If you're looking for a relatively inexpensive way to add or switch to Adobe Creative Suite CS5.5, now's your chance:

"Adobe... today announced an upgrade program for video professionals who have purchased any version of Apple Final Cut Pro or Avid Media Composer and want to switch to industry-leading professional video tools by Adobe... these customers will be eligible for a 50 percent savings on Adobe Creative Suite CS5.5 Production Premium or Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5"

Full story here: Adobe Announces Switcher Program For Video Professionals at DVInfo.net (http://www.dvinfo.net/news/adobe-announces-switcher-program-for-video-professionals.html)

Wow! Excellent news!

Ouch... great move of Adobe, big doubts for me.
It's still a very expensive program, but it's a very powerful suite and as a future RED customer, they seem to be very 'into' the RED Workflow.

at the discounted price, i am very interested.

ymmv

be well

rob
smalltalk productions

Why these price differences are just... not reasonable anymore? I was very tempted by this offer, untill I went to the Adobe Store in Belgium. The software costs 1900 euros full without VAT. That's 2700 dollars at this point, that's a 1000 dollar difference with the American store.

Sorry, but I'm having a hard time justifiying this...

If one is planning to switch to a Red, software cost might end up being relatively small.

I went to the Adobe Store in Belgium. The software costs 1900 euros full without VAT. That's a 1000 dollar difference with the American store.

Mathieu,

Why don't you simply order it from States? I do it all the time, avoiding these ridiculous price differences.

Wow that is attractive... i hope the folks outside of the US could enjoy the offer too.

Why don't you simply order it from States? I do it all the time, avoiding these ridiculous price differences.
I thought that the US dealers weren't allowed to ship outside of the US (per their licensing with Adobe)?

And, BTW, a very smart move by Adobe. Very smart. Since Apple seem to have EOL'd DVD Studio Pro, editors need an ongoing solution for DVD creation (and Blu-ray). After all, what are new editors supposed to buy for pro DVD creation? The answer is Encore. Which is only sold with Premiere Pro. The lack of DVD creation is, to me, the biggest strategic blunder by Apple in the FCP X rollout. Even bigger than releasing FCP X version 1.0 as a half-done. Long-term, this lack of DVD (and Blu-ray) creation solutions for video editors will send many over to Encore and Premiere Pro. Just out of self-protection. This discount is a very, very smart move by Adobe. The next few months is really going to be their time to "pounce".

Also keep in mind that Adobe offers very attractive education pricing to students, staff, and faculty of qualifying institutions, see: educational software pricing | Adobe (http://www.adobe.com/education/purchasing/education_pricing.html)

Ouch... great move of Adobe, big doubts for me.
It's still a very expensive program, but it's a very powerful suite and as a future RED customer, they seem to be very 'into' the RED Workflow.

Considering there is a preset for RED footage when I open premiere I would think that its very easy to work with. Never directly edited RED footage though... Need to get on that...

Tempting - the purchase code is SWITCH. I'm interested in buying two copies, but I only have one copy of FCS.

Does anyone know how the authorization/upgrade process works with Adobe (couldn't find the details on their site)? I expect I can only obtain one license at the discounted price, but hope I'm wrong.

I thought that the US dealers weren't allowed to ship outside of the US (per their licensing with Adobe)?

Some will, some will not. Anyway, with such price differences, one can afford to fly to NY, stay over weekend, have great time, buy software and go back home, still spending less then buying the software in Europe.

Just remember to add the sales tax to the quoted US figures.

And now I wonder whether a loyal Adobe user could get 50% off CS5.5 as well :-p

Wow that is attractive... i hope the folks outside of the US could enjoy the offer too.
Yes, the offer it's worldwide: The Genesis Project : Backing up Adobe’s commitment to Pro’s – making it easy to switch (http://blogs.adobe.com/genesisproject/2011/07/backing-up-adobes-commitment-to-pros-making-it-easy-to-switch.html)

...this offer is WORLDWIDE, so no one is being left out!"

