I couldn’t believe my eyes….

[Josh Townsend]

CS4 is a huge disappointment. Premiere screwed a lot of regular editors so its timeline could be file agnostic.

[Eric Addison]

A huge disappointment? Come on – that’s a bit of an over statement. Everyone is entitled to their opinions, but I have to disagree with that. I think it’s a great version.

I’m curious to know how you think it’s “…screwed a lot of regular editors…”? I know you have an issue with the current (and temporary) way it handles 24P footage, but outside that what do you base that opinion on?

—Eric

[Josh Townsend]

No AAF, no single click save stills, no more stream hinting, HDV and AVCHD synch problems, Track Matte effect doesn’t work, Media browser doesn’t preview 24p correctly, XML to Final Cut doesn’t work, no OMF, no edit with Audition, no 3rd party codecs anymore and those are just the obvious things.

I could go on. We now have crash reports, what’s next service pack releases.

I’m also disappointing that Adobe never said that certain feature don’t work until there is an update. And they didn’t release a trial till the software had been out for a month. (if they had released a trial they wouldn’t have sold nearly as many copies, I wouldn’t have bought one)
https://www.mbsdirect.com/current/News/Video-Production-News/adobe-cs4-production-premium.html

Here’s what I mean about Adobe screwing filmmakers.
All the workflow issues have to do with Adobe wanting their timeline to handle various types of footage. So a filmmaker who works in 24p and doen’t mix formats has to go ‘Interpret Footage’ so people who mix footage don’t have to ‘Interpret Footage’.

In CS4 AE you can’t lasso the clips and Interpret them all at once.

[Eric Addison]

As for the lack off AAF support in the release version, I would rather them leave out a feature that’s still being improved, then include one that half works. And was there ever a version that had “single click save stills” – as far back as I remember (Premiere 5),it’s always been a few clicks to save stills.

I haven’t seen any HDV or AVCHD sync issues, but to be fair, I haven’t had any projects using that footage since CS4 came out. CS3 had some HDV issues, and from what little I’ve played with in CS4 regarding HDV, all seems well. I read the soon to be released patch will include some HDV improvements. And as for AVCHD, it’s a beast of a format to edit with. I’ve found that on my workstation it plays back pretty well, with an occassional little hiccup. I’ve read that some people are having no problems with it at all, so maybe it’s just a system thing.

XML to Final cut doesn’t work because it wasn’t included in the intial release…it’ll be included in the new patch, as will OMF and Edit to Audition. Again, I’m glad Adobe waited to get these features right, rather then rush them out full of bugs, just to meet the release deadline. If they had done that, you’d probably be complaining about how they don’t work as well.

As I said in the previous post, the 24p issue, in my mind is a little one. It will work as it used to, but for now, a couple extra mouse clicks isn’t going to kill me.

I’ve been using CS4 for almost a month now, and I’ve done quite a few projects with it, all with no problems. And the fact that Adobe is getting a patch out a month or so after release is pretty good – they aren’t usually that fast.

—Eric

[Josh Townsend]

They shouldn’t advertise these features if there not available when you buy them. They aren’t RED and don’t have the disclaimer.

What makes CS4 such an improvement over CS3. I can’t render or edit any faster than I could in CS3 and stuff that was in CS3 just isn’t there.

BTW In CS3 it was export-still-OK. And for those of us with P2 cards the export-audio-OK was hell of a short cut. Now you have to open AME each time. Even After Effects CS4 still has this feature.

quad core 9550 Oc’d 3.7, 4 gigs ddr2 1066, vista 32.

[Jon Barrie]

Hi Josh. I hear your dissapointments. This first version of CS4 had to pull some features and will be releasing the update bringing them back AAF – and adding some more OMF, FCP XML import. The update is very close. Adobe have stated that they felt they should pull the bits that worked on most workstations and bring them back in the first update. They knew it would take a hit. Red support is in Last stage internal beta before it goes to public beta very soon.
My experiences with CS4 has been mixed, but overall I start working on an edit in CS3 and find myself wanting the little subtle workflow updates from CS4. I feel it’s better for me and I can’t wait for the update.

Jon Barrie
aJBprods
http://www.jonbarrie.net

[Errol Wright]

I am going to be starting a project soon and had hoped to use Premiere CS3, as that is what they currently have. The last time I used Premiere (Pro 1.5)it didn’t have an OMF option, and it sounds like CS3 doesn’t either! This was a disaster last time as the post sound people that we deal with use pro-tools, and back then there was no way to export an OMF, I see that AutomaticDuck don’t even do plugins for this anymore… I really thought this would have been addressed by now, yikes! Back then I thought I should abandon ship for this reason alone. Good grief. Will the OMF patch work on CS3 does anyone know, I haven’t used it yet.

[Eric Addison]

You’ll only find OMF support in CS4.

—Eric

[Jeff Adams]

Man, i’m excited to edit AVCHD in premiere cs4!!! i hope that I can. I have an awesome system, very powerful. so, i don’t expect any system problems. I just hope that I can actually edit the AVCHD from my Sony HDR SR1’s. Let me know if you have actually edited AVCHD in PP4 and how well it does!!!