A New Day For a Skeptic at DVinfo.net

Marty Baggen · May 9th, 2010, 08:14 AM

I have been scolded for being snarky. How could anyone be a CS4 survivor and not?

I have been a very harsh critic of Adobe (for explanation... see above). The irony of being a "faithful customer" since Premiere 3.0 is certainly not lost on me. I am also an unapologetic fan of Cineform, both of their product and their business approach. I would wager I am not the only one on this forum that would have completely parted ways with Adobe were it not for their innovation.

It reached a point where I actually joined the Edius 5 contingent. It's a fantastic software, and it has now taken it's place on a portable system that is companion to the EX1 on out of town projects that benefit from rough client edits at the end of each day.

When CS5 was announced, and snippets began to trickle out about the sky high hardware requirements, I took an attitude of... "okay... some great performance, but it's going to cost a bundle". And none of it mattered if stability and some of the awkward work flows weren't addressed.

At this point I should say that CS4 on a 64-bit machine made huge strides in stability which was a welcomed respite from seemingly constant crashes on ample hardware of virtually all previous incarnations of Premiere.

Which brings us to the CS5/Neo 5 combination. Working with a trial-beta combo on a very, very humble workstation, I feel like I have been provided a brand new tool box with all the components. A two year old Core Two Duo with only 4gb of RAM and a cheap ATI video card aren't enough of an obstacle to see nearly flawless (albeit single track) video playback of my HDLink converted 1080p EX footage. I say "nearly", because on a occasion, it appears that the video track has to "ramp up" for a second or two before complete fluidity kicks in.

This is a long post, but it has been a long winding trip. First of all, congrats and thanks to all of the Cineform crew. We see a few of their names on a regular basis here... I'm sure there are others behind the scenes that deserve a ton of thanks as well. Thanks and kudos to Adobe. They have transformed Premiere into a responsive tool, and they clearly listened to editors by tweaking some of the work flow.

I think the only area where Adobe may have slipped was in the pre-release information flow. Instead of touting the 20 tracks of realtime video with expensive and limited selection hardware, they should have been getting the word out how responsive CS5 was with a fairly spartan setup. I very nearly had my order placed for new motherboard, i7 processor, 24gb of RAM, and a top of the line CUDA video card. After demo, I now know that a GTX285 and RAM increase to maybe 12gb is all I need. A painless upgrade (no relicensing/registering OS and softwares), and easy on the pocketbook.

Stephen, Adam... and there's many more of you, whom dealt with the frustrations of the last 18 months and the black hole of CS4 and shared our frustration and skepticism here. I think our struggles may be over at last. I said that if this new release of CS5 together with the revamped Neo line (thank you for the free upgrade Cineform) worked as billed, I would be back here singing it's praises. It is well deserved.

Stephen Armour · May 9th, 2010, 09:34 AM

Aaaaarrrrrgggggggggg!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I feel the power of the RING drawing me to the bloody fires of Endor...no...no...no, it can't be true!

Can there be life after CS4? Can a leopard change it's spots? Can a 500lb gorilla actually make sweet music?

Marty, I fear the winds of the Pacific have blown your mind into the deep waters of Crater Lake! Since they are so pure, may they wash away the memories of 2009's CS4 and allow you to plumb CS5's depths and continue to report a (relatively) pain-free experience.

We're watching...(still with a telescope)...

Marty Baggen · May 9th, 2010, 09:37 AM

I bought CS4 and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt.

C'mon Stephen..... take the plunge. You know you want too!

Maybe we can resort to our old ways when CS6 is released?

Adam Gold · May 10th, 2010, 06:34 PM

Marty, I'm listening to every word and softly drooling. Will likely bite the bullet this week.

Stephen Armour · May 10th, 2010, 06:50 PM

I downloaded the trial, but I can't bring my finger to click on the "install" button yet. Oh, the pain, the pain!

Actually I'll be making a separate partition to do that in a few days.

Jump Adam, you know you can't last..........

Marty Baggen · May 10th, 2010, 06:57 PM

It's fun being on this side of peer-pressure.

Robert Young · May 10th, 2010, 06:59 PM

Stephen
I hesitate to say this (Murphy's Law is alive & well), but I was steeled for a lot of pain, FUD, smoke and lightening- I had imaged my C: drive, prepaired for the worst, etc., and...
It was all such a no-brainer that it was embarassing.
It was about as exciting as installing MS Word.
When it was over, add Neo v. 5, click on PPro, AE, Encore, import old CS4 projects, open a new project, and duhh... everything worked!! It's still working, and it's been a whole week!!
Go forth without fear, my son...