Promo Code: SWITCH

And now I wonder whether a loyal Adobe user could get 50% off CS5.5 as well :-p
Yes per the Terms and conditions, depending of what Adobe product you own today: Terms and conditions (http://store.adobe.com/store/en_us/popup/offer/save50_off_pr_pp.html)

Avid has a similar "crossgrade" program that they just extended.

I'd recommend anyone who's serious about their career in post production to take advantage of the cross grades. Not necessarily to "jump ship", but as an opportunity to expand your toolset & skillset.

Just so you all know....

I just tried to use the promo code SWITCH for Adobe Production Suit CS 5.5 (upgrade)....

the promo code didn't work, contacted Adobe direct and they say.. no, they will not honor upgrades,
they only want FCP converts...

Just remember to add the sales tax to the quoted US figures.

Just to avoid confusion, in my post i compared both download-only prices, and both without VAT.

Just so you all know....

I just tried to use the promo code SWITCH for Adobe Production Suit CS 5.5 (upgrade)....

the promo code didn't work, contacted Adobe direct and they say.. no, they will not honor upgrades,
they only want FCP converts...

Upgrades are $399 from 5.0 no discount.

Just wondering. Because CS5.5 is optimised to run best on Nvidia cards (CUDA), which don't come as standard with Macs, this has meant that you can only get best performance using a Mac Pro. Too bad if you are using a MacBook Pro or an iMac.

However, with the new Thunderbolt ports on MBPs and iMacs, I was wondering if it's possible to put a Nvidia card into some sort of enclosure and hook it up to a Thunderbolt port. Would OS X recognise it? Would PPro5.5 be able to recognise and fully leverage its CUDA capabilities even though it is not installed internally?

This would be a really big deal, if possible. (In view of the incredibly tempting offer of 50% off.)

Anybody tried it already?

Anybody know?

(Any Adobe representatives care to chime in?)

Just wondering. Because CS5.5 is optimised to run best on Nvidia cards (CUDA), which don't come as standard with Macs, this has meant that you can only get best performance using a Mac Pro. Too bad if you are using a MacBook Pro or an iMac.

However, with the new Thunderbolt ports on MBPs and iMacs, I was wondering if it's possible to put a Nvidia card into some sort of enclosure and hook it up to a Thunderbolt port. Would OS X recognise it? Would PPro5.5 be able to recognise and fully leverage its CUDA capabilities even though it is not installed internally?

This would be a really big deal, if possible. (In view of the incredibly tempting offer of 50% off.)

Anybody tried it already?

Anybody know?

(Any Adobe representatives care to chime in?)

For hardware acceleration WITHOUT a nvidia card, the Matrox Mini with Max is what you need.

Last I checked, Adobe had 2 discounted offers: one for switchers and one for anyone with any version of Photoshop or After Effects going back several versions (I think PS CS2 or AE 7). The upgrade was around $1100 but discounted $200-300. Check Videoguys.com as I saw it there. They also have a great promotion to get Avid MC 5.5 and Adobe CS5.5 together for ~$1700.

Thanks, Steve. But I would never buy a Matrox product again after my experience with the Matrox MXO.

Hence my question about whether it's possible to hook up a NVIDIA card externally through Thunderbolt.

Anybody know?

Hi David,

I don't blame you one bit. After my experience with the MXO2 Mini, I will never purchase anything from them again.

To your main question: I know that it is possible to do what you want with the Expresscard slot. The key is whether or not the TB ports have direct access to the PCI Express.....AND I just googled it and the answer is YES. On the MBP, the TB connection has access to a PCIe x4 in addition to the Displayport.
Intel Thunderbolt: a closer look (updated with video) -- Engadget (http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/24/intel-thunderbolt-a-closer-look/)

Now, you just need to wait for a company to release the external case for holding a video card. However, the downside could be cost. I can't recall the product, but someone released an external video card case designed to connect via the Expresscard slot, and I don't think it was cheap (around $200 maybe not including the video card).

