Have only just received the CS6 Production suite but on first glance it's a great improvement over previous versions. The first bonus is that now you can see a Sony EX file thumbnail preview in the media browser, and if you scrub it then you can see a video preview of that clip. The clips can be dragged onto the timeline without processing.

I will post more EX friendly features in CS6 over the next few days.

Isn't this already possible in CS5.5?
At least dropping it in the timeline without processing is something I've been doing since CS3.

No, scrubbing the video, as well as setting in and out points, right in the Program window is completely new in CS6. The interface has been entirely reworked and it is vastly more feature-rich, attractive, and efficient. Give it a try and you'll almost certainly love. it.

Yes, you could drop EX files directly into the timeline with CS5 (not sure about CS3 &4, I think these versions were pre EX cameras). The feature I am most excited aboutr is being able to view "live thumbnail previews" of EX clips. Before you had to contend with just the file names and either double click on them to view in the Source window or use ClipBrowser and make a note of the clip name/number.

As Pete says, try it for yourself, you can download a trial version from Adobe.com.

Does the trial work with XDCAM? Normally Adobe don't include the Mpeg codec in the trial versions due to licensing restrictions.

It is as Vincent say though very nice to have thumbnails in the Media Browser with CS6, although with a big card with a lot of clips it can take a little time to generate the thumbnails..

It should work. As of 5.5, only a very few limitations remained in the trials and the mpeg2 licensing was not longer a problem. A couple of the significant limitations I recall of the top of my skull are burning discs in Encore and some integrated 3rd party stuff.

Pete,

In CS5.5.2 you can only see EX thumbnais of clips that have been added to a Project, the Media Browser tab only shows the file name. Whereas CS6 displays "Live Thumbnail Previews" in the Media Browser and Project windows. This feature allows you to hover your mouse pointer over the clip and scrub through the content. The thumbnails can be resized for a larger preview. This is a real time saver when you are working on a large project with lots of clips.

Just to make things clearer, the limitations in Encore and third party "stuff" that you mention only applies to the trial versions, the full version does not have any limitations (I haven't found any as yet, but the day is still young)

Alister,

I haven't noticed any significant slowing down with files, but then I do transfer all my clips to a hard drive before I start editing, I rarely work directly from a card.

Update,

Adobe has just announced an update to Premiere CS6, here are some of the fixes.

Improved performance using OpenCL, especially when used on Mac OSX v10.7.4 or later.

Added encoding presets with additional bit-rate settings for XDCAM HD.

Added Automatic Peak File Generation preference in the Audio category for turning off automatic peak file generation for imported audio. By default, this preference is enabled and matches the behavior of Premiere Pro CS6 (6.0.0).

When this preference is disabled, importing audio or opening projects will not cause peak files to be generated. If peak files were already generated, then waveforms will be visible. Files imported before the preference was disabled will continue to generate peak files.

Enabled “smart rendering” and added Enable Smart Rendering Codec setting to the Video tab of the MXF OP1a exporters for XDCAM HD and XDCAM EX to enable or disable smart rendering for these formats. This option defaults to the off/disabled state.

More information can be found here

Premiere Pro CS6 (6.0.1) update: bug fixes and improved OpenCL performance Premiere Pro work area (http://blogs.adobe.com/premiereprotraining/2012/05/premiere-pro-cs6-6-0-1-update-bug-fixes-and-improved-opencl-performance.html)

I'm experiencing frequent crashes of Premiere CS6 since the update yesterday on my latest edition MacBook Pro 15" :-( It might be due to the way the MacBook tries to switch between the ATi GPU and Intel GPU depending on whether your running on battery power or not.

When it is working, I now get hardware Mercury Engine acceleration via openCL!

The only problem I have had so far is with bringing in a Canon XF305 file, the sound was out of sync. but by a large amount (5 seconds) I think this may be due to the way I used the Canon Utility to transfer the clip to a hard drive. I subsequently just dragged the folder to a hard drive and all was well.

I am using the latest CS6 upgrade and Windows 7 (64bit) together with a nVidia card and the Mercury Playback Engine (Cuda) is working like a dream.

I have just been editing a short project and I must say that I do miss the JOG wheels on the source and monitor windows.