Rich Perry · May 10th, 2010, 10:38 PM

So far, so good! Everything works great out of the box together. CS3 / 4 gone forever, starting new project and will work with CS5 / NEO5 going forward. I am still unclear why old CS3 projects load in desktop mode but it does not seem to be a big deal. Have not had a crash yet even importing some pretty massive old cs3 projects worked fine. It's been a long wait but worth the drama of CS4.

Cineform really are an awesome company on so many levels, the value of their tools (first light), can't be overstated. I am not aware of many companies that would spend the time interfacing with their customers like these guys on these forums. They obviously care deeply about their product and this time appear to have delivered a nice integration. Hats off to Adobe also for a well thought out and designed release. I would recommend the CS5/NEO5 combination to anyone fearful of making the jump, although its early days I have a good feeling about this, and now it seems we finally have a world class editing solution.

Adam Gold · May 11th, 2010, 11:37 AM

Must... resist.... arrggghhhh.... can .... not

Must... warn... others........

Marty Baggen · May 11th, 2010, 07:41 PM

Just thought I would let you all know that I just UNINSTALLED CS4.

It's gone, done, finished. I feel as though I should scrub the hard drive with Clorox.

I'm thinking about doing a multicamera shoot of the mini bonfire which will be fueled by its packaging and discs.

I will then take said footage and edit it with CS5.

Sort of a digital Donner Party.... but in a good way.

Robert Young · May 12th, 2010, 01:58 AM

I'm remembering back in the 1990s when the NLE software and ordinary desktop systems could just barely, barely do DV editing. It was constant crash & burn, lock-up, failure to compile, on and on...
Every little hardware advance, software upgrade, was an occasion for the triumph of hope over experience.
Finally, just as it all got good enough to begin to edit painlessly, HD hits the scene and it's back to digging in the dirt with sticks.
At last, I think we are finally back to where we were pre HD. With CS5, Neo5, Intel i7, Win7 64, monster RAM, RAID, CUDA, MPE we are finally master of it all- HDV, Red, AVCHD, DSLR, XDCam, EX, whatever.
It's been a long journey- just don't start thinking too much about 3-D :-)
I mean I'm ready for a little rest...

Paul Cook · May 12th, 2010, 04:26 AM

LMAO @ "and it's back to digging in the dirt with sticks."

Yes CS5 looks to be a winner and thank god for that. As for 3D I just hope the collective public wakes up and see's it for the scam that it is. May it endure a slow and painful death until it takes its place alongside laserdisk...

Marty Baggen · May 12th, 2010, 07:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robert Young

With CS5, Neo5, Intel i7, Win7 64, monster RAM, RAID, CUDA, MPE we are finally master of it all- HDV, Red, AVCHD, DSLR, XDCam, EX, whatever.
It's been a long journey-

Well said Robert... I would just add that the stunning development of the past few weeks for me is the realization that it doesn't require the radical hardware upgrades that we were hearing about in the pre-release time frame.

Working with CS5 After Effects is a pleasant surprise as well. With a 4gb RAM, Core 2 Duo, Win7 64 system, I can get 14fps playback @ full resolution with a 1080p MXF clip... about 12fps with CFHD.

That doesn't sound very impressive.... but it's After Effects and I'm used to seeing 6 or 7fps.

Tomorrow I bump up to 8gb of RAM and add a GTX 285. A cutting edge computer two years ago. Merely a "fancy stick" by today's standards.

Stephen Armour · May 12th, 2010, 08:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marty Baggen

Just thought I would let you all know that I just UNINSTALLED CS4.

It's gone, done, finished. I feel as though I should scrub the hard drive with Clorox.

I'm thinking about doing a multicamera shoot of the mini bonfire which will be fueled by its packaging and discs.

I will then take said footage and edit it with CS5.

Sort of a digital Donner Party.... but in a good way.

Good plan Marty! But please dance around the fire and add some dramatic music and closes as you gleefully stomp on the boxes before roasting them...then post them for our viewing pleasure.

(Adam...resist...resist! I'm sure it's all a devious plan to suck our bodies of blood...)

