lets hope they are receptive to your feelings on this subject as well.

Tom Daigon
PrP / After Effects Editor
http://www.hdshotsandcuts.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxPrG3WUyz8
(Best viewed at 1080P and full screen)
HP Z820 Dual 2687
64GB ram
Dulce DQg2 16TB raid

[Petros Kolyvas]

I’m with you Tom, I hope I’m proved wrong.

Adobe only needs to look at how large portions of the editing community regard Avid’s business practices (I’m not talking about their product) to realise that no matter how much your product is used or liked, you will force away a certain number of users and foster a ill-will that is hard to undo.

And, thankfully with Blender slowly becoming an amazing compositing tool and a Linux version of Lightworks right around the corner (we prepped a copy of 64-bit Ubuntu on a Mac Pro to try it out), FCPX at least fighting to stay relevant, and a growing number of other options, Adobe needs to be careful, despite the stellar features showcased in the upcoming versions of PrPro and AE.

Apple proved that just because you own a certain market, doesn’t mean a misstep won’t have your market turn some of its back on you and find something new pretty quickly. And those of us who feel that our experience and skill of editing transcends the tool aren’t really afraid of change anyway since cut/trim/roll/slip etc are features I need the most and lots of NLE software has. 😉

—
There is no intuitive interface, not even the nipple. It’s all learned. – Bruce Ediger

[Ryan Holmes]

[Petros Kolyvas] “Since one edit bay may have three different users at any one time”

Why not just tie the Cloud account to the workstation instead of to the user? Create a generic ID/password for each workstation and you manage that. Whomever works on that station uses the generic account. That way you wouldn’t have to do the business plan. Instead you could just do the $50/month individual account ($30/month if you already have an exisiting CS3 or later license) for each workstation.

Ultimately, I think Tom’s main argument is the lack of perpetual license for the software. I think that’s something Adobe should address somehow. Price-wise, the Creative Cloud is the best value I’ve ever seen if you run several Adobe apps – PPro, After Effects, Photoshop, Lightroom, etc. But again, Adobe appears to be moving to a software as service model and that’s a drastic change for most of us.

[Richard Cardonna] “Maybe if we could prepay for the year it might workout specially for those who upgrade everyear.”

You can. You can buy 3 or 12 month pre-paid memberships. You should probably read more about it on Adobe’s page. It would answer many of your questions – https://www.adobe.com/products/creativecloud/faq.html

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
@CutColorPost

[Jon Hiseman]

I’m a subscriber to Adobe Cloud and loving it – BUT I’m faced with a dilemma. I’m always having to go back and open projects from several years before – I know thats been an issue for Walter. When Adobe has upgraded PPro and AE several times will they still open projects 5 years+ old? What do I do if they don’t. Do I have to enjoy 7 till it becomes 8 and then buy 7 for archive, enjoy 8 and then buy it as the news for 9 breaks?
This is creative work we’re talking. How does Adobe see this problem?

I used to be Jon Hiseman but I’m feeling better now.

[Tom Daigon]

[Ryan Holmes] “Ultimately, I think Tom’s main argument is the lack of perpetual license for the software. I”

That is true, Ryan.

Tom Daigon
PrP / After Effects Editor
http://www.hdshotsandcuts.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxPrG3WUyz8
(Best viewed at 1080P and full screen)
HP Z820 Dual 2687
64GB ram
Dulce DQg2 16TB raid

[Tom Daigon]

Jon, Im pretty sure that I heard Adobe state that Cloud owners would have access to older versions. That needs to be confirmed by them however.

Tom Daigon
PrP / After Effects Editor
http://www.hdshotsandcuts.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxPrG3WUyz8
(Best viewed at 1080P and full screen)
HP Z820 Dual 2687
64GB ram
Dulce DQg2 16TB raid

[Ryan Holmes]

[Jon Hiseman] “When Adobe has upgraded PPro and AE several times will they still open projects 5 years+ old? What do I do if they don’t. “

This is a valid question. I see two possible solutions currently:
(1) Adobe maintains downloads of older versions of its software on the Creative Cloud site for X years (maybe 5 or 10 years?). Then a user who is a Cloud member need only download and install whichever version they need – CS6, CS7, CS8, CS9, etc. This would be helpful for both users who need to open up old projects, or users who just aren’t on the latest and greatest hardware and therefore can’t run the latest version of CS.

(2) We, as users, shift our workflow. So when you finish a project you export out an EDL, XML, or AAF file for future use. If the project needs to be resurrected you load in one of the above file formats, instead of launching a PPRo project file. I would actually recommend this workflow to anyone because there’s no guarantee you’ll even be running Adobe software 5 years from now. I learned this the hard way with FCP. All my old projects are FCP format. When FCP X came out and I decided we weren’t moving over, I launched all my old projects and exported out XML versions to load into any NLE I decided to move to. This is now standard practice for us.

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
@CutColorPost

[Petros Kolyvas]

As far as I can tell an individual account is $70/month per user for us. All three seats are Volume License seats in our shop and I don’t know how the system works if we can convert volume licenses back to individual (non-team) cloud memberships. All our licensing is done through Adobe’s LWS system.

While it seems that Adobe will let us define a user as a workstation, that’s not the language they’re using, since they don’t say “per seat” but rather “Per User” for teams and I can’t seem to find an answer as to what they consider per user. Can all users of a workstation use the applications licensed to a single user, because it’s not at all clear and I’ve read quite a lot of the Cloud for Teams FAQs and question sheets.

And even at a discounted, non-teams price of $30/month, that’s more than we pay now per seat AND if we decide not to upgrade we can still use the software.

—
There is no intuitive interface, not even the nipple. It’s all learned. – Bruce Ediger