NEWS
Adobe Finally Gets It Together
New Creative Suite/Production Studio Finds Missing Link
by Michael Kunkes
photos courtesy of Adobe
 The main screen from Adobe Premiere 2.0 displaying project, full mix, clip review, multi-camera tracks and target sequence. |
It was only a matter of time. Adobe, which has already put together integrated packages such as Video Collection and the Creative Suite family, was only missing the creation of a complete, fully-integrated post-production environment with an ultra-efficient workflow and unified design environment—start to finish. With the January 2006 release of the Windows XP-based Creative Suite/Production Studio Pre-mium, the company has brought together all new versions of six products—After Effects 7.0, Premiere Pro 2.0 NLE system, Photoshop CS2, Audition 2.0, Encore DVD 2.0 and Illustrator CS2—all at a list price of $1,699. The standard version, which includes After Effects Standard, Premiere Pro 2.0 and Photoshop CS2, sells for $1,199. The new package is certified by the OpenHD Alliance, founded last year by Adobe and four other leading companies (now 15) to deliver a line of integrated, Windows-based products designed to make the move to High Definition (HD) seamless and affordable.
The timing is auspicious, coming hard on the heels of Apple’s Final Cut Studio (Editors Guild Magazine, JUL-AUG 05). Adobe says that Production Studio is the result of extensive customer research with picture and sound editors throughout the post industry. “We found that editors have three key needs,” says Bruce Bowman, Adobe Production Studio’s product manager. “They need a toolset that takes them from previsualization through to final delivery; they need those tools to work together so they can seamlessly move assets from application to application without interruptions to their creative workflow; and finally, they want a consistent workflow experience so that it feels like one fluid environment, no matter which application they are working in.”
All the ideas that have made Adobe’s previous packages successful—strong
integration, an extensive plug-in culture, ability to fit into existing
facility workflows, and ways in which projects can be imported and
exported—have been enhanced by a new key feature called Dynamic
Link, which allows editors to work with motion graphics, titles and
effects in both After Effects and the Premiere Pro timeline––without
the need to render and import new video with each new update.
“Designing pieces in After Effects to be used in your nonlinear
editing (NLE) system is usually a very iterative process,” Bowman
says. “Usually, the editor goes to his compositing/motion graphics
software, creates something, then renders it out into a movie, which
then has to be imported into the timeline in the NLE. If changes need
to be made, you have to go back to your compositor, make changes,
render out another file, import it again, place it in context and
do this over and over till you have something you are satisfied with.
 Adobe Production Studio production manager Bruce Bowman. Photo courtesy of Adobe |
“Adobe Dynamic Link avoids all of those intermediate rendering steps,” he continues. “You simply drag and drop a composition from After Effects right into Premiere Pro or Encore DVD, where you see the results instantly after each change. The response to this feature from the pre-release program was huge.” Adobe has made the decision to make Dynamic Link one of two “suite only” features, available only with the full Production Studio. The other, a feature long requested, is the ability to capture in After Effects. With the full Studio, Premiere Pro’s capture engine can be leveraged to capture directly into After Effects.
‘Dynamic Link is hugely important,’ says independent filmmaker and author Jacob Rosenberg, who is currently digital intermediate (DI) supervisor and online editor for the upcoming Cavu release, Lbs, and was online editor and DI supervisor for Dana Brown’s Dust to Glory. “And not just from the integration standpoint, but also from the perspective of animators using an editing tool and editors using a compositing and effects tool. Because you have the link active as you work, editorial can be working the same time as the effects artists and compositors. I have a feeling people will really like it and start demanding more from it.”
Another major tool is the already extant Adobe Bridge, a customized media hub for personal projects that allows users to metadata-tag files for later retrieval and to view every available file format before opening. “As a ‘go-between’ piece of software, Bridge allows you to place media into either After Effects, Illustrator, Photoshop or Encore directly from Bridge,” says Dieter Rozek, the Editors Guild Training Coordinator in the Hollywood office. “This speeds up the process of getting media into programs without having to go through a complicated series of menu steps. I think Bridge will be a strong point of the Suite in the future, simply because it reduces the number of steps in the workflow.” (Editor’s Note: Read a tutorial on Bridge in “Tech Tips,” page 49.)
Adobe also has added native Flash video export—not surprising in the wake of the company’s recent acquisition of Macromedia. It remains to be seen how Flash will ultimately play out in the package, but a union between these two technologies has to be a good thing. For this first release, Adobe added the ability to export natively direct from the timeline to either After Effects or Premier Pro to the FOV format. “I believe that Adobe’s eventual strategy is to use Flash as the pre-eminent interactive video format for the web, since this is where most viewing of interactive content will occur in the future,” adds Rozek.
As with any NLE package, a complete feature rundown is impossible (try www.adobe.com/products/productionstudio for a complete list), but a brief look at some of the new features in Production Studio Premium will scratch the surface (barely):
Premiere Pro 2.0
• Scalable support for formats including DV, SD, HDV, HDCAM,
D5HD and Windows Media.
• An all-new color correction engine that now supports 32-bit
floating point color (upgraded from 8-bit in version 1.5), making
it more relevant for broadcast and especially HD work.
• Clip Notes: Adobe has leveraged its Acrobat program to allow
Premiere Pro to export an encrypted, password-protected PDF with embedded
video that allows anyone with Acrobat Reader to open .PDF comments,
modify them and send them back to the editor, where the file automatically
and frame-accurately conforms to the Premiere Pro timeline. Explains
Bowman, “If a scene is too long, you can place a link in the
PDF to ‘ftp up’ to a server or do the exact same thing
online. We’ve been overwhelmed with response to this feature.”
• Multi-cam support for up to four cameras in quad view with
real-time switching. This may not seem like much compared to Final
Cut Pro’s (FCP) 128, but Bowman claims that Adobe’s reasoning
was to focus on creating the best user experience, rather than going
for the maximum number of sources and a clunky workflow.
• AAF (advanced authoring format) or EDL files for film, audio
or video project file exchange.
• Multiple nestable timelines, which allow editors to assign
individual sequences to their own timelines while maintaining full
access to every edit in every timeline, and the ability to copy and
paste clips or timelines between Premiere Pro and After Effects.
• DVD authoring directly from the timeline; great for creating
simple, full-resolution and menu-driven DVDs for dailies, test discs
or final delivery.
• Full 32-bit/96 Hz audio support, 5.1 surround sound mixing
and sample-accurate editing on the timeline.
• MPEG-2 editing support, which allows Premiere Pro to edit
HDV natively.
Audition 2.0
• Ability to import QuickTime and MPEG formats and automatic
audio updating of video files.
• Low-latency mixing engine, allowing editors to mix tracks
on the fly.
• Two modes of audible scrubbing to locate hard-to-find edit
points.
• Support for audio devices that use ASIO (Audio Stream Input/Output)
protocol drivers.
• Open-linked audio or audio-only files in Audition from Premiere
Pro, (Premiere will create a synthetic project-sensitive copy of the
audio).
• Spectral Frequency Editor with lasso selection, marquee selection
and color and resolution display control capabilities.
Encore DVD 2.0
• Flowchart, which uses visual representations of all points
and links to define, review and adjust navigation; new objects can
be easily added by dragging from Adobe Bridge, desktop or within Encore
DVD.
• Easy slideshow creation, automated chapter reviews