Marty Baggen · May 12th, 2010, 08:35 AM

Stephen.... Adam's just a little north of here. I suggest we meet at Grants Pass and form a posse to rescue the poor guy. His last few posts are definitely from a man crying for help. And if you print them out, scan them... then drop them into any CS4 program, the error message says "NewTek Toaster".

It may be too late. We just need to save ourselves.

May 9th, 2010, 08:14 AM	#1
Marty Baggen Major Player Join Date: May 2005 Location: monroe, or Posts: 572	A New Day For a Skeptic I have been scolded for being snarky. How could anyone be a CS4 survivor and not? I have been a very harsh critic of Adobe (for explanation... see above). The irony of being a "faithful customer" since Premiere 3.0 is certainly not lost on me. I am also an unapologetic fan of Cineform, both of their product and their business approach. I would wager I am not the only one on this forum that would have completely parted ways with Adobe were it not for their innovation. It reached a point where I actually joined the Edius 5 contingent. It's a fantastic software, and it has now taken it's place on a portable system that is companion to the EX1 on out of town projects that benefit from rough client edits at the end of each day. When CS5 was announced, and snippets began to trickle out about the sky high hardware requirements, I took an attitude of... "okay... some great performance, but it's going to cost a bundle". And none of it mattered if stability and some of the awkward work flows weren't addressed. At this point I should say that CS4 on a 64-bit machine made huge strides in stability which was a welcomed respite from seemingly constant crashes on ample hardware of virtually all previous incarnations of Premiere. Which brings us to the CS5/Neo 5 combination. Working with a trial-beta combo on a very, very humble workstation, I feel like I have been provided a brand new tool box with all the components. A two year old Core Two Duo with only 4gb of RAM and a cheap ATI video card aren't enough of an obstacle to see nearly flawless (albeit single track) video playback of my HDLink converted 1080p EX footage. I say "nearly", because on a occasion, it appears that the video track has to "ramp up" for a second or two before complete fluidity kicks in. This is a long post, but it has been a long winding trip. First of all, congrats and thanks to all of the Cineform crew. We see a few of their names on a regular basis here... I'm sure there are others behind the scenes that deserve a ton of thanks as well. Thanks and kudos to Adobe. They have transformed Premiere into a responsive tool, and they clearly listened to editors by tweaking some of the work flow. I think the only area where Adobe may have slipped was in the pre-release information flow. Instead of touting the 20 tracks of realtime video with expensive and limited selection hardware, they should have been getting the word out how responsive CS5 was with a fairly spartan setup. I very nearly had my order placed for new motherboard, i7 processor, 24gb of RAM, and a top of the line CUDA video card. After demo, I now know that a GTX285 and RAM increase to maybe 12gb is all I need. A painless upgrade (no relicensing/registering OS and softwares), and easy on the pocketbook. Stephen, Adam... and there's many more of you, whom dealt with the frustrations of the last 18 months and the black hole of CS4 and shared our frustration and skepticism here. I think our struggles may be over at last. I said that if this new release of CS5 together with the revamped Neo line (thank you for the free upgrade Cineform) worked as billed, I would be back here singing it's praises. It is well deserved.

May 9th, 2010, 09:34 AM	#2
Stephen Armour Major Player Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Natal, RN, Brasil Posts: 900	Aaaaarrrrrgggggggggg!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I feel the power of the RING drawing me to the bloody fires of Endor...no...no...no, it can't be true! Can there be life after CS4? Can a leopard change it's spots? Can a 500lb gorilla actually make sweet music? Marty, I fear the winds of the Pacific have blown your mind into the deep waters of Crater Lake! Since they are so pure, may they wash away the memories of 2009's CS4 and allow you to plumb CS5's depths and continue to report a (relatively) pain-free experience. We're watching...(still with a telescope)... __________________ http://lightinaction.org "All in the view of the LION"

May 10th, 2010, 06:34 PM	#4
Adam Gold Inner Circle Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Woodinville, WA USA Posts: 3,467	Marty, I'm listening to every word and softly drooling. Will likely bite the bullet this week. __________________ "It can only be attributable to human error... This sort of thing has cropped up before, and it has always been due to human error."

