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Which networks use Premiere Pro?
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Adobe no-doubtedly has a good business plan and certainly makes great products (Photoshop, Illustrator). However, my guess is that the reason Premiere Pro hasn’t made it to the top is due to its lack of basic editing features. Adobe Marketing may want to advertise only the big features (multi-cam, clip-notes), but very few people appreciate the little things or tweaks the software adds.
As an aside:
I was watching a commercial on the local FOX affiliate and a few of the lower thirds were directly from the Premiere’s template designer. 🙂 -
[stylz] “To even suggest that your seemingly well educated guesses at adobe’s marketing plan or lack there of is spot on is probably far off.”
You know, I think you have a point there, but don’t blame us for being curious about the intentions of the corporations whose products affect our investments and livelihood. Whenever I hear a stock market report about Sony, for example, my ears perk up — and recently it struck me that the Sony products that matter most to me weren’t even mentioned by most of the financial analysts.
Why raise the issue when the answer seems to be so elusive? As someone who invested a good deal in the EOLed discreet edit*, I think it is a good idea to know as much as I can about the corporate strategy of a supplier. That’s why I’d like to see a pie chart of how much FCP matters to Apple, PP to Adobe, etc.
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“Adobe no-doubtedly has a good business plan and certainly makes great products (Photoshop, Illustrator). However, my guess is that the reason Premiere Pro hasn’t made it to the top is due to its lack of basic editing features.”
Yes, You got it right.
For me is more important a very good Media Management than Multicam. I’ve managed to improvise workarounds for Multicam for Years, but there is no workaround for a weak Media management.
Another example, the ability to Lock/unlock the layers from Keyboard shorcuts is something more appealing to me than, let’s say, Lighting effects, which I use ocassionaly.
And, I use Knoll light factory for that kind of effects.
But I lock/unlock layers A LOT. Everyday, Everytime.
I really hate to use the mouse for that.
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[Redgum] “I think Adobe simply lacks a good business plan and a clear line of deliniation between techheads and marketers. It won’t be the first or last company to suffer this problem. A recent example of this would be Canopus who were technically adept but hopeless in marketing. Grass Valley realised this and gobbled them up. Maybe Adobe will suffer the same fate, is Apple watching?”
I doubt Apple is large enough to seriously consider buying Adobe outright…and the two companies have not had much of a co-existence the last 3-4 years that would lead to a logical merger, particularly since such a large portion of Adobe’s income stems from PC software sales…something Apple has squashed with every software acquisition they’ve made, and I would think that an Apple acquisition of Adobe would make far less fiscal sense if they wouldn’t keep Adobe’s cash machine running at full capacity.
I think Adobe has a very good idea what is marketing and what is technology…and the marketing side usually wins. This talk of what PPro lacks in media management has been at least 50% based on an offline-online workflow from what I’ve been reading in this forum anyway. Adobe doesn’t recapture/proxy edit/edit in SD-recapture HD for conform…etc, etc, etc. While I’m not saying that’s illegitimate if that’s the workflow you need…many completely legitimate professionals don’t offline anymore. Even HD, with the affordability of harddrive space, just isn’t that expensive to store.
Avid is great with media management…inside the software, true. But I have sat in edit suites waiting for footage to be exported so it could be used in AE because the media files aren’t trackable in an Explorer or Desktop window. I have a friend who has to bounce out to ProTools to get precise lip syncing or remove a pop because his Avid doesn’t edit audio sub-frame (I don’t know if newer, bigger Avids do that now or not), Avid-branded media drives remain intensively expensive relative to going rates for harddrive space in general…
So, while Avid may be the model for many workflows, it isn’t for all workflows. It still drives like a CMX compared to Ppro, which acts more like computer software…which will be a selling point…until all of us who can even remember what a CMX was are dead…
Apple has a good product in FCP and there is no doubt that chasing Avid right into its backyard was the goal. They’ve done that well. FCP is not without its idiosyncracies either however…
Use what you need. If you need an Avid, cough up the cash, buy it, and start working with it. If you like FCP because you can’t afford Avid, or just want an upgraded interface…great, buy that dual G5 and rock and roll.
If PPro does what you need and you like the interface and like the integration with Adobe’s other products, I don’t think there’s any reason you should apologize. How many networks are using it? I don’t know. Since I’m not a network, I don’t care. Those of you who do work for networks…that would be a concern. (An individual from CBS did approach me at NAB last year who had some Premiere Pro stations he had questions about, but I didn’t get the impression the house ran on Adobe, no…)
The last I heard, the Discovery Channel, and any networks I knew of had requirements for tape format and signal specs, but I didn’t see anything about software used.
