The Genesis Project

 As an Adobe person who is often on the road, I talk to customers from all walks of life - be it from a hobbist to MTV and everything in between.  From these customers, I've gotten this kind of response from many: "I use (fill in the blank - Apple or Avid) but I have to say, that Production Premium and Premiere Pro are pretty compelling for me.  I might give this a shot." Below is another link from a real-world group that gave CS4 a try and had a great experience from it.

Over the last year or so and especially since CS4 started shipping, we've gotten more and more response from people at the higher end of the spectrum that are starting to embrace Adobe as a greater part of their total workflow and perhaps as their editor du jour in the future. 

If I can offer some reasons as to why this is without sounding like an Adobe sales person, it's been things like integration between all of the apps, metadata and perhaps most broadly, the idea of native and tapeless workflows.  Things like XDCAM EX, P2, AVCHD and RED have all been huge reasons why customers consider Adobe as an alternative.  Not converting their raw footage has been a pain point that Adobe has recognized and will continue to innovate on.  Imagine mixing all of those formats on a single timeline?  Premiere Pro can do without converting any of the footage (yes, I'm bragging at this point...;-)

Anyway, this article is a real good, "real-world" read that underscores what people are saying about Adobe Production Premium CS4.  My only beef with this article is that it sounds like Production Premium is only available for PC.  Aiy Carumba - Adobe is cross platform!!!!

Here's the link: TheStreet.com

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 4:18 PM | Permalink

As you can probably imagine, there is a lot of internal emails that fly about inside of Adobe and its extended developer community.  One such email came from a developer who made a comment.  In essence, he said that some users prefer After Effects 6.5 since it is the last version with a 'decent Mac interface.'

This struck me as very odd, but it reminded me that some users didn't like the panels driven interface.  Certainly, it is a minority but its out there.  My question to those users is why?

My defense of the AE user interface isn't based on the fact that I am an Adobe employee, nor is it based on the fact that I came to AE after 6.5 (I didn't).  And while we're on the subject, why is 6.5 a Mac interface?  Is it not a PC interface???

To me, Mac or otherwise, the standardized UI across all of the Adobe apps represents a significant improvement over panels flying all over the screen.  Whats more is the interface will automatically adapt to any screen resolution you have - giving you maximum utilization of your screen real estate on any given system.  As an aside, I can't tell you how many times I've appreciated that feature as I fly about the country demonstrating various Adobe apps on different screens, projectors and systems... ;-)

The other thing besides not pushing panels about constantly is the fact that reconfiguring the interface is improved as well. If I need more timeline area, I can drag it up and all of the affected other panels automatically conform to fit.  In the past, I would resize one window and then push another two or three around to make it fit again. 

Like I said, I don't get it and am curious to learn what I may be misunderstanding.

To those of you who prefer the floating panels, there is a workspace option that allows you to undock all of your panels.  This in effect would give you the 'classic 6.5 look.'

But back again to the question - if you are a long AE user and prefer the 6.5 way of things, can you tell me why?  I'm very curious.

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 8:03 AM | Permalink

I am in Florida this morning before I jump on a plane to Los Angeles.  I wanted to get a quick post in to say that yesterday's CS4 roadshow was a lot of fun and packed with people interested in seeing our products and the products of our partners.  We had all of the major hardware partners there and showing CS4 drivers (mostly in beta) as well as Panasonic, nvidia, Rimage and many more.  Since the event was at Full Sail, it had a lot of students there. 

I ended up not doing any of the presentation but both Dave and Steve did a great job.  The links attached to their names are their respective blog sites, so be sure to check them out.

The integration and innovation that we've done with CS4 were the biggest draws.  Dynamic Link continues to get a lot of response and Dave took the time to talk about the RED camera support, Final Cut importer and the AAF import/export.  The AVCHD media was buttery smooth on the timeline, but then again we had an eight-core HP tower that was rockin with Vista 64!  Despite that, it seems that customers do understand the value of native editing and that transcoding to another codec, however efficient is never a customers first choice...

I also wanted to comment quickly about some of the reasons I haven't been able to put as much time into the Genesis Project blog and the Adobe Beginner Classes TV show. My focus for this year is working with broadcasters and large media and entertainment companies and its been gobbling up my time.  Its no surprise that products like After Effects and Photoshop are a staple at broadcasters around the world and consequently, they are purchasing Production Premium for that very reason.  However, now more and more people at the high-end are starting to discover the incredible features, power and integration of the other products, most notably Premiere Pro.

What does this mean for the blog and the TV show?  They will definitely go on and it's my hope to put as much or more energy into them, but its figuring out a clean way to do so.  So, while I'm figuring this out, please know that I'm out there thinking of ideas and posting however and whenever I can.  If you're new to this blog, you might check out the tutorials link to the right to get a handle on a ton of free tutorials and content including several links to other sites that I have discovered over the years.

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 7:20 AM | Permalink

That's really all there is to this post!

The link below says the following about the new update: "The Adobe® OnLocation™ CS4 4.0.2 update contains six bug fixes involving handling of long clips, support for DVC Pro PAL, a freeze on opening SureShot, and a crash on playing a clip after scrubbing."

Get it here

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 1:43 PM | Permalink

Just a quick reminder that Adobe is having a road show tour.  People constantly tell me that they really enjoy them, so I hope you'll consider joining us.  We're hitting eight cities and if the event is successful we hope to do more.  Not only will Adobe be there, but a ton of our partners including many of our close friends at Blackmagic, Matrox and AJA.  In addition, you can see the new Quadro CX board up close which is a dynamite accelerator for several Adobe applications.

Here's the details: Adobe CS4 Roadshow

One other reminder is that there will be a Sony virtual tradeshow on January 15th.  It certainly sounds interesting and if you've got the time, stop in for a bit and chat with Adobe people online to answer any questions you have.  After it's done, I would really like to get some comments on it via this post or my other post on this

Here's how to register for the Sony show: Register

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 8:00 AM | Permalink