May 10th, 2010, 06:50 PM	#5
Stephen Armour Major Player Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Natal, RN, Brasil Posts: 900	I downloaded the trial, but I can't bring my finger to click on the "install" button yet. Oh, the pain, the pain! Actually I'll be making a separate partition to do that in a few days. Jump Adam, you know you can't last.......... __________________ http://lightinaction.org "All in the view of the LION"

May 10th, 2010, 06:59 PM	#7
Robert Young Trustee Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Coronado Island Posts: 1,472	Stephen I hesitate to say this (Murphy's Law is alive & well), but I was steeled for a lot of pain, FUD, smoke and lightening- I had imaged my C: drive, prepaired for the worst, etc., and... It was all such a no-brainer that it was embarassing. It was about as exciting as installing MS Word. When it was over, add Neo v. 5, click on PPro, AE, Encore, import old CS4 projects, open a new project, and duhh... everything worked!! It's still working, and it's been a whole week!! Go forth without fear, my son... __________________ Bob

May 9th, 2010, 09:37 AM	#3
Marty Baggen Major Player Join Date: May 2005 Location: monroe, or Posts: 572	I bought CS4 and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt. C'mon Stephen..... take the plunge. You know you want too! Maybe we can resort to our old ways when CS6 is released?

May 10th, 2010, 06:57 PM	#6
Marty Baggen Major Player Join Date: May 2005 Location: monroe, or Posts: 572	It's fun being on this side of peer-pressure.

May 10th, 2010, 10:38 PM	#8
Rich Perry Major Player Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Nashua NH Posts: 278	So far, so good! Everything works great out of the box together. CS3 / 4 gone forever, starting new project and will work with CS5 / NEO5 going forward. I am still unclear why old CS3 projects load in desktop mode but it does not seem to be a big deal. Have not had a crash yet even importing some pretty massive old cs3 projects worked fine. It's been a long wait but worth the drama of CS4. Cineform really are an awesome company on so many levels, the value of their tools (first light), can't be overstated. I am not aware of many companies that would spend the time interfacing with their customers like these guys on these forums. They obviously care deeply about their product and this time appear to have delivered a nice integration. Hats off to Adobe also for a well thought out and designed release. I would recommend the CS5/NEO5 combination to anyone fearful of making the jump, although its early days I have a good feeling about this, and now it seems we finally have a world class editing solution.

May 11th, 2010, 11:37 AM	#9
Adam Gold Inner Circle Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Woodinville, WA USA Posts: 3,467	Must... resist.... arrggghhhh.... can .... not Must... warn... others........ __________________ "It can only be attributable to human error... This sort of thing has cropped up before, and it has always been due to human error."

May 11th, 2010, 07:41 PM	#10
Marty Baggen Major Player Join Date: May 2005 Location: monroe, or Posts: 572	Just thought I would let you all know that I just UNINSTALLED CS4. It's gone, done, finished. I feel as though I should scrub the hard drive with Clorox. I'm thinking about doing a multicamera shoot of the mini bonfire which will be fueled by its packaging and discs. I will then take said footage and edit it with CS5. Sort of a digital Donner Party.... but in a good way.

May 12th, 2010, 01:58 AM	#11
Robert Young Trustee Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Coronado Island Posts: 1,472	I'm remembering back in the 1990s when the NLE software and ordinary desktop systems could just barely, barely do DV editing. It was constant crash & burn, lock-up, failure to compile, on and on... Every little hardware advance, software upgrade, was an occasion for the triumph of hope over experience. Finally, just as it all got good enough to begin to edit painlessly, HD hits the scene and it's back to digging in the dirt with sticks. At last, I think we are finally back to where we were pre HD. With CS5, Neo5, Intel i7, Win7 64, monster RAM, RAID, CUDA, MPE we are finally master of it all- HDV, Red, AVCHD, DSLR, XDCam, EX, whatever. It's been a long journey- just don't start thinking too much about 3-D :-) I mean I'm ready for a little rest... __________________ Bob

May 12th, 2010, 04:26 AM	#12
Paul Cook Regular Crew Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Sydney, Australia Posts: 174	LMAO @ "and it's back to digging in the dirt with sticks." Yes CS5 looks to be a winner and thank god for that. As for 3D I just hope the collective public wakes up and see's it for the scam that it is. May it endure a slow and painful death until it takes its place alongside laserdisk...

May 12th, 2010, 08:35 AM	#15
Marty Baggen Major Player Join Date: May 2005 Location: monroe, or Posts: 572	Stephen.... Adam's just a little north of here. I suggest we meet at Grants Pass and form a posse to rescue the poor guy. His last few posts are definitely from a man crying for help. And if you print them out, scan them... then drop them into any CS4 program, the error message says "NewTek Toaster". It may be too late. We just need to save ourselves.