Adobe CS5 Production Premium Overview Review (page 3)

Media Encoder and Encore

Media Encoder gets some welcomed improvements. The most obvious are the addition of a small window that lets you monitor the encoding process and more options in the Preferences dialogue. Of note, you can optionally have your queue start automatically when your system has been idle for a user-defined time. You also now have more metadata embedding options and control of your shared memory allocation for After Effects, Premiere Pro, Encore and Media Encoder from within the Preferences dialogue.

Because all video and effects must still be rendered before final output, the Mercury Playback Engine and CUDA acceleration also speed along the encoding process even though the GPU is not doing the actual encoding. In our encoding speed test, we found that a five-minute project with two layers of HDV video and three layers of motion graphics, each crammed with effects, encoded to an MPEG2 Blu-ray file in five minutes and four seconds with CS5. The same project took 16 minutes and 22 seconds to encode on the same computer using CS4. This was largely due to the CPU optimization. The CS5 encode used an average of 96 percent of the CPU cycles while the CS4 encode only used 38 percent.

There are no big changes for Encore. It does, however, have more options for incorporating metadata when creating media for the web, making it more discoverable, searchable and potentially far more interactive.

Supporting Cast

The Production Premium suite also includes Photoshop Extended, Illustrator, Flash Professional, Bridge, Device Central and a new program, Flash Catalyst, that helps you design interactive content. We will look at each of these in our next review. For now, we can tell you that Photoshop, while previously 64-bit, realizes some substantial performance gains. Photoshop also has some cool new 2D and 3D paint and extrusion tools along with the very innovative Content Aware Fill that automates much of the removal of unwanted objects, filling the space with relevant background imagery.

If you are a professional or just an impatient amateur, the improvements in speed alone may well be worth the upgrade. Unless you already have one of the recommended nVidia video cards, you will need to get one to take full advantage of the Mercury playback engine and GPU acceleration. Thankfully, the CS5 Production Premium suite is the same price as CS4.

CS5 is faster, more stable, integrated, packed with new and improved features and makes metadata, collaboration and distribution a robust part of Production Premium. The bottom line: if you don't already have an earlier version of the suite, take a serious look. If you do, prepare to upgrade.

Tech Specs

Windows Processor: 64-bit Intel® Pentium® 4 or AMD Athlon® 64 (Intel Core-2 Duo or AMD Phenom® II recommended); Intel Core-2 Duo or AMD Phenom® II required for Adobe Premiere Pro 64-bit operating system required: Microsoft® Windows Vista® Home Premium, Business, Ultimate, or Enterprise with Service Pack 1 (Service Pack 2 recommended) or Windows® 7.

• 2GB of RAM (4GB or more recommended)
• 1280x900 display (1280x1024 recommended) with qualified hardware-accelerated OpenGL graphics card, 16-bit color, and 256MB of VRAM
• Adobe-certified GPU card for GPU-accelerated performance in Adobe Premiere Pro; visit www.adobe.com/go/ premiere_systemreqs for the latest list of supported cards
• 7200 RPM hard drive for editing compressed video formats; RAID 0 for uncompressed
• Adobe-certified card for capture and export to tape for SD/HD workflows
• OHCI-compatible IEEE 1394 port for DV and HDV capture, export to tape, and transmit to DV device
• Sound card compatible with ASIO protocol or Microsoft Windows Driver Model

Mac OS: Multicore Intel® processor with 64-bit support

• Mac OS X v10.5.7 or v10.6.3; Mac OS X v10.6.3 required for GPU-accelerated performance in Adobe Premiere Pro
• 2GB of RAM (4GB or more recommended)
• 1280x900 display (1280x1024 recommended) with qualified hardware-accelerated OpenGL graphics card, 16-bit color, and 256MB of VRAM
• Adobe-certified GPU card for GPU-accelerated performance in Adobe Premiere Pro; visit www.adobe.com/go/premiere_systemreqs for the latest list of supported cards
• 7200 RPM hard drive for editing compressed video formats; RAID 0 for uncompressed
• Core Audio-compatible sound card

Strengths

• Speed, speed, speed. Improved stability, workflow and collaboration.

Weaknesses

• Hardware purchase(s) may be required to realize full performance gains.

SUMMARY

CS5 is among Adobe's most significant upgrades to the Production Premium bundle ever.

Brian Peterson is a video production consultant, trainer, and lecturer.

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