On May 7th Adobe released Creative Suite 6, and it’s pretty clear that their eyes are keenly focused on video production. While we’re still in the process of writing our review of the software suite, here are a few of the features we’re think video producers everywhere will be excited about.
Adjustment Layers in Premiere – Here’s the situation. You’ve edited together a very complex sequence of shots which features a drunk stumbling from home from a night at the local watering hole. The sequence is composed of several point of view shots cut tightly together, and sprinkled with wide shots of the person walking down the sidewalk. You want to make sure every POV shot is blurry and de-saturated so the viewer can see the world as the drunk sees it. Before, our only solution was to either apply the blur and de-saturation effects to each clip individually, or nest each chunk of shots and then apply the effects. Adjustment layers change this. They work just like they do in After Effects. Simply place an adjustment layer over the shots you want to affect, then apply the effects you want to the adjustment layer. It will transfer those effects to every clip underneath it in Premiere’s timeline. Now, if you have to change the amount of blur or desaturation, you only have to change the settings on the adjustment layer(s) and not each clip or clips inside of a nested sequence. To me, this feature is about six versions late, but better late than never!
3D Text (and Basic Shapes) in After Effects – Have you ever needed to do simple 3D text when working in an After Effects project? Unfortunately, After Effects could never do true 3D. Rather, it could place 2D objects in 3D space. That means if you wanted 3D text, you’d have to put 2D text in a 3D composition, duplicate it about a hundred times, then offset each layer’s Z position by one pixel. What a pain! Alternatively, there was a way to use the Shatter effect and turn off force and gravity to give pre-composed text a bit of extrusion. Still not very efficient. Finally, Adobe has added an extrusion option within the settings of 3D text/shapes. For those that only need very basic 3D tools, this may save you from spending a couple grand on 3D software.
SpeedGrade – Okay, this isn’t so much of a feature as it is a complete product. Adobe aquired IRIDAS, and included it in the creative suite for the first time in this sixth version. The first thing you’ll notice is that it doesn’t really feel like an Adobe product. The user interface is way different. Additionally, quite a few Adobe UI conventions that are ubiquitous in Adobe products aren’t there. The software itself, however, is great. Dedicated color grading software is being used more and more frequently outside of Hollywood. DaVinci, for example, can now be purchased for $1000 on OS X, where it used to be a $20,000+ system only. It only makes sens that Adobe wants to get in on the action. Considering the price for Adobe’s Creative suite hasn’t risen any (in fact, the Creative Cloud option looks like it’ll save you money), having a dedicated color grader is a welcome addition!
Obviously this isn’t a comprehensive list of new features. There’s tons more to look forward to in CS 6, so keep an eye out for our upcoming review!
Adobe Systems Incorporated today announced the new Adobe® Creative Suite® 5.5 product line, enabling designers and developers to target popular and emerging smartphone and tablet platforms, as the revolution in mobile communications fundamentally changes the way content is distributed and consumed. Substantive advances to HTML5, Flash authoring, digital publishing and video tools as well as new capabilities that kick-start the integration of tablets into creative workflows, anchor the new Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 product family.
This launch marks a major change to Adobe’s product release strategy for Creative Suite, the industry-leading design and development software for virtually every creative workflow across print, video, mobile and online media. Adobe now plans to have milestone Creative Suite product introductions at 24-month intervals and – starting with Creative Suite 5.5 – significant mid-cycle releases designed to keep the worldwide creative community ahead of the latest advances in content authoring.
Las Vegas here we come! The Videomaker staff is gearing up for the annual trek to the mecca of broadcast tools and toys: The National Association of Broadcasters, better known as NAB. We will hit the ground running at this year’s NAB 2011, (literally – wearing the most comfy running shoes we can!) as we check out the coolest video production gear possible including cameras and camcorders, mics and lights, computers, drives, software and a myriad of other goodies.
Throughout the event we will be blogging about our finds, as well as Tweeting and sending updates to Facebook – be sure to “like” us and watch for updates – so you can see gear that we hope to have in our headquarters for review as soon as the manufacturers release them to us.
