If Adobe Was Smart...

[Kevin Spahr]

I'm the biggest Apple Fanboy around BUT, if Adobe was smart they would offer current FCP users a cross grade at a price we couldn't say no to. (Didn't Apple do that years ago to Adobe?) And if the next version of FCP is as lack luster as the last one, I think even I will be ready to switch. FCP needs a lot of work to bring it up to date and switching NLEs is a big deal to me, so I think Apple is leaving its self open for competitors to move in on their customer base.

I've been trying to burn a blu-ray out of Compressor for four days now. It just will not complete the encode. Since I haven't needed the computer the last couple days, I just started the encode and left it go. Today I will have to get down to some serious trouble shooting and figure this problem out.

This is just the most current issue that has "ruffled my feathers".

EOR
(End of rant.)

[Todd Clark]

I really don't think Adobe needs to. As you're finding out Apple can't compete with the new Adobe tools.

[David Knaggs]

I agree with Todd. I've got a new Adobe Production Premium Suite being shipped to me right now. I don't feel that I'm "abandoning" FCS. Or that I'm "making the switch".

But it's a bit like a builder who has a favorite hammer. He loves the balance and feel of this tool. It's what he's been used to and it's managed to get the job done for him in the past so he has a great affection for it. But he eventually has to buy and use that compressed air nail gun. He'll save days every time he makes a house frame. It's a business decision. He'll still use that hammer whenever it's the right tool in that instance.

I had to get the Adobe tools. Apple's current offerings really can't compete with the features that the Adobe suite offers - as Todd pointed out. I need to deliver professionally authored Blu-ray discs. I have an ever-increasing load of animations to add to the corporate training videos I produce. I've been trying to cope by using Motion along with some free apps, mainly because I thought Apple would invest the resources to upgrade Motion into something approaching the Adobe offerings (such as After Effects). But they've simply fallen further behind. (One of the things I'm really looking forward to with After Effects is the amazing "puppet" tool, for example.) I edit XDCAM EX footage and would like to edit from the BPAV folders directly and eliminate the wastage of drive space and time with the QuickTime conversions. Etc., etc., etc.

I dread the new learning curve I'll have to endure with this new suite of Premiere Pro, Photoshop, After Effects, Illustrator, Soundbooth and Encore. Plus their media encoder. But I'll just have to renew my subscription to Lynda.com and suffer through.

Adobe don't need to offer a cross-grade price. Their current superiority makes its own compelling case to any media professional. I delayed this for a long time due to sentiment for my "favorite old hammer". I'll still use FCS when appropriate. But I also need more modern tools. Adobe are servicing the needs of 2011. Apple seem to be stuck around 2006 or thereabouts. I have no idea why.

[Jeff Troiano]

If you don't mind me asking, did you get the windows version or the mac version? My current plan is to get a Mac Pro, and Add FCP, and the Adobe CS5 production suite.

Thanks,
Jeff

[David Knaggs]

Hi Jeff.

I absolutely got the Mac version. I love the Mac OS and this new Adobe Production Suite will sit alongside FCS on my desktop and laptop. Later on I plan to get a 2009 (or later) Mac Pro and the right graphics card to properly leverage the performance which Premiere Pro and the other suite tools are capable of. But my immediate thoughts are simply on installing and learning how to use all of this new software.

[Andrew Hughes]

"Apple seem to be stuck around 2006 or thereabouts. I have no idea why." -- sadly, Apple is quickly becoming a consumer electronics company and NOT a media professional software company. I do love the OS, though.

[Dave Partington]

Originally Posted by David Knaggs

Adobe don't need to offer a cross-grade price. Their current superiority makes its own compelling case to any media professional. I delayed this for a long time due to sentiment for my "favorite old hammer". I'll still use FCS when appropriate. But I also need more modern tools. Adobe are servicing the needs of 2011. Apple seem to be stuck around 2006 or thereabouts. I have no idea why.

