[Ron Moody]

How about this for an idea?

Let’s call it Adobe Ubuntu Production Suite.

It’s priced the same as the Windows or OSX versions. It comes bundled with Ubuntu and installs both OS and Suite at the same time on a formatted hard drive. Adobe spec’s out the requirements, half-a-dozen video cards have optimized drivers already installed in the OS. The same is true of audio, motherboard, and hard drives.

The bundle comes with six months of support, after which you pay Adobe, which supports both the OS and the app suite. They only support the range of hardware they specify. Beyond that, you’re on your own. That simplifies support issues for them of course. I’ll bet this would be simpler to support than Vista or XP, for which an infinite variety of Video cards, sound cards, network cards, etc. are all intermixed.

The Production Suite Premium version adds premium versions of specific programs like AfterEffects along with one other perk. There are two one-gig USB thumbs configured with the barebones version of Ubuntu, along with the render engine for AfterEffects. These can be placed in ‘any’ (if bootable by USB) computer on the network to render larger projects. To clarify, you don’t download the software or OS, it runs on the thumb. In fact, you could even forgo drivers for the hard disks to ensure that the client PC’s wouldn’t be changed in any way. Additional thumbs would be available at $49.95 each. Each thumb would be copy protected so you couldn’t dup it. In effect, you could have a short term rendering farm on demand at $50 per PC, but without install and support issues. I suppose AfterEffects could check with Adobe’s registration site to ensure that the thumbs were legal the first time they were used.

I’d buy that suite! I’ll bet many would.

ron

[Ron Moody]

Here’s an idea. Let’s call it Adobe Ubuntu Production Suite.

It’s priced the same as the Windows or OSX versions. It comes bundled with Ubuntu and installs both OS and Suite at the same time on a formatted hard drive. Adobe spec’s out the requirements, half-a-dozen video cards have optimized drivers already installed in the OS. The same is true of audio, motherboard, and hard drives.

The bundle comes with six months of support, after which you pay Adobe, which supports both the OS and the app suite. They only support the range of hardware they specify. Beyond that, you’re on your own. That simplifies support issues for them of course. I’ll bet this would be simpler to support than Vista or XP, for which an infinite variety of Video cards, sound cards, network cards, etc. are all intermixed.

The Production Suite Premium version adds premium versions of specific programs like AfterEffects along with one other perk. There are two one-gig USB thumbs configured with the barebones version of Ubuntu, along with the render engine for AfterEffects. These can be placed in ‘any’ (if bootable by USB) computer on the network to render larger projects. To clarify, you don’t download the software or OS, it runs on the thumb. In fact, you could even forgo drivers for the hard disks to ensure that the client PC’s wouldn’t be changed in any way. Additional thumbs would be available at $49.95 each. Each thumb would be copy protected so you couldn’t dup it. In effect, you could have a short term rendering farm on demand at $50 per PC, but without install and support issues. I suppose AfterEffects could check with Adobe’s registration site to ensure that the thumbs were legal the first time they were used.

I’d buy that suite! I’ll bet many would.

[Ron Moody]

[Ron Lindeboom] “Then, using your own ‘chicken and egg’ argument, I would use one that has applications available — perhaps one like Windows or maybe a Mac?”

Great name, Ron. I do use both Windows and Mac. I’ve been using Premiere on the PC since Win95 and the Miro DC30 card (remember that one?) I’ve been transitioning to the Mac since the beginning of the year. The weekly TV shows still go out on the PC. DVD’s mostly go out through the PC since I know Encore better than DVD studio – for now anyway.

LiveType and Motion on the Mac allow me to add polish to projects quickly and give a different look; a very nice look I might add.

I’m moving to the Mac primarily because of a trend I see over the past several years. Every version of the Windows OS since version 3 has been slower than the previous with the exception of Win2K. Those who migrated from 98 to XP never even saw that exception. (You’re obviously seeing my perspective here – I don’t offer any metrics to back up my opinion, it’s my opinion based on my experience, nothing more.)

It bothered me greatly when Adobe forced me to move to XP with Premiere Pro and the CS line. I know. They had to do it because of improved programming tools in XP that allowed them to turn the new versions of software out faster. At least, that’s the argument that was presented at that time. But I didn’t like being forced to a slower OS when Win2K and Premiere 6.0 rendered the same project twice as fast as PPro on XP.

I haven’t done tests on Vista, but I have read reviews and tests. I don’t care about bells and whistles. Is it stable and is it fast are the two main questions. While it does appear to be stable, it doesn’t appear fast. It seems slower by about the same margins as XP was slower than Win2K.

For that reason, I’ve basically jumped ship from Windows. I’ve lost hope in that product line because I see no trend towards improvement in work throughput using Windows based tools.

When I said “I don’t care…” it came with a qualifier. The qualifier was “as long as it’s stable and fast.” Windows no longer meets that spec in my opinion. That leaves OSX. It’s a great OS and I have no complaints. However, in a free market, everything improves with competition. OSX needs some competition. The only player in the marketplace that can give OSX competition is Linux.

I don’t play with computers, or with operating systems. Once it works, I leave it alone. If I have to tweak it a bit to get it there, fine. But once it’s working, the OS becomes invisible to me. I don’t care what it is once it does its job. When I wait fifteen seconds for my root drive to display files in the file system, that means Windows is no longer invisible.

If Linux can become invisible and allow me to do my work, supporting mainstream apps and making me productive, it becomes a viable alternative.

I believe with ubuntu and the positive trends I see in the Linux marketplace, they have entered the race as a viable alternative.

I do have one frustration with OSX I guess. Quicktime has a built-in limitation that limits its ability to output files to AVI to (Apple says) about five minutes. I’ve been able to output about ten. You can create a 28:30 show in AVI format, but only the first ten minutes of that AVI are usable. My production pipeline relies on dumping AVI files to tape using hardware that does not support Quicktime. That’s a huge problem that at least so far, no-one seems to be addressing. I’m wondering if Adobe has a work-around for their Mac based suite, but they only answer I’ve been able to wrangle from them so far is “We won’t know the specifics of that software until it is actually released.” So if they know, they’re not talking.

Sorry this was so long. But I’m enjoying the thread. Makes you say hmmmmmmmmm.

ron from Maui

[Ron Moody]

It’s chickens and eggs.

The reason xyz developer doesn’t develop for Linux is because Linux only has a 3% market share. Or is it that the reason Linux has a 3% market share is because there aren’t apps that drive, or at least facilitate the move to Linux.

I’m arguing the latter.

I don’t care what OS I use – as long as it’s stable and fast. If however, the OS steals CPU cycles from my app, I’ll use another OS. Both OSX and Linux satisfy the criteria. And ubuntu seems to have addressed the installation and ease of use issues – from what I hear anyway. It’s certainly a good looking interface. If it doesn’t require too much in the way of RAM or CPU cycles.

I’m sold. My money goes further with Linux than with the alternatives. It’s also much easier with Linux to stay on the ‘bleeding edge’ of technology (than OSX) when I can drop in a new motherboard, or a faster CPU, or an eight core (no, this isn’t a rumor).

But you can’t do anything without the applications.

Animation and FX houses have already moved to Linux. What about the ‘rest of us’? I would like the choice.

ron

[Ron Moody]

Personally, I’m tending more toward FCP and the MAC, but with an extensive Premiere background I see one option that no-one has yet mentioned.

Why not invest the $1,200 in a Windows laptop for now (XP if you can, I don’t trust Vista), finish the project on Premiere, then decide whether to stay with Premiere or move to FCP in June when it comes out on the Mac?

Scares me to think of migrating a project mid-edit. Of course, I’ve never done it, but tranitioning from Premiere to FCP has had it’s own share of headaches. For instance, I can’t export any video longer than ten minutes in QT to AVI. Apple says it’s a known issue in QuickTime.

Anyway, my two cents.
ron

[Ron Moody]

Throwing in my 2cents…

Something that hasn’t been addressed is PC mic level input recording quality. I’ve not been satisfied with the quality I get when I take a 58 or similar and go in on the computer’s mic input jack. Generally, the unshielded nature of the inside of the computer generates a lot of noise, and not good noise either.

As a result, I use an external mic preamp and go into the line in. A second option would be to use one of the external usb or firewire devices that digitize the signal outside the PC. A third option would be to use one of the USB mics. I saw a white “Blue Snowball” mic used for a podcast. It sounded great and sells for under $100 on Sweetwater. If I didn’t already have the AKG3000 and the mic pre, that’s the way I likely would have gone. Especially for the money.

rm

[Ron Moody]

News updade…

I poked my head into several (electronic) doors at Adobe trying to get an answer. The most difinitive answer I got from them was that – are you ready?

“CS3 for the Mac is still Beta and so has no official support at this time. We won’t be able to provide you with answers until Premiere CS3 for the Mac becomes an actual product. You can try again with your question at that time.”

I just hope it’s not too late at that point. If the product doesn’t meet the needs of the people who Adobe wants to buy the product, then who, I wonder, will stand in line to give them money?

While Premiere has gotten better in the fifteen or twenty years I’ve been using it, still, it isn’t anywhere near what Photoshop and AfterEffects have become. I wish Adobe the best, I just hope this isn’t it.

RM

[Ron Moody]

I take my dvd of the preaching portion of the service and pop it into a mac. Instant handbrake provides a one stop and super quick conversion from the source DVD to Ipod or podcast compatible video. From that point, I just move it to the server along with the xml file. It’s pretty painless.

Ron from Maui

[Ron Moody]

I use audition for two primary things (and it does both extremely well).

First, I use it as a tool to turn music from a CD into tracks to lie under a 30 second spot. To do that, I need to capture from CD, mark edit points, cut and paste together pieces to form a seamless 30 second track. So the elements I need are markers (f8 or * in Audition), capture from CD, cut and paste either to existing or a new track with undo.

Second, I use Audition to create simple spots with the track I just finished making on one layer, and a voice over on a second layer. I’ve used Sony’s 2 track software to do this but it makes it a LOT harder than even the simplest multi track. So I’d have to say that a ‘must have’ is at least room for two layers of audio with fade in/out and effects on both. The way Audition does it to go to the individual track for editing (after a double click in multi-track) is so easy and quick, it makes me look good every time.

I use compression, lately using multi-band to great benefit, envelopes to adjust level, eq (with savable settings), normalization, and mixdown to two track stereo.

That’s what I need. Will you give it to me? That’s a long way from the full power of Audition, but it’s the bare minimum of what I need. At this point, I don’t think your new program will give me even this stripped down capability. But it IS what I need, at the very least.

I have a hunch. When Adobe had such a hard time with Audition 2.0, I think somebody made a choice. The choice was that it would be much easier to create a stripped down, cross platform program from scratch than to fix Audition, and port it to Vista and OSX. That’s not the slant they pasted on the introduction of course, but I’ll bet it’s pretty close to the truth.

If I had a wish…
I would wish that Premiere, Audition or whatever, and Encore would be given the same development muscle as Photoshop Illustrator, and After Effects have. These three are leaders in their respective fields. Premiere is getting better, but it’s still trying its hardest just to catch up. Audition appears to have been swapped for a stripped down clone, and Encore isn’t even in the game. At this point I would swap some of the works well together capability of the suite for just ‘works well’. Especially Encore.

‘Bet you wish you hadn’t asked. I use this stuff every day. I’m back to Premiere 1.5 because Adobe (despite numerous re-installs) hasn’t been able to get Premiere 2 to work correctly again. It started acting wierd about six months ago. A guy in these forums was having the exact same trouble as me about a week ago. It made me feel like I wasn’t alone.

Trimming an in or out point in Encore takes minutes of waiting on the computer while there is no indicaiton of anything happening, until the cursor returns. Premiere doesn’t act that way on 30 minute files. Encore is a program DESIGNED to work with large files, at least in theory, but it doesn’t do it well in reality. It’s nice that it works well with Photoshop and After Effects. I just wish that it worked well on its own.

‘Bet you think twice before asking for suggestions again.

Ron from Maui

[Ron Moody]

I don’t mean to take over this thread since I didn’t start it, but since the original poster hasn’t responded, I will.

In my application, no, I was not using wmv or 24 frame. I was doing plain old production, as generic as it gets. One day, my computer stopped giving me clean overlays. It was most noticible on scrolls, but when you look close, you could see jerky video under all overlays (not just titles). Basically anything that had to be rendered was no longer usable.

I re-installed PP2, did everything support said to do, until they finally told me, well, it’s not Premiere. It must be your hardware.

That’s why, when I see the same problem cropping up elsewhere, I wonder if Adobe might catch on that they might have a problem here. It’s not just me.

My solution; go back to version 1.5. Oh well, at least things are much better than in the ninetys when I had to chop my 29:30 show into four pieces since FAT would allow a max 1 gig file size. We’ve come a long ways.

Maybe at some point, Premiere will be an industry leader like Photoshop, Illustrator, and AfterEffects.

ron from maui