NAB 2011 is jam-packed with video production gear for the Lone Wolf producer all the way to the mega Hollywood productions – If you could see our appointment calendar, you might be amazed that we can cover the NABshow floor so well. Trying to sift through it all every year is a quest, but we love a challenge and we always look forward to not just finding out about the gear, but getting a hands-on chance to see it, hold it, test it out – we’re like kids in a candy store!
After attending more than 12 of these tradeshows, from CES to NAB, I decided to pack a pedometer at last January’s CES 2011. I clocked in an average of 6 miles a day – what an experience! I hope you enjoy the show – virtually – through our eyes. Be sure to stay tuned here, to the Videomaker blog for daily updates throughout the week – and let us know what you’d like to see.
Let’s be honest, the first thing most of us think about when buying a new computer is the processor speed. Granted, there may be a few lone wolves whose elevator stops just shy of the top that think about the color or artistic merits of the computer first, but undoubtedly most people think of processing speed. Historically, this has indeed been the best indication of improvement to one’s computing experience and deservedly so. I mean there’s no doubt that going from 1 Ghz of processing speed to 2 should technically give your computer speeds that are close to twice as fast (which of course never actually happens), so what’s the big idea behind the title above? Let me explain. First of all, I think we can all agree that Moore’s law (which states that the amount of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on a chip will double every two years) cannot mathematically go on forever, and secondly, that the biggest gains in editing speed is no longer coming from the CPU, but from a fast hard drive and a GPU.
It’s shocking to think that Moore’s law could one day go the way of the dinosaurs. Even more shocking still is to hear a number of experts declare that CPUs are quickly approaching a power “wall” where to make the CPU any faster would mean a melting of the very substance that the transistors rest on. It doesn’t take a genius to know that a melted chip isn’t going to allow you to finish your video edit in record time. That’s why it’s unfortunate that this problem has not gotten a satisfactory answer from the labs at AMD or Intel, meaning that the “wall” may be approaching faster than we think.
On the other side of things, when Adobe announced their newest suite of creative products, CS5, they made a big deal of the close integration and speed gains that both Adobe Premiere and Media Encoder could get with a graphics card running on CUDA technology. This is because both Adobe and NVIDIA finally realized that CPUs are not only slowing their pace of improvement, but also pale in comparison to the processing power of a GPU – especially when today’s GPUs can handle the job of encoding and rendering more efficiently. If that wasn’t proof of the diminishing power of the CPU, it also seems that new versions of operating systems need less processing power and more RAM than they used to. Just a few years ago, when most people were running Windows XP, the minimum requirements for their computers to run was a measly 300 Mhz of processing power and 128 MB of RAM. Interestingly enough, when Windows finally upgraded their OS to the relative stability of Windows 7, the minimum requirements for the CPU went up by 700 Mhz, whereas the RAM went up by almost 1.8 GB, effectively double what the requirements of the CPU are. Even so, the most telling fact of all can be found with Intel’s latest announcement of their Sandy Bridge chip. Shortly after the announcement, MIT’s Technology in Review blog called into question the actual improvements of Intel’s chips saying that they “had little to tout in terms of improved CPU performance.” Instead, it seems that Intel is focusing on improved graphics processing and communication which has very little to do with what the traditional processor does. Though this may be good news for graphic card companies, it most certainly must be bad news for processor manufacturers and computer companies. If chips don’t get significantly better for tasks such as video editing or high end rendering, there will be real concern for these manufacturers as their biggest accounts will slowly fade away. Honestly, who wouldn’t just keep upgrading RAM and hard drives rather than buying a whole new CPU every 2-4 years – especially in our economy?
Hope is not lost however. Thankfully, it does appear that Intel is intent on nipping this problem in the bud by announcing new technology such as memristors and quantum computing, all of which hold promise but still have yet to see the light of day. These discoveries have the potential to allow processing speeds of up to 1 Thz. However, given the current state of the processing industry, there is good reason to doubt that these technologies will be implemented soon enough to stave off the problem. Either way, though it is a shame that processing power may not hold the same importance as it once did, the one thing that won’t be missing the slowing progress of processors is our wallets.