Thanks, Steve.

That's very good to know. Right now, I'm planning out my hardware/software roadmap for the next 24 months and am currently leaning towards the scenario of running a pimped-out new iMac as a "two-car garage" with FCP and Production Premium CS5.5 side-by-side. And running an externally enclosed Nvidia graphics card through a Thunderbolt port for optimum CS5.5 performance (if possible).

Oddly enough, the cessation of DVD Studio Pro is a real tipping point for me. What if a future OS update "breaks" it? I need a pro authoring solution for DVDs (the ability to author a large number of "stories" plus complex menu structures) and would prefer something with a future roadmap and that will be supported if future OS bugs occur. Hence Encore is looking more and more like a "must-have". And it's the same thing with Soundtrack Pro ...

I'm really liking what FCP X can do (I'm slowly working my way through the Steve Martin tutorials at the moment) and want to stay with that roadmap too, as they hopefully update it with enough features to make it viable to use on a paying job. But I'm thinking of dropping "classic" FCP as soon as possible and open old FCP projects with PPro5.5.

Then I can decide the most efficient and productive workflow to use on a project-by-project basis (FCP X or PPro).

I feel that Apple have cut down my options with their EOL (end-of-line) of a number of FCS applications. The appeal of this 50% off CS5.5 deal is that it will fully restore my options. And I like that. I'll make my final decision in a few weeks and part of that will hinge, for me, on this external Nvidia graphics card idea.

Steve has found that the Thunderbolt spec will support it. I guess it just now depends on a vendor making a graphics card case with Thunderbolt connection and then someone putting it to the acid test and making sure that the OS and PPro5.5 both "play nice" with it.

David I suggest you read up on what exactly will be sped up by having a CUDA card. Most of CS5s mercury improvements work using the RAM and CPU so you don't necessarily need one. A CUDA card will only help on h.264 encoding and maybe some rendering of specific effects. A decently spec'd imac with a ton of ram might be all you need though.

I edit on a mac pro without a CUDA card and everything works better in CS5 compared to previous versions. Dynamic link is more stable now that CS apps can utilize all the machine's RAM, and my Canon 7D footage plays back perfectly.

Definitely do your research -- and try before you buy with Adobe's 30 day free trial -- but I would suggest that you do seek a hardware solution that allows you to take advantage of CUDA. Brian's right that CS5.5 processes the timeline very efficiently even without CUDA, but I can't imagine that any of us in the pro editing realm really edits a major project without using effects.

And that's where CUDA really shines. It isn't just a few obscure effects, but 39 or so of the most commonly used transitions and effects, PLUS the fixed effects like motion (scaling, positioning, rotation), opacity, and the blend modes (eg overlay, additive):

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/premierepro/cs/using/WSE04091E3-79C1-4014-B4F5-681A65A9AC80.html

I usually can do a whole project, color correction, transitions, etc using only the CUDA accelerated effects and therefore never see a background render during the entire edit. If I do have a need for a CPU-intensive, non-accelerated effect, I can just tweak the effect and either render it once or disable it until I'm ready to export.

So my opinion is that even if your system can't do CUDA, PPro will still perform very well, but if at all possible, do go CUDA.

Is the Adobe Premiere CS5.5 30-day trial a fully functional version? I downloaded the CS5 trial version when it came out & discovered that it was missing crucial CODECs e.g. H.264 for the Canon DSLRs so it was useless for evaluating the claims of being able to edit H.264 natively.

The only affordable CUDA enabled card for the Mac Pro is the now discontinued Nvida GTX 285 which can only occasionally be found for sale used. The vast majority of GTX 285 cards that you find for sale on eBay are not genuine Mac cards but PC ones that have been flashed with hacked firmware to enable them to be used in a Mac Pro although AFAIK there is no issue with using a re-flashed PC card.

CS 5.5 trial is fully functional except Encore, which will not open in trial mode.

You might also try to look for hacked GTX460 for Mac. I remember seeing it somewhere on the net, but don't remember the place.