I would certainly not call the Adobe offering 'compelling', especially at the prices they are asking. We have 3 full time FCP suites running. We own ONE copy of CS3 master suite. To merely upgrade that to CS5 was something like £1200. To buy two more copies would be £5k more. That's £6.2K without having to also buy all the plugins again that we currently use with FCP. And then what did we really gain? We gained the ability to run with native AVCHD, but not the mercury engine unless your mac has the right video card (which can only be changed on the Mac Pros and not the iMac.

Yes I would like to be able to play with this some more, but I don't find it compelling at this point. Now, if Apple fail to catch up in the next round then maybe we'll look again, but at this point £6.2K ($10K) PLUS the cost of plugins is almost a move sideways with all the learning curves that go with it.

Originally Posted by David Knaggs

But my immediate thoughts are simply on installing and learning how to use all of this new software.

Exactly. Steep learning curve to gain what? Being able to edit without transcoding. I fear we'd spend all the time we saved on transcoding learning all the niggles of the new software.

[David Knaggs]

Hi Dave.

I certainly agree that it's a lot less compelling when you have to fork out for 3 sets!

If you are looking at purely Premiere Pro against FCP as the primary use and point of difference, it is certainly less compelling. I work with a Raid 1 mirroring set-up so that there is a fully-cloned drive of my work at all times so, over the course of a year's work, the amount spent on drives can really add up. Sometimes I'll use the XDCAM Transfer app to bulk convert to QuickTimes and then edit away in the timeline. Other times, to save on drive space, I'll use Log and Transfer (with the XDCAM plug-in) and import more select clips with handles (for the transitions). But this means double-handling (and therefore wasted editing time) because I then have to go back to each clip and precisely trim and time it. In a one-man-shop like mine, wasted editing time is a big workflow no-no. The same as the time spent waiting for the complex animations to render on the FCP timeline. And it will certainly be a bitter financial pill for me to swallow to have to buy a very recent Mac Pro and specialized NVIDIA card early next year, purely so that I can leverage the "render-free" aspect of Premiere Pro. But time is money and it all adds up eventually.

Also Premiere has another advantage to do with colour correction.

If you look at post #3 in this thread:
http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/view-vid...ml#post1598209

I spent more money on an extremely unsatisfactory Matrox MXO monitoring solution than I have on the Adobe Production Suite. So that point is not to be discounted.

Also there is the Blu-ray aspect (Encore comes bundled with Premiere Pro). I guess it depends on which part of the world you live in. In Australia, the head of a large retailing chain (Harvey Norman) recently complained in the press that the prices of large widescreen plasmas and LCDs had dropped so much that it wasn't viable for retailers to sell them. He said that Australia was the only place in the world with prices so low. To verify, I checked through the offices of one of my major corporate clients and I couldn't find anyone who didn't now have a large HD plasma or LCD at home. There are some people I know who still have CRTs at home, but far more have large HD screens.

But I acknowledge that it's different in other countries (and also, perhaps, in other areas of Australia). I saw a recent post by David Mullen saying that he is the only person he knows with a large HD screen. Everyone else he knows is watching CRTs (although he did give his sister his older HD widescreen). So I guess it's very different in the US. And perhaps in England too.

But when I was talking about a "compelling case to media professionals", I was referring to the entire suite. I need smoother integration. Inkscape to GIMP to Motion to FCP is pretty darn clunky. Illustrator to Photoshop to After Effects to Premiere Pro will be a much better workflow.

I was thinking of Perry Mason when I used the words "compelling case". Perry makes a compelling case to acquit his client. It doesn't mean that his client will be acquitted. The DA tries to make his own compelling case to convict. When you said, "Now, if Apple fail to catch up in the next round then maybe we'll look again," I take that to mean that you're waiting for the DA (Apple) to get up and address the jury.

If it's a particularly good argument, perhaps I'll buy the next FCS update. (I already saved $600 by not buying the last one.) But if my primary needs were for editing software with just a bit of graphics, I'd probably stick purely with FCP/Motion in the hopes that the next upgrade will be a cracker.

[Dave Partington]

The four apps I use from the CS3 suite are Photoshop, Dreamweaver, After Effects and Encore.

I would *really* like the CS5 version of Encore for the Blu-ray stuff. We currently use Encore for Blu-ray because the Apple offering are a joke for commercial presentations and more suitable for dailies.