Adobe announced Premiere Elements 9 software for both Windows and Mac which is a first for the Mac platform.
Premiere Elements users can take advantage of an easy-to-use Organizer, which acts as a media management hub, where both video clips and still photos can be accessed in one convenient location. The software easily imports a variety of file types from different devices including the popular Flip Video camera and video from HDSLR cameras. Users can quickly find the best videos with the Auto-Analyzer that automatically tags the most interesting, highest quality video footage – eliminating the hassle of clicking through dozens of clips to find the great ones.
With Premiere Elements 9, users can create eye-catching videos in just minutes, easily fix audio problems, automatically trim away bad footage, stabilize shaky shots, and correct bad color and lighting. Once users select the footage they want, movies can be created instantly or enhanced with professional flair in just a few clicks or with simple drag and drop effects, like the Cartoon Effect, which turns any video into an animated feature. Optimized performance also makes editing and viewing smooth, even in HD. In addition, friends and family can experience an interactive DVD-like viewing experience on the Web or share directly to Facebook and YouTube via interactive albums.
For added convenience, now Adobe Premiere Elements 9 Windows and Mac users have the option to purchase Plus, which offers 20GB of storage for automatic online backup and sharing (up to 15,000 photos or four hours of DVD-quality video), as well as ongoing deliveries of creative extras sent directly to the desktop software.
Adobe Premiere Elements 9 for Windows and Mac is available now at www.adobe.com for $100.
If you’ve purchased Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 and are waiting for an update, today’s your day! Earlier today, Adobe announced its update to Premiere Pro CS5, version 5.0.2.
Some of the improvements Adobe has made are in the areas of tapeless workflow, including RED workflow improvements, native Sony XDCam support, native JVC Quick Time support, and enhanced native DPX format support.
The newest version also supports additional NVIDIA cards: GTX470, Quadro 4000 and Quadro 5000 (all Windows only), as well as 10-bit Display Port support for Mercury GPU Quadro Cards, allowing you to output and view full 10-bit color without having to use separate playback hardware. Lastly, the new version has improved their audio support with the addition of broadcast WAV audio file format support.
Ever heard the saying “slow and steady wins the race?” While it’s great advice for those who are running marathons, it is just the opposite of the ideal experience for a motion graphic designer. When an artist is in that long sought creative “zone” of graphic design having to wait 5 or more seconds for an image to refresh can make the magic wear off in a hurry. I mean, would Picasso be a happy customer if every paint stroke took 5 seconds to show up on his canvas? I doubt it. For this very reason, it can be of utmost importance to know some tips on how to keep your program running smoothly during the entirety of your production.
After spending several years working with Adobe After Effects, I feel pretty confident in saying that the basic reasons for why the program can sometimes slow to a crawl will inevitably fall into one of three categories: hardware, software, and work flow. That being said, the best way to speed up After Effects is of course, a hardware upgrade. However, hardware upgrades can be incredibly expensive – not to mention time consuming. Instead, it can be a good idea to just upgrade the most important parts of your computer that give After Effects its speed. Let me be clear: a faster processor is always going to give you the biggest bump in speed but there are other pieces of hardware that can do a lot for your computer as well. Also, it is always best to have the newest version of Adobe’s software as each new update tends to give faster render times due to increased support of GPUs and more efficient coding. That being said, if you want longer previews in After Effects, you will want to buy more RAM. After Effects versions from CS4 and below can only recognize 4 gigabytes of RAM unless multiple copies of After Effects’ renderer are open using multiprocessing, so try and get at least 6 to 8 gigabytes of RAM in order to max out your RAM in After Effects and have a little left over for other applications that need to be open. Thankfully RAM prices are as good as they’ve ever been making it possible to buy 8 gigabytes of DDR3 1600 megahertz RAM package for only $175.00. Another piece of hardware that can really help you speed up After Effects is a couple of fast hard drives. By putting your footage to one fast HDD that your computer can read from while writing rendered files to another fast hard drive you will notice a faster playback and render time. If you have some money to burn, your best option will be to buy two solid state drives that attach to your computer’s PCI-e slots giving you potential read times of 80-260 megabytes per second and write times of 60-160 megabytes per second. If you don’t have cash like that to burn, them some high end 7,200 RPM hard disk drives should still speed up your After Effects compositing. With the introduction of After Effects CS5 and its Mercury Playback engine, it’s now possible to get significantly faster render times by upgrading the GPU of your computer. It accelerates rendering, encoding, and opening of large projects. One of the best graphics cards you can get at this time is the NVIDIA Quadro 6000 or an ATI Sapphire Radeon HD 5970.