If you're installing Production Premium or Master Collection, there are also some third party After Effects features that aren't available in the trial: Mocha, Keylight, CycoreFX, Color Finesse LE, ProEXR, and Digieffects FreeFrom.

But for PPro, as Bart said, everything is there and working except Encore won't open in the trial. They have changed this from previous versions that didn't contain MPEG2 codecs. See also my short article on CS5.5:

A Spring Surprise from Adobe: CS5.5 at DVInfo.net (http://www.dvinfo.net/article/post/a-spring-surprise-from-adobe-cs5-5.html)

Also keep in mind that Adobe offers very attractive education pricing to students, staff, and faculty of qualifying institutions, see: educational software pricing | Adobe (http://www.adobe.com/education/purchasing/education_pricing.html)

Amen. These "deals" that Adobe is offering are nothing compared to educational pricing. Their already ridiculous pricing is brought down to reasonable levels for educators and students.

I'm very interested in this offer. Yes the price is still high but you get a hell of a lot more than Final Cut Suite used to give.

After Effects is an industry standard tool. No matter what some people claim, Motion doesn't really touch it. Of all the things I miss from when we switched to FCPS it's AE.

You also get Audition. I still have a licence for it in it's previous guise as Cooledit (and still use it via Parallels on a regular basis) and it's a wonderful audio editor. Blows away Soundtrack Pro even though it's knocking 9 years old so hopefully there's been 9 years worth of improvements.

You also get Photoshop, THE industry standard photo editing tool.

Then there's all the Flash stuff (increasingly important) and Illustrator. In short it's a whole suite of packages to help you be creative. It's expensive even with the discount but pound for pound you get far more.

And it also looks like they will send you a boxed version if you wish.

Seems to me Adobe have a whole range of packages which are designed for professional use whereas
Apple have been cutting back and dumbing down their range.

I still have a few things to find out about but it seems like 3 years after switching to FCP it's game over. The Adobe suite looks impressive, a 50% discount makes it look more affordable and Adobe have an active interest in developing professional software rather than selling iThings.

Can anyone answer me these questions:

- Will a USA license work on my computer (I live in Europe) ?

- Where can you buy the software in New York, and can you ask for the promotion in a retail store too?

Thanks,

EDIT: Seems B&H has the software WITH promotion. Don't know if the license works here.

It's a good deal, just to get Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects and Encore. However, Adobe charges so much for upgrades and upgrades so frequently that they could practically give away the suite the first time hoping that you'll upgrade at some point.

The current upgrade price for PPro is only $179 and I did the math in my recent article (http://www.dvinfo.net/article/post/a-spring-surprise-from-adobe-cs5-5.html) to learn that upgrades for the whole Production Premium suite have been running under $35/month over time.

Everyone has their own threshold for "expensive" but IMO if you're a professional, that's not a big investment for the soft-tools with which you do your job. This is Adobe's core business; software isn't a loss-leader for more expensive hardware or a la carte pricing for core NLE functionalities, as is said to be the case for some other NLE vendors. So again, just my opinion, but I think Adobe's Creative Suites are good bang for buck. More buck, more bang. Good value.

As far as the overseas costs, this keeps being brought up and obviously nobody here on the forum knows. It is what it is.

It's a good deal, just to get Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects and Encore. However, Adobe charges so much for upgrades and upgrades so frequently that they could practically give away the suite the first time hoping that you'll upgrade at some point.

Are you expected to go for each upgrade or can you skip a version without having to buy the full version the next time you upgrade?

I started with Adobe Photoshop version one ... in 1991. And got just about every upgrade since but I stopped at CS3... way too many upgrades that were simply designed as extra revenue and offered little in return - and this was Illustrator, InDesign, Dreamwaver... all of them. And and yes most cost $199 or $299 ... but with 8 or 9 programs this adds up each year.

I got off the treadmill four years ago. So I am weary of Adobe. I will hold out a while.

