Hart's Dynamic Media Blog

As you might expect, there’s been a ton written about the Production Premium CS4 releases over the last few days. I’ve attempted a quick roundup of some of the ones that have come across my desk, although I fear I’m already a days behind in the roundup!

• Elsa Wenzel from CNET on Product Premium CS4 (Elsa also posted first looks of a lot of the other products and suites.)
  
• ZDNet
  
• Jonny Evans at Macworld UK
  
• Oliver Peters at DV Magazine
  
• POST Magazine
  
• Jan Ozer and Franklin McMahon on CS4
  
• Oliver Peters from Videography
  
• Videomaker on Production Premium CS4
  
• Jim Darymple from Macworld on Premiere Pro CS4
  
• Simon Yuen from Zoom in Online on Premiere Pro CS4
  
• Trish and Chris Meyer on After Effects CS4
  
• Flash Magazine on Flash CS4
  
• Creativepro.com on Flash CS4
  
• EMediaLive on Encore CS4
  
• Robert Barnett at PC-Review Online on CS4
  
• David Roth Weiss from Creative Cow on his take on CS4 as an editor

If you wanted to check out the CS4 launch webcast on Tuesday morning but missed it you now have a second chance: the whole stream has been posted to Adobe TV. Enjoy!

It’s always hard to believe when a launch finally comes, but it’s here! This morning we unveiled the whole CS4 lineup in our webcast and all the juicy details have been posted. There’s a lot out there so I thought I’d point all of you information-hungry folks to the places you can learn more.

First, check out the official products sites. You can start on the main Production Premium site to read about the suite features, and there are links there to all the individual components. There’s also features list for the suite, and below I’ve got links to the main pages and feature lists for all the point products as well.

You should also check out Adobe TV, our (relatively) new video site that’s now been filled with CS4 videos. Start with the video professionals page, which includes feature tours of the suite, Premiere Pro, After Effects, Flash, Photoshop, Soundbooth, and the rest of the gang.

And remember, the new feature overviews are just the highlights. There are hundreds of details throughout the suite that don’t get mentioned in the high-level overviews. Dig in and enjoy!

• Production Premium CS4
  
• After Effects CS4
  
• Photoshop CS4
  
• Flash CS4
  
• Illustrator CS4
  
• Soundbooth CS4
  
• OnLocation CS4
  
• Encore CS4

I can’t say anything specific, but here’s a heads up for those of you who don’t visit the Adobe.com main page often: we’ll be announcing CS4 via webcast on September 23rd. Sign up now for your invitation!

I’ve been living, breathing, thinking, and dreaming audio software for just over 10 years. Starting with Syntrillium in 1997, to Adobe with the team in 2003, and through the release of Audition 3 last November, it’s been my pleasure to work with some of the most brilliant minds I know to bring what (I hope) are some of the best audio tools in the world to you all. It’s been a ton of fun, and while audio (and music in particular) will continue to be my first love and passion, it’s time for me to move on and try something new. Ten years is a long time for anything, even the best job in the world.

So what now? Well, I’m not going too far–I’ve been asked to take on the enviable role of product manager for Production Premium. Now my mission is to broaden my view of the world and try to keep an eye on the whole video and interactive workflow–from planning to playback, from the web to HD, from mobile to movies. I’m thrilled by the chance to stretch into something new but still stay close (and in touch) with the audio team and products I love.

And the audio team couldn’t be in better hands. I’m thrilled to say we found someone who’s a perfect fit for the audio product management position: Lawson Hancock. Not only does Lawson have lots of software product management experience, but he’s also a musician who left Macromedia several years ago to finish his album. But I’ll let him introduce himself–Lawson has just started up a new audio team blog where he and the rest of the team will keep you all up to date on the world of audio at Adobe. Make sure to stop by and bookmark or subscribe to the new blog! And this blog? Well, I intend to keep it going with a spread focus on all sorts of Dynamic Media topics.

Finally, I just want to thank all of you, our users. The last ten years have been a thrill and it’s entirely because of your enthusiasm and passion for our tools and how it they fit into your own work. The shouts of joy when I show a new version–and the honest calling out when we fall short–have kept me engaged and excited like nothing else, and I look forward to seeing what you, and the audio team, create next.

Happy New Year to everyone! I know it’s been pretty quiet on the blog front lately. Who knew that things would stay so busy after we shipped Audition?

