With all the hubbub about the new Final Cut Pro X, it's easy to forget Adobe announced new versions of their video applications only the day before Apple's sneak peak event. CS5.5 has a lot of significant new features, and Adobe was demoing the video-centric Production Premium suite all week at their NAB booth. Here's what they were showing:
The first presentation I sat in on was from writer/director Gareth Edwards, who edited and post-produced his self-shot $500k feature Monsters using mostly Adobe products. It was an inspiring presentation, and while the Adobe video below is full of fluff, it is true what Edwards says: for Premiere Pro, CS5 was a huge upgrade from CS4. We had enough problems editing individual episodes of The West Side in CS4; I can't imagine a feature. Here's a couple of quotes from Edwards, followed by his story from Adobe:
[twitter https://twitter.com/#!/ryanbkoo/status/57527645226803200]
[twitter https://twitter.com/#!/ryanbkoo/status/57528289429950464]
[twitter https://twitter.com/#!/ryanbkoo/status/57529370058829824]
As for the rest of the presentations at the Adobe booth, here's a private version of what they were showing, via ProVideoCoalition:
Finally, while I'm certainly not any sort of expert on 3D shooting (or post-production), you can guess that 3D was everywhere at NAB. One of After Effects CS5.5's new features is its ability to handle stereoscopic 3D, as detailed in this presentation:
Of course, CS5.5 is, as you'd guess from its name, an incremental upgrade over the previous suite. But with plenty of answers yet to come about Final Cut Pro X, you can bet Adobe is hoping FCP X loses some tried-and-true features (like the viewer) -- which Adobe can then tout as "old" features.
[via ProVideo Coalition]