Jon, people make this kind of comment frequently and it makes no sense to me. Unless the company fails or they End-of-Life a product, all software companies put out new versions of their software...I'm glad that the competitive marketplace drives innovation because I wouldn't want to still be using 1994's Adobe Premiere (not Pro) on Win 3.11, eh? Nobody makes a person upgrade each time; they choose to do so. One can still use CS3 if it does the job and that costs nothing additional. If a person wants the new features of the latest version, they can decide if it is worth the asking price and if so, they'll buy.

Marcus, you can skip versions if you'd like (this is all discussed in the very brief article I linked to in my previous post). It does save a little money, but not that much really.

How does this offer work? I mean surely it's not just a case of putting in the promo code? I can't find anything on the website that actually says what they require you to do with your old software. Or for that matter how do you prove you even have the old software they list?

Andy S

Marcus, you can skip versions if you'd like (this is all discussed in the very brief article I linked to in my previous post). It does save a little money, but not that much really.

Thanks. I'll take a look. It's not so much a question of saving money, but sometimes companies put out updates that aren't necessarily worthwhile (FCP 7). So the option to skip a version may be worthwhile. Also if Adobe sneak out V6 soon you may not want to pay an upgrade fee straight away.

And now I wonder whether a loyal Adobe user could get 50% off CS5.5 as well :-pSure, just enter the SWITCH code for 50% off although you are limited to 9 copies.

How does this offer work? I mean surely it's not just a case of putting in the promo code? I can't find anything on the website that actually says what they require you to do with your old software. Or for that matter how do you prove you even have the old software they list?

Andy SYou simply have to enter the promo code SWITCH at the checkout or quote it if ordering on the phone. Adobe don't care what old software you have they are just trying to sell as many copies as possible to new users.

Jon, people make this kind of comment frequently and it makes no sense to me. Unless the company fails or they End-of-Life a product, all software companies put out new versions of their software...I'm glad that the competitive marketplace drives innovation because I wouldn't want to still be using 1994's Adobe Premiere (not Pro) on Win 3.11, eh? Nobody makes a person upgrade each time; they choose to do so. One can still use CS3 if it does the job and that costs nothing additional. If a person wants the new features of the latest version, they can decide if it is worth the asking price and if so, they'll buy.

Marcus, you can skip versions if you'd like (this is all discussed in the very brief article I linked to in my previous post). It does save a little money, but not that much really.

I agree with Pete.

I really don't see the logic with not upgrading to Photoshop CS4 or CS5 because they have added amazing OpenGL support and are now 64bit which makes a HUUUGGGEEEE difference in speed. With large images (24MP from Sony A900) and panoramic images, the speed difference is even larger thanks to 64bit and better OpenGL acceleration. I have several 800MB to 1.2GB Photoshop PSDs and I can whiz through them with no problem.

Oh, and the Content Aware Fill tool in CS5 is one of the coolest features ever released for any piece of software.

FYI, Adobe has changed their update policy to once every year around NAB time so no worries about them 'sneaking' in an upgrade before then.

You simply have to enter the promo code SWITCH at the checkout or quote it if ordering on the phone. Adobe don't care what old software you have they are just trying to sell as many copies as possible to new users.
So that's ALL they ask for? Why do they post the list of "required" previous software then? I'm not saying you are wrong or anything, I just want to make sure they won't request my FCP serial number and blacklist it somehow because I may need/want to use FCP sometime in the future. Same goes for a really old version of photoshop I have.

I bought mine from the Adobe site. They make it really easy. You can keep your FCP. Same with the Avid discounted upgrade. Both companies figure if you get it you'll be a long time customer.

On Sunday i spent a couple of hours watching some training clips, then Monday at the office I opened PP up for the first time and in about 10 minutes was editing and checking out the color grading. The transition is going to be a lot easier and quicker than it was when I went from Avid to FCP 5 years ago.