In any case, as with most everyone the New Year is a time for me to reflect on the previous twelve months and look forward to the next twelve. For the audio team 2007 was definitely a great, if exhausting, year. It was a real thrill to bring a brand new product to market with Soundbooth, and equally fun to ship what we think is a killer new version of Audition just a few months later. One of my personal measures of job satisfaction comes from seeing an ever-increasing number of people use and enjoy products I worked to create. Having two audio products in the stable for different kinds of folks means that we’re touching more people than ever before, and the strong uptake of Audition 3 by old and new customers alike has been a real thrill.

Looking forward, I always try to predict what the year will bring and I’m almost always wrong on more than half of it! We’ve got some cool things planned and I’ll look forward to sharing more when I can… In the meantime, I’ve been remiss in linking to some of the articles that you might find interesting. Today, I’ve got three reviews of Audition 3:

• George Peterson from Mix Magazine
  
• Bob Nicholl from Designer Today
  
• Gary Eskow from Digital Content Producer
  

I think Bob’s review is particularly interesting because he sees Audition through new eyes as a general designer. Also, Gary’s review comes from the perspective of a video pro and so he talks more about the relationship between Soundbooth and Audition and why Adobe “bothers” to have two audio products.

I hope you all have a wonderful, prosperous, and great sounding New Year!

We’re pleased to announce that Adobe Audition 3 is now shipping. We really think this is a killer release with something (or many somethings) for everyone, from old hands to newcomers alike. The information about the release is up at the main Audition page or you can go directly to the “what’s new” page. We also have the trial version posted. It’s fully functional for 30 days so you can dig into the product and really see for yourself whether it’s what you need.

Now if you’ll excuse me, there’s a party this afternoon I need to get ready for!

I’m back in the office this morning and just trying to dig back out–it’ll take a while. But right there at the top of my email queue was a note that George Petersen over at Mix has posted his take on the beta of Audition 3 that we sent over to him a while back. Enjoy!

It’s been especially hard to keep my mouth shut about this one lately, but I’m thrilled to report that we announced Adobe Audition 3 this morning. The team is especially proud of this release, not just because of overcoming the challenge of producing it at the same time as Soundbooth, but mainly because it adds both brand new exciting capabilities and polishes existing workflows. Take a look at the new features summary, or the more thorough What’s New PDF, to see what we’ve added–we think there’s something for everyone.

Some of the highlights include:

• MIDI recording and editing in a piano roll sequencer
  
• VSTi support
  
• Spectral frequency selection paintbrush
  
• Spectral frequency healing brush
  
• Marque editing in the spectral pan and phase displays
  
• Multitrack auto-crossfades and fade handles on every clip
  
• Grouped-clip editing in the multitrack view
  
• New effects including Convolution Reverb, Analog Delay, a new Mastering tool, and a Guitar Suite
  
• Time stretching using the Radius engine from iZotope
  
• A dedicated top/tail view in the edit view for tuning the start and end of a file
  
• On-clip controls for volume and fades in the edit view
  
• New Adaptive Noise Reduction and Phase Correction tools
  
• Improved performance with N-core support in the mixing engine

We should be shipping well before the end of the year–I’d say in or before November. The price remains the same at $349 US, and we have a $99 upgrade for anyone who has a previous version of Audition, even if it came as part of a collection or suite. You can pre-order now if you’d like, and there will be a demo version posted at or around the time we ship.

More personally, this rounds out quite a year for me and for the whole audio team. It’s been an exhausting, challenging, exhilarating ride trying to bring a new take on audio to the world at the same time we were advancing a well-loved product to the next level. I couldn’t be more proud of the team and, while there are always things we wished we could have done better, and others we wish we had done more or less of, on the whole I hope you’ll agree that this is a bang-up release for our audio workhorse and a huge step forward for Adobe in audio. Now I’m going to take my fatigue, my wife, and myself on a vacation so don’t be surprised if this spot is dark for a little while. More news when I return!

The first impressions and semi-reviews for Production Premium are really starting to flow. First we have a two-part look at Production Premium specifically focused on motion graphics and interactive professionals by Kevin Schmitt on Digital Producer. Kevin starts with:

I was somewhat skeptical about what the forthcoming Adobe CS3 Production Premium bundle would offer outside of Flash and After Effects; after all, I have precisely zero skills when it comes to the “front end” of production (shooting, capture, editing, etc.).

But concludes that, in the end, CS3 was going to be way more useful for him that he thought. Close to my heart, I’m also happy to report he liked Soundbooth:

All in all, I’m pleasantly surprised at the amount of usefulness I’ve gotten out of Soundbooth even in its beta form, which is high praise coming from someone who tends to avoid audio at all costs.

The other new article is in DV online. Richard Harrington takes an overview look at CS3 from a more traditional video production background, and concludes with, “Are we impressed? Yes! Adobe has outdone itself with an unparalleled push for a consistent user experience across the entire product line.”