If I thought the switch was inevitable…

[Oliver Peters]

It’s too early to tell as to whether you NEED to switch. The CS package is always a good toolkit to have, regardless. CS5.5 is powerful, so there’s no reason not to buy it on discount and then pay the upgrade from CS5.5 to CS6 whenever it becomes available.

As far as a switch, the two best options would be either Adobe or Avid depending on the market and post niche you are in – IF you are inclined to make a change at all.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Bret Williams]

Usually upgrade is less than 50%. Why not just browse adobes store and see what their current upgrade pricing is from 4.5 to 5.5.

[Bobby Mosca]

Bret: I have. The upgrade that’s up there right now is $399, but since they’re running such a big discount I wasn’t sure if the upgrade was also marked down. I don’t venture there often enough to know their usual pricing.

Oliver: You’re right, it may not be a matter of switching as much as having more robust options when I need them. The quick jobs will likely stay on FCPX, while the more complete ones may need to be done elsewhere. That’s one thing they got completely wrong if you ask me. The idea of First Cut was a really good one, and may be what X becomes for a lot of people. They could still bring it up to par, but we’ll see.

[Lance Bachelder]

Adobe’s upgrade pricing is easily the most painful in the industry. We’re only 7 weeks from NAB – it would suck to take advantage of the 50% deal and then have to pay again for 6. 5.5 was such a minor upgrade from 5 and should have been done as a free update since really only Premiere Pro and After Effects got minor changes. They added some codecs and stabilizer and charged for FULL upgrade! Apps Of course they added Audition back to the box but it was there originally. Apple didn’t up the price when they added Color to the Studio – they threw it in for free! Apple just added multi cam for free! Adobe would have waited until NAB and charged for it!

Lance Bachelder
Writer, Editor, Director
Irvine, California

[Walter Soyka]

[Lance Bachelder] “After Effects got minor changes. They added some codecs and stabilizer and charged for FULL upgrade! “

AE CS5.5 added codecs and the Warp Stabilizer (which is very impressive), as you said, but they also added a vastly improved DoF system / Camera Lens Blur effect, lighting fall-off, much improved timecode support, some stereoscopic features, significantly improved disk caching, and integration with Audition.

Warp Stabilizer was certainly the sexy new feature, but I was happy to see these other much-needed incremental improvements, and I felt the upgrade was worthwhile for my work.

It may look better on the “What’s New” page when an application has a ton of exciting new features, but improving the little things is important too, and I wish more developers would do that.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Shawn Miller]

“Adobe’s upgrade pricing is easily the most painful in the industry.”

I disagree, I think Adobe is easily the least expensive and highest value package on the market. For $1,600.00 you get AE, PPro, Photoshop Illustrator, Flash, Encore, Audition and a few other applications. If you own a previous version of the CS Suite, I think the upgrade price starts at $900 and goes down to $400 or so. Or you can upgrade from a single (CSx) application (Premiere, After Effects, etc) to the entire Production Premium Suite for about $1,000, I believe… going from one application to 10+. Of course, the perceived value of the CS Suite completely depends on how many of these tools are useful to you, but if you use any two of them on a regular basis, then the suite is a steal (IMO).

Comparing upgrade pricing from Avid, Sony, NextLimit, Autodesk, Eye-On, Maxon, SideFX or The Foundry to Adobe, puts Adobe in a different light.

Thanks,

Shawn

[Lance Bachelder]

I agree the Adobe bundle is a great value. But if you upgraded early from CS5 to 5.5 your upgrade was around 34% of the full price. If you waited the upgrade went to almost 50% of full price. Of course they have a great sale right now so upgrade is around 25% of full price.

If you upgrade right now from Media Composer 5.5 to 6 (a MAJOR update!) the upgrade is about 12% of the full price!

Nuff said…

Lance Bachelder
Writer, Editor, Director
Irvine, California

[Shawn Miller]

“If you upgrade right now from Media Composer 5.5 to 6 (a MAJOR update!) the upgrade is about 12% of the full price!”

Yes, for JUST Media Composer. If you upgrade JUST Premiere Pro to CS5.5, it starts around $400 and goes down to $200 or so, depending on what version you’re upgrading from. The MC upgrade may be 12% of the full price, but in actual numbers, it’s about the same as upgrading the entire Adobe Suite.

You’re comparing upgrade pricing of a single application (Avid MC) to an entire Suite (Adobe PP CS5.5). Again, the real value of either offering depends completely what you need the tools to do.

Thanks,

Shawn

[Tim Wilson]

Adobe is clearly doing what they can to gather steam right now. You don’t have to look too far to see that there are some heavy new features coming, including the Adobification of SpeedGrade.

I think it’s worth rolling the dice that if you crossgrade now that you won’t be hosed by a new release in a month. My experience as a corporate weasel at Boris and Avid tells me that upgrades within a few months are treated differently than upgrading software from a year or more ago.

I also think it’s conceivable that Adobe will be looking to make an especially good impression on new customers who showed up because their last vendor hosed them.

Just a guess, speaking strictly as an Adobe customer and former software guy, and not in any official COW-pacity.

[Timothy Auld]

I personally have rolled the dice in four different directions. I’m not entirely sure that I had any other options. As far as FCPX is concerned, at its present price point I’ll try it if I have an even an inkling that it will work for me. As long as I’m still on the Mac platform. That window (no pun intended) is closing rapidly.

Tim