One of the first things I said after watching some training videos was, "Wow...they sure have leapfrogged over FCP!" The title tool is amazing--a real title tool, just like Avid. So far I like the basic color correction better too, and a number of other things. In the 5 years I've used FCP, it hasn't really developed. The upgrades were tiny and only seemed to make it more stable. After just a very short introduction to PP, I'm now glad Apple did what they did. If they hadn't, I probably would never have looked at PP. I'm looking forward to migrating all my FCP programs over as soon as I can. I'm already convinced that FCP 7 has been way behind the curve and that Media Composer and now PP5.5 are better.

One big thing if you shoot with a 5DII or other DSLR...no more transcoding to ProRes. In the past year and a half I've added over 3 TB of footage over and above the H.264 original because of transcoding.

Not needing to transcode does bring up a backup consideration. What I had been doing is loading my original H.264 into one drive, then transcoding to another. So, the ProRes lives in other drives, while the original is in separate drives. If an H.264 drive fails, I've got the ProRes, and vice versa. What I started doing with new footage yesterday is loading it as I usually do, but then burning Blu-ray discs for backup. The Blu-rays will be stored like my old tapes. My Blu-ray burner came from Videoguys and was cheaper than a 2 TB hard drive. Also, the Blu-rays burn a lot faster than the transcoding through MPEG Streamclip.

According to Shane Hurlbut, Premiere Pro handles Canon DSLR footage better than the other systems. When I first looked at a clip in the timeline, it did look better than the same clip in FCP that had been transcoded to ProRes. Not a huge difference and nothing to get excited about, but there was a definite different look. The color seemed to pop more. Again, very subtle and I doubt I would notice the difference in a finished film, but if you're pixelpeeping (measurebating), it's something to look at.

You can order the Adobe promotion directly from Videoguys. for $849. No special code required

Make the switch to Adobe CS5.5 Production Premium at Videoguys.com and save 50% (http://www.webvideoguys.com/AdobeCS55switch.html)

We also have some fantastic bundles with blu-ray burner, Matrox & AJA I/O and training.

Gary

You can order the Adobe promotion directly from Videoguys. for $849. No special code required

Make the switch to Adobe CS5.5 Production Premium at Videoguys.com and save 50% (http://www.webvideoguys.com/AdobeCS55switch.html)

We also have some fantastic bundles with blu-ray burner, Matrox & AJA I/O and training.

Gary

Thanks Gary for the info and keep up the good work!

I know you will disagree but I highly suggest staying away from Matrox products for use with Adobe because I have had bad experience after bad experience with their Mini and its software, not to mention Matrox's flat out lie about their color calibration tool.

However, I highly recommend Aja and partially recommend BlackMagic Design's Decklink Extreme 3D as I have several of these cards in 2 computers. Two are in a server for broadcast playout and one is in my HP Z800 but I am going to remove it soon and replace with an Aja Kona due to issues with Premiere Pro CS5 causing PPro to hang. One of my favorite features with the BM and Kona and Premiere is being able to play out to my monitor using only the little thumbnail at the top of the project window rather than having to open it into the Source window. However, BM's software is not great and I continually have lockups when doing this.

Also, I sometimes have issues with BM preset sequences so I use my custom sequences and BM still works, although partially. What I do is open the current sequence into the Source window, which still plays out to my monitor and then I gang source to program.

Just gone and made the jump. A whole heap of money out of the bank account but at least it's half price.

Thanks, Steve. But I would never buy a Matrox product again after my experience with the Matrox MXO.

Hence my question about whether it's possible to hook up a NVIDIA card externally through Thunderbolt.

Anybody know?

Good news is that Sony is the first to release an external GPU connected thru LightPeak aka Thunderbolt to work with their VAIO Z series. However, Sony's Z pricing is a bit high, BUT this shows that manufacturers understand that a market exists for external GPUs via LP/TB.

Having been a prior user of Premiere, and still owning my Premiere Pro 2.0 program, I tried to go the upgrade path for CS5.5, hoping after that to get half off the upgrade price. I took it all the way down to the last button, but was never given the opportunity to enter the "switch" code.