Real-Time Engine for CS4

[Rudy Wilms]

Hi David

When do you think the real-time Engine for CS4 is ready ?


Thanks Rudy

[Marty Baggen]

David, will the CS4 issues be remedied with a single update, or will things like RTE and the CFHD Project Manager issues be resolved separately?

[Rudy Wilms]

Any news for the realtime for cs4

Thanks Rudy

[Paul Cook]

While I get that when something is broken it should be fixed, and if something is advertised it should be delivered etc but have you guys seen the tech sneek peek for CS5?

The Genesis Project: Technology Sneek Peek: Adobe® Mercury Playback Engine

Add to that the word is CS5 will ship April this year...basically makes cineforms RTE obsolete

[Pete Bauer]

Yeah, there are several threads in which Mercury is discussed. This is probably the main one: http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/attend-w...ck-engine.html

The marketplace will sort out the products once they are available. Cineform's RTE release date has repeatedly slipped. Adobe is touting Mercury, but it isn't out yet either and of course an official demo video is going to show a product favorably; note that they are using a monster, optimized system. Will it make RTE obsolete? Uknown. One could speculate that some folks might opt to make use of RTE with their existing hardware rather than bundle a very expensive workstation with their CS4-to-CS5 upgrade. Or maybe Mercury and RTE will work together to give even better performance? Maybe compatibility issues with Mercury are the latest reasons for delay? We don't know.

And of course, Cineform folks have openly discussed their move toward new features and market niches as the editing landscape changes. Would be nice to hear an update from the Cineform shop.

[Marty Baggen]

Originally Posted by Paul Cook

While I get that when something is broken it should be fixed, and if something is advertised it should be delivered etc but have you guys seen the tech sneek peek for CS5?

Add to that the word is CS5 will ship April this year...basically makes cineforms RTE obsolete

The RTE is of minimal importance to me. I need to be able to trim and archive projects. The CS4 Project Manager will not include CFHD files as part of the trimming function.

So far as CS5, the Mercury feature is exciting, but a rewrite for 64-bit operation has me hopeful for better stability. CS4 made a good step in that direction when installed on a 64-bit os with ample RAM.

[Jay Bloomfield]

Although the demo of the CS5 Mercury Engine is quite impressive, keep in mind all the problems some of us have had with CS4. Now, further consider that Sony Vegas Pro has had a 64 bit version for two versions now (8 and 9) and it is still far more unstable than its 32 bit sibling. One of the reasons could be, that Vegas is not a full 64 bit product. It relies on codecs and filters that still use 32 bit architecture and Vegas uses a surrogate program to allow these legacy items to communicate with the 64 bit parent.

If CS5 is pure 64 bit, it means that all the built-in codecs that the CS4 version utilizes will also have to be 100% 64 bit. If this is the route that Adobe takes, the stability should be vastly improved. But if not, I suspect that CS5 will not be any more stable than CS4 and worse, with all the new coding for 64 bit, it could be even more buggy. Then, throw in the Mercury Engine and we may have a real situation. I look forward to hearing from the CS5 "early adopters", because I won't be one of them.

[Mikael Bergstrom]

I'm with you Jay I will not be one of the "early adopters" either, on the CS5, I've been this on the CS4.

[Marty Baggen]

Well said Jay.

If history repeats, it will be a CS4 system with a fully functional Cineform integration that will be the envy of CS5. I'd love to be wrong.

There's no downside to building a system that can handle all that CS5 promises (Nvidia CUDA Video Card, 12gb RAM, etc).... aside from the cost. Such a system would certainly host CS4 nicely. CS4 is very stable on my Win7 Pro/64-bit even though I am only running 4gb of RAM.

The weak link of CS4, in terms of both productivity and workflow (notwithstanding set up of multiple renders) is the Media Encoder. But that's for another thread.

[Robert Young]

I couldn't agree more.
What's it been? More than a year probably, and finally my Vista 64, 12 GB CS4.xx is running like a dream. Playing well with CF, EX1, AVCHD- stable, no more drama, no more grinding of teeth, rending of garments...
I will probably wait until just before CS6 is announced before even thinking about trading up to CS5/Win 7

[Brant Gajda]

Adobe should reward us for having put up with all the bugs by giving us free upgrades.

[Stephen Armour]

Originally Posted by Robert Young

I couldn't agree more.
What's it been? More than a year probably, and finally my Vista 64, 12 GB CS4.xx is running like a dream. Playing well with CF, EX1, AVCHD- stable, no more drama, no more grinding of teeth, rending of garments...
I will probably wait until just before CS6 is announced before even thinking about trading up to CS5/Win 7

Common Robert, you like blood...you'll be first in line to CS5, you don't fool me! And that upgrade to Win 7 for you is a no-brainer.

Hey, my clean upgrade (yes, you can do it!) to Win 7 x64 went well and I'm flying now with CS3, nice, clean, fast, and stable. Ahhhhh...

That CS5 upgrade either better be free (or VERY cheap) or I wouldn't waste my time with it. Cost of CS4 was way too much, for way too little.

[Mikael Bergstrom]

CS4 makes me cry:-(

[Graham Hickling]

It surprises me that Marty and I seem to be the only squeaky wheels about the lack of project trimming - for me this is *way* more vexing than the missing RTE. Does everyone else just keep buying bigger hard drives?

[David Newman]

Someone will be working on the project trimming missing functionality next week.