The rest of the media management issues are legit…re-linking still isn’t where I’d like it to be…shared network assets can’t be accessed by multiple users, etc. However, I would urge thos of you concerned about Adobe’s future to rest easy. No matter whether they make an editing tool that’s exactly what you need or how many high end users find PPro a “non-starter”…it sells and sells well. They’ll squeak by over in San Jose.
As I’ve said many times…there is no one workflow anymore. In the days where every single edit bay was manned by tape-to-tape trained editors and was transitioning from a tape-based model and harddrives cost 500-700 bucks per Gig, we were all using a similar workflow. These days, that just isn’t true.
If it doesn’t work for you…that’s legitimate. Proclaiming a company’s doom because they don’t make the product you personally want for your particular workflow…that’s probably a stretch.
TimK,
Kolb Productions,
Creative Cow Host,
Author/Trainer
http://www.focalpress.com
http://www.classondemand.net -
Amen to this post.
Even if Premiere Pro is for a lower-end market, it makes no sense to me why their media management is so weak.
A guy doing a wedding video – he’s captured 13 hours of DV footage, and has 300 photographs, and 77 lower thirds to put up for guests, members of the party and family dogs.
You don’t think he wants some decent media management? He puts a feature film to shame!
And the PPro media management is very, very weak. They’re like, OK letsee, folders? Oh cool. and you can hopefully find something if you’re lucky. But you can only find one thing at a time. Search and put results into one bin? You wish! God help you if you didn’t fully prepare your capturing and your bins before you started the job.
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Don’t forget there are also broadcast professionals in this forum, me included! Trust us, we know what we’re talking about.
It’s very common for companies in this sector to have a marketing department that are totally incapable of understanding the consumer’s needs. Having a degree in marketing means absolutely nothing to professionals using the equipment.
Marketing hype is seen by many in the industry as a joke and reflects the marketing types total lack of knowledge. There are a great number of technical R&D staff that see their brilliant ideas ruined by the company’s marketing department.
In the professional markets the buyers aren’t fools.
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Tim siad…
“If it doesn’t work for you…that’s legitimate. Proclaiming a company’s doom because they don’t make the product you personally want for your particular workflow…that’s probably a stretch.”In that context you’re right Tim but I don’t think the word “doom” is correct. Acquisitions/takeovers/buyouts are a fact of life and almost a certainty in the corporate life cycle. Those companies that pick up quickly on client needs are the ones that prosper and you only need to look through the top 500 international corporations to see that. Successful companies are those that recognise a market early and design or acquire the appropriate assets to capture that trend. Conversley, an organisation that fails to recognise a specific market, particularly through its own database, becomes vunerable or redundant.
My gut feeling from the response to Adobe’s recent upgrade probably is more toward disappointment. Users have an expectation that some of their needs will be met. I expect many users will feel they have been hoodwinked by Adobe in the sense that many of the so called features are cosmetic plus the debacle over packaging and pricing was a little unkind or unprofessional.
Management at Adobe should be rubbing their hands together with glee to the responses from users on this website. A very inexpensive way to gauge client feedback. They’re just lucky this isn’t a shareholders forum or some very senior staff may well be looking for alternative occupations.
Redgum Television Productions
Broadcast & Corporate Documentaries
Brisbane, Australia -
I couldn’t agree more!
Adobe have both their own forums and the highly regarded Cow to get a feeling on what users really think. Instead they seem to ignore the comments and issues people raise, put up the barriers and do their own thing, no doubt based on the same flawed marketing types and their surveys.
There are a whole pile of professional editors out here that follow the time-honoured path of NLE willing to input advice to Adobe but they just don’t want to listen and provide next to no means of interacting with them. For that reason many have given up and moved to Avid. I’m sure there are also a large number waiting for FCP to be ported to the Intel platform. It is this group that Adobe need to start listening to if they’re genuine about the the professional market.
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Hi Redgum,
(If you select text in the post you want to quote and type “Q”, it will automatically quote and footnote the selected text in your response…a timesaver.)
I think that there are two issues here.