If it were cheaper to switch, i.e. what this post was started for, I *would* consider the switch more seriously, but honestly it would have to be MUCH cheaper than it is now as a cross-grade and I really don't see it happening.

[Peter Manojlovic]

Hey Dave....

Did you check out the prices of their suites??
I mean, yeah, the Master Collection is pretty expensive, but do you need three extra seats of such a package???

You'd probably be better off buying a Production bundle, or something leaner, and buying Dreamweaver separate...
I'm assuming you're not in the printing business...

Personally, if i had the assets of employees that know all the tools, and have the customer base to deliver products with those tools, cost of the software would be the last worry on my mind.....:)

[Kevin Spahr]

AppleInsider | Apple rumored to update Final Cut applications in March or April

If true, I think this update will set the future of Final Cut, we'll know where it is going soon.

[Chris Hurd]

Just a friendly reminder: DV Info Net is first and foremost an information resource, and rumors ain't information.

[Tim Kolb]

Originally Posted by Kevin Spahr

I'm the biggest Apple Fanboy around BUT, if Adobe was smart they would offer current FCP users a cross grade at a price we couldn't say no to. (Didn't Apple do that years ago to Adobe?)

I think that in many ways, Adobe hasn't really been successful in direct communication with editors in general...not boutique owners...not "everything post and authoring" guys...not independent "i need everything in one computer so i can do 50 different things" guys (and I likely fit into more than one of those so my characterizations mean no disrespect)...but editors.

The integration of the suite is great, but for guys who cut everyday...features, TV serials, commercials...Premiere Pro's message prior to CS5 has been "hey...we're in the bottom of the box when you bought all that other Adobe software."

Unlike Avid and Apple, the editing app inside Adobe's software suite has largely been marketed as some sort of connective tissue for the last several cycles...even to the point where during the CS3 cycle, there was a fairly significant emphasis on how PPro could be the "adapter fitting" between the Adobe suite and FCP...lots of tradeshow demos, etc.

After 8 years, about half the people I demo the software for are still shocked when I show them how the timeline drops into audio units and you can cut down to the sample level...and that feature has been in there since PPro v1 was released...in 2003.

With CS5, the software actually has capability not only to handle DPX frame sequences, but to export them saving over-range colors for use in later post steps...anybody see that in the brochures? No?

Mercury was definitely the shiny object of this release, and everyone who saw it demo'd was convinced they could layer 4K RED shots 3 deep and play them out in RT to an HD SDI monitor... It's a good feature but I feel like I've spent a lot of my life since CS5 was released talking people down...and then they feel mislead so what is actually a very good feature gets maligned because it was oversold.

Running 6 layers of P2 DVCProHD 24PN at half res enables you to say you're running "HD" at the tradeshow but tossing the uncompressed 1080p on the edit sequence was an awakening for people...

As always, I am an advocate for Premiere Pro because I use it, but I do strive to give people a fair look at the software. I'm no cheerleader.

The next release of Final Cut may not have to work all that hard because retaining customers isn't as tough as seizing them from the competition. As has been mentioned, re-training takes time.

I think that PPro has some definite advantages over FCP...but then, most of those have existed for some time and several versions. Adobe needs some sort of initiative aimed directly at editors so they can attack the areas that need tweaking for those who edit day in and day out...selecting and extracting an edited range...a streamlined color correction -workflow- as opposed to a bunch of mechanisms in a folder...the "buffer up" when you hit the space bar feels like a significant stop in progress for many editors I talk to...help docs that actually cover some of these more sophisticated workflows would be nice this many months after release.

The PPro team works their tails off, but I get the feeling that with PPro plugging into every piece of Adobe software included in Production Premium, I wonder how much time they get to keep refining the editor when the role of being the caulk in between the tiles is a moving target...several of them in fact.

Lightworks installs in about 15 seconds and boots in about 8...on XP 32

FCP may not be what Adobe needs to be concerned about.

[Arnie Schlissel]

Originally Posted by Tim Kolb

Lightworks installs in about 15 seconds and boots in about 8...on XP 32

FCP may not be what Adobe needs to be concerned about.

And Adobe may not be what FCP & Avid need to worry about, either.