Adobe has announced that Audition, the audio application for recording, mixing, editing and mastering, will be coming to the Mac in a future release.
A beta of the new Mac version of Audition is expected to be available on Adobe Labs in Winter 2010. Audio editors and video professionals will now have more choices for audio production with Adobe Audition available on both PC and Mac. Hopefully this will kick Apple into high gear and maybe they might start focusing on their Pro Apps soon.
Check out these two videos for a full scoop on Adobe Audition on the Mac!
One of the more mysterious aspects of video editing is the use of proxies. The very word can strike fear into even the most confident of video editors and make beginning editors decide to start a new career. However, with the onset of high bit rate HD video editing, proxies have become a necessary evil. Just recently while working on the newest how-to video on shooting reception videos, I decided I had enough. Previewing my Canon 1D Mark IV footage natively on the laptop I was working on was like watching molasses dripping into a bucket in the middle of a North Dakota winter. In other words, it was unbearably slow. As a result, I decided to go online and figure out this proxy editing thing once and for all. I already had some knowledge having gone through several forums and news stories on the subject, but never really figured I’d need to use it. Boy was I wrong. I mean, when waiting for Premiere to spit out even one frame of the 45 Megabit per second HD video is less preferable than watching Robin Williams play Popeye, you know something has to change.
My search led me to all sorts of places on the net, but eventually I found the best solution was using either MPEG Streamclip, Compressor, Adobe Media Encoder or Super to make quick proxy versions of my files and then rename them with the Bulk Rename Utility. In case you were wondering, the best encoding settings were either ProRes Proxy (if on a Mac), or H.264 at about 3-5 Mbps (on Windows). At that point, it was possible to edit with the proxies scaled to the size of the source footage. Even though I lost a little quality, I more than made up for it in saved time. Instead of waiting for hours for my footage to render, I was able to watch my edit in real time which is crucial in order to get a “feel” for the edit (and not get mind-numbingly bored). Once I was finished with my edit, I simply reconnected my footage with the original source footage and because it had the same timecode and video settings, I was able to render it without any hiccups. I’m not going to lie to you though. Even though this method saved me time and effort, it still required two programs and an awful lot of time, which really wasn’t cool. Read the rest of this entry »
Creative Suite 5 is here and shipping. Still on the fence about CS5? If you want you can now officially download a free 30 day trial and take CS5 for a test drive!
The Creative Suite 5 line-up includes five new versions: Creative Suite 5 Master Collection, Creative Suite 5 Design Premium, Creative Suite 5 Web Premium, Creative Suite 5 Production Premium, Creative Suite 5 Design Standard, as well as 15 point products and associated technologies. What matters mostly to you and I is Creative Suite 5 Production Premium.
CS5 has a ton of performance improvements in the Creative Suite 5 product line with engineering breakthroughs, including native 64-bit support on both Mac and Windows in Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects, that allows users to work more fluidly on high-resolution projects. The much anticipated NVIDIA GPU-accelerated Adobe Mercury Playback Engine allows Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 users to open projects faster, refine effects-rich HD sequences in real time and play back complex projects without rendering. The revolutionary timesaving Roto Brush tool in After Effects helps users isolate moving foreground elements in a fraction of the normal time.
While your waiting for your copy to arrive or finish up downloading check out one fan’s quest for CS5!
On May 7th Adobe released Creative Suite 6, and it’s pretty clear that their eyes are keenly focused on video production. While we’re still in the process of writing our review of the software suite, here are a few of the features we’re think video producers everywhere will be excited about.
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