1. PPro 2 is not a good upgrade.
My response would be if Premiere 5.0 didn’t put Adobe out of business, certainly PPro 2 can’t. PPro 2 has so much below the surface in plumbing and integration that unfortunately, it just doesn’t register with most users. A large part of this upgrade is the links and hooks between the apps. This was a very involved process and it has taken a long time. The “Gee Whiz” features aren’t all that numerous but the foundation put together with the connection between the apps sets up a new direction entirely.
2. PPro 2 being not received well will bring Adobe down as a company.
Ppro is not the largest product Adobe has on the revenue scale…I doubt it’s in the top three. Even if PPro 2 does prove to be less than a hot seller, Adobe will not start reeling. Also, with the bundles being the largest portion of the units going out, the weight of the collection of apps will be what ultimately determines the sales performance.
It’s a little early to tell. I don’t see a lot of difference between the reactions to PPro v1, v1.5 and v2…PPro 1 was received a bit better because it was SUCH a huge change and most didn’t have the grasp on the software soon enough to feel like critiquing it…though I just had an exchange with someone on this forum regarding how “Premiere 6.5 handled audio so much better…” so everyone’s perception is different. The main gripe with v1.5 was that it was so SOON after v1 that Adobe was being greedy and taking everyone’s money…though there were many very obvious user-oriented upgrades there. Now with v2, I’m hearing how after so LONG…that this upgrade isn’t nearly what it should be.
Bottom line: No matter what Adobe does, some group of users will be ticked off. No matter if you’re at the grocery store or at a family holiday gathering…not everybody will be happy. I’m simply not phased by the complaints. For all of this to have major implications for Adobe, the number of complaints isn’t nearly as important as the number of complainers. Anecdotally, if you count complaint-posts on this forum, you get a high number. If you count how many people are doing the complaining…not such a high number.
Again…if it’s not what you want, fine. Don’t buy it. Some of these complaints are certainly legitimate for certain workflows…and some of them apply to the majority of workflows…I’m not saying the complaints aren’t warranted…
…But I started editing on deck-to-deck systems. My first Umatic cuts system cost 12K USD. I could cut.
…After several cuts and A/B deck systems, I bought Media 100s…I needed two. For about 46K USD a piece, I got Power Macs with 96 MB of RAM, a 1 Gig system drive, a 2x CD-ROM player, and 36 Gigs of external media storage in 4 enclosures. I couldn’t believe how great non-linear was…
…The Media 100s are both sitting in a corner now and I have 3 PPro systems, one Laptop DV/HDV, one DV, and one HDSDI. I don’t have 15K USD in my HDSDI system with dual Opteron Processors and 4 Gigs of RAM. I can do stuff with PPro/AE/Photoshop/Audition that I could only dream about with our 46K M100s (and a 1600.00 USD version of AE…) and a very expensive Pro Tools Suite…
…so I guess that might be the reason I just don’t see how terrible things are.
Again, certain workflows just simply can’t use PPro because of feature gaps…that’s legit. But for most users, the Production Studio’s capabilities are frankly far beyond anything they’ll ever use to capacity.
TimK,
Kolb Productions,
Creative Cow Host,
Author/Trainer
http://www.focalpress.com
http://www.classondemand.net -
[R. Hewitt] “There are a whole pile of professional editors out here that follow the time-honoured path of NLE willing to input advice to Adobe but they just don’t want to listen and provide next to no means of interacting with them. For that reason many have given up and moved to Avid. I’m sure there are also a large number waiting for FCP to be ported to the Intel platform. It is this group that Adobe need to start listening to if they’re genuine about the the professional market.”
Apparently you assume since they don’t talk with you that they don’t talk to professional editors?
That’s just simply silly.
Avid has it’s place…but I suspect the biggest seat unit/sales per annum gain Avid has had in the last five years was buying Pinnacle. FCP is certainly eating Avid’s lunch faster than any other competitive NLE, but Avid was taking a nap when the value proposition in the industry was changing radically.
Just because Premiere Pro doesn’t speak to Avid editors…I’m not sure that that’s a death sentence at all. But I don’t know how many users PPro is losing to Avids…probably not as many as Avid is losing in the other direction, but certainly FCP is taking more Avid users away than PPro is, no doubt.
I’m not saying Avid is a bad system…I’m saying that te industry has a far more diverse set of workflows than the one Avid is set up for…and PPro doesn’t have to be an Avid to sell.
TimK,
Kolb Productions,
Creative Cow Host,
Author/Trainer
http://www.focalpress.com
http://www.classondemand.net
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