7/11, not 9/11

[Harm Millaard]

By the way, has anyone confirmed that if your subscriptions ends, you can no longer open up the programs, or that you just simply can't get updates? You do download the program to your computer. Wouldn't something like this fix everyone's woes?

I have used a complimentary subscription from Adobe for CC for several months. It ended a couple of weeks ago. You know of course that there is no backward compatibility between versions, so trying to open any CC application now results first in:

Renew your Subscription and if you don't it ends there.

You simply cannot access your projects and you can't use CS6, because it comes up with the message: The project was saved in a newer version of Adobe Premiere Pro and cannot be opened in this version.

I still have a one year complimentary subscription to CC lying around, but I have not yet redeemed it, since I know there is no going back and I need Encore, which I have under CS6. However, even though my first subscription to CC ended some weeks ago, I left everything installed, with the exception of Acrobat XI, which I removed and replaced with Acrobat X from my MC CS6 and much to my surprise, CC allowed the installation of 14 bug releases for various programs just yesterday.

So, even without a valid subscription, you can install the latest updates, only not use them.

I do agree with you that for a lot of people it may be more convenient to cough up $ 50 a month than $ 600 in one lump sum, but that is not really the issue here. It is the lack of an exit strategy.

With CS6 you have a perpetual license to use it indefinitely. You have paid the price and can use it even in 5 years time, when someone asks you to modify the old project and maybe add some new material. With CC you may get the same request, but by then you will have paid 60 months @ $ 50 or $ 3000 and need to renew your annual subscription for another year, just to be able to handle that request. Now this is under the assumption that Adobe does not increase the monthly rent in price in the next 5 years and we all know that is extremely unlikely.

If the price of a subscription is raised by Adobe, they will inform you. That is all. You can then decide to not renew your subscription, but where does that leave you? Without access to your own material!!! You have no option at all but to grudgingly accept this price increase, even if it were to go from $ 50 to $ 200 per month. Given the respect and consideration of Adobe for their customers they have shown recently, this is one of my major worries.

Now, things would be completely different if there were an exit strategy, something in the tune of:

Your subscription will end by the 1st of mm/yyyy. You can renew your subscription for one year at a monthly rate of $ xx and continue to profit from regular updates of our software, or you can stop your subscription and buy a perpetual license at the current software versions for a sum of $ yy, so you can continue using our software to access your own material.

That issue has been discussed extensively on various fora, most notably of course on the Adobe fora, it has been discussed internally with Adobe management, but while the technical people at Adobe do understand the objections, the management of Adobe acts deaf, dumb and blind.

With the large influx of new Adobe users, as demonstrated by all the noob questions on the Adobe fora, I wonder how many have been lured by the attractive first year pricing, but are in for an unpleasant surprise after this first year or when Adobe raises the rental price. One year from now we will see how many stay on-board and how many will leave.

You have probably seen several interviews with the CEO of Adobe, and he really is the ultimate political marketeer, uttering meaningless phrases but saying nothing and obfuscating all issues raised with vague words that mean absolutely nothing. The track record of Adobe has been severely damaged by recent actions, without considerations for their client base. Examples, one year release cycles, the abolition of perpetual licenses, the scrapping of Encore, the lack of backward compatibility to CS6, the lackluster attention to bug releases, the number of deferrals of bugs, etc.

I'm very disappointed in the direction Adobe is taking now, the complete disregard of client wishes. I do hope they will improve, but am not very optimistic. Maybe Edius or Avid will turn out to be better options.

[Sareesh Sudhakaran]

Originally Posted by Harm Millaard

I feel I would be crazy to start renting now, to be completely handcuffed by Adobe and having no exit from it.

You'll have the same 'exit' as you have now, Harm. You can always export to XML, EDLs or AAF hoping for the worst. In fact, Adobe Premiere Pro gives you the greatest export options, second to none. Try comparing that to an Avid or FCP-X or Smoke.

I do not attach much value to the Marketing claims that the software will be updated much quicker than in the past. Adobe CC still has bugs, dating back from CS5 and CS5.5 that have been postponed to somewhere in the future, but are still not solved.

I have found Premiere Pro and AE have frequent updates, too frequent in my opinion. The bugs don't stop me from working, and every software has bugs.

Except for FCP-X (I don't know about Edius), every software has 'baggage' from the old days. Avid being the worst culprit.

There is no performance improvement in CC over CS6

OpenCL is one improvement for AMD GPU users. Other than that, there hasn't been any revolutionary hardware improvement either, nor a software improvement from other developers - it would seem most of the focus is on the smartphone and table sector, with cries of the death of the PC sounding everywhere.

Regarding program errors or hangs, I don't see the same problem, though our usage scenario and workflow might be different.

Adobe has decided, in their infinite wisdom, that DVD and BR is dead, so they pulled Encore, which I use on a daily basis.

I agree with you here. It was a stupid decision to remove Encore. They could have at least 'let it be'. However, being a major developer with a worldwide market, the numbers may have warranted the call. Maybe Adobe is trying to tell us something, just like Red did when the Red One was launched.

[Harm Millaard]

You'll have the same 'exit' as you have now, Harm. You can always export to XML, EDLs or AAF hoping for the worst. In fact, Adobe Premiere Pro gives you the greatest export options, second to none. Try comparing that to an Avid or FCP-X or Smoke.

Except that does not work for me with the plug-ins I use and second it bypasses several effects that were changed between CS6 and CC, so any export is severely hampered. Not to mention that several of these plug-ins need to be bought again for CC use, adding to the tab, like the Minnetonka Surcode plug-in at $ 100.

I have found Premiere Pro and AE have frequent updates, too frequent in my opinion. The bugs don't stop me from working, and every software has bugs.

That is correct, but the only thing that made an appearance are bugs fixes, that were deferred to a later date, that should have been fixed in the beta stage. That is why I call CC a RR, not a Rolls Royce, but a Rush Release that did not work to start with. I have never been able to properly test one of our benchmark time-lines until the first bug release of CC, because every version prior to that, including the first official release of CC was broken. I still have plain program halted errors on bugs that exist since CS5.5 that have been deferred indefinitely. Not exactly a trust inspiring situation I think.

I still see the same caching problems that were introduced with CS6 that were not around in CS5 or CS5.5 that were never solved. I still see the anomalies between Direct Export and AME, that triple export times, etc.

As to the baggage included in the installation, that is something I complained about since CS5 and I have offered a solution in terms of a common depository for all the legalese documents and EULA's limited to only the relevant languages like OS, keyboard, location and Adobe version languages. As - for example - a US citizen, located in the US, using Windows US and the US/English version of CC, what the f*ck should I do with EULA's in Afghan, Arabic, Armenian, Bulgarian, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Korean, Latvian, Norwegian, Rumanian, Russian, Swedish, Taiwanese, Turkish, etc. that are replicated for each and every CC application, 22 by my count?

[Sareesh Sudhakaran]

Originally Posted by Harm Millaard

Except that does not work for me with the plug-ins I use and second it bypasses several effects that were changed between CS6 and CC, so any export is severely hampered. Not to mention that several of these plug-ins need to be bought again for CC use, adding to the tab, like the Minnetonka Surcode plug-in at $ 100.

Even without third-party plug-ins the effects are hardly ported over. Even if they are, they're 99% not the same algorithm. Compared to an Avid exit strategy, Adobe looks like a walk in the park!

I still see the same caching problems that were introduced with CS6 that were not around in CS5 or CS5.5 that were never solved. I still see the anomalies between Direct Export and AME, that triple export times, etc.

I've heard somewhere that Adobe has increased the importance of AME to 'force' everyone to adopt it. I could be wrong, but it looks like it has more codecs and better features. Are the triple export times on AME or direct export? Also, is the direct export from Premiere Pro or AE or Speedgrade?

[Harm Millaard]

See Latest News where it is spelled out.

[Sareesh Sudhakaran]

It's only for MPEG-2 DVD, a dying standard - maybe they knew they were going to kill off Encore when they coded CS6.

I couldn't find the AME vs Direct comparison. And I am not authorized to view the results.

[Harm Millaard]

You have to register and login to view the results. It is free. You don't need a subscription yet. The severe limitations of the caching used relate to MPEG2-DVD and Disk I/O equally. It doesn't show in the H.264-BR test, because the export file size is too small to notice the disk I/O limitations and there is no CUDA support for frame blending and rescaling like the MPEG test, so it is a pure CPU test. I could try to modify the H.264-BR test to see if the same bug plagues this time-line with nested sequences of which one is reversed and only shows as black screen as it does in the MPEG test

[Todd Clark]

Originally Posted by Harm Millaard

I have used a complimentary subscription from Adobe for CC for several months. It ended a couple of weeks ago. You know of course that there is no backward compatibility between versions, so trying to open any CC application now results first in:

Renew your Subscription and if you don't it ends there.

You simply cannot access your projects and you can't use CS6, because it comes up with the message: The project was saved in a newer version of Adobe Premiere Pro and cannot be opened in this version.

I still have a one year complimentary subscription to CC lying around, but I have not yet redeemed it, since I know there is no going back and I need Encore, which I have under CS6. However, even though my first subscription to CC ended some weeks ago, I left everything installed, with the exception of Acrobat XI, which I removed and replaced with Acrobat X from my MC CS6 and much to my surprise, CC allowed the installation of 14 bug releases for various programs just yesterday.

So, even without a valid subscription, you can install the latest updates, only not use them.

I do agree with you that for a lot of people it may be more convenient to cough up $ 50 a month than $ 600 in one lump sum, but that is not really the issue here. It is the lack of an exit strategy.

With CS6 you have a perpetual license to use it indefinitely. You have paid the price and can use it even in 5 years time, when someone asks you to modify the old project and maybe add some new material. With CC you may get the same request, but by then you will have paid 60 months @ $ 50 or $ 3000 and need to renew your annual subscription for another year, just to be able to handle that request. Now this is under the assumption that Adobe does not increase the monthly rent in price in the next 5 years and we all know that is extremely unlikely.

If the price of a subscription is raised by Adobe, they will inform you. That is all. You can then decide to not renew your subscription, but where does that leave you? Without access to your own material!!! You have no option at all but to grudgingly accept this price increase, even if it were to go from $ 50 to $ 200 per month. Given the respect and consideration of Adobe for their customers they have shown recently, this is one of my major worries.

Now, things would be completely different if there were an exit strategy, something in the tune of:

Your subscription will end by the 1st of mm/yyyy. You can renew your subscription for one year at a monthly rate of $ xx and continue to profit from regular updates of our software, or you can stop your subscription and buy a perpetual license at the current software versions for a sum of $ yy, so you can continue using our software to access your own material.

That issue has been discussed extensively on various fora, most notably of course on the Adobe fora, it has been discussed internally with Adobe management, but while the technical people at Adobe do understand the objections, the management of Adobe acts deaf, dumb and blind.

With the large influx of new Adobe users, as demonstrated by all the noob questions on the Adobe fora, I wonder how many have been lured by the attractive first year pricing, but are in for an unpleasant surprise after this first year or when Adobe raises the rental price. One year from now we will see how many stay on-board and how many will leave.

You have probably seen several interviews with the CEO of Adobe, and he really is the ultimate political marketeer, uttering meaningless phrases but saying nothing and obfuscating all issues raised with vague words that mean absolutely nothing. The track record of Adobe has been severely damaged by recent actions, without considerations for their client base. Examples, one year release cycles, the abolition of perpetual licenses, the scrapping of Encore, the lack of backward compatibility to CS6, the lackluster attention to bug releases, the number of deferrals of bugs, etc.

I'm very disappointed in the direction Adobe is taking now, the complete disregard of client wishes. I do hope they will improve, but am not very optimistic. Maybe Edius or Avid will turn out to be better options.

Harm,
this post has summed it up perfectly!!! It could have not been said any better!!
I can't believe the posts when people mention there is an exit strategy through different export options. That always makes me laugh. They must not have very complex projects! There are so many variables that don't come through with those export options!

[Steve House]

Originally Posted by Todd Clark

Harm,
this post has summed it up perfectly!!! It could have not been said any better!!
I can't believe the posts when people mention there is an exit strategy through different export options. That always makes me laugh. They must not have very complex projects! There are so many variables that don't come through with those export options!

And if they don't do all the exporting prior to their subscription expiring they can't run the program to open their projects in order to DO the export.

[Bart Walczak]

The discrepancy between direct export and AME stems mostly from AME not being able to (yet?) use GPU to accelerate the export.

[Al Gardner]

I think the issue is going to be how the business model affects the whole of your business.

Where it's going to suck is when everybody starts using the model.

I'm glad to have adobe CS6 but don't really use it enough to justify $50 bucks a month.

Then when you add that to the future monthly fees from all other software, that nut gets a lot bigger than $50 bucks a month, regardless of how much you use each individual software such as Office 365.

Jwplayer is a perfect example. Look at the price difference from 1 site to 10 sites. So that means people like me who have just 2 sites pay $299 per year. That gap from 1 site to 10 sites is deliberate.

So all these monthly charges combined will add up. And there's no surge in our daily rates to justify that.

We should reject this model like the plague.

JW Player Pricing | Feature Matrix | Compare Editions | LongTail Video

[Donald McPherson]

If you only need to use cc say a couple of months lets say only in May and June for some special event. Do I only have to pay $100

[Pete Bauer]

If you only need to use it for a month or two, you'd be best to choose a monthly subscription, rather than an annual commitment. For month-to-month, it is about $75 US:

Membership plans: Pricing and subscriptions | Adobe Creative Cloud

Not sure what it would be in Scotland, but probably proportional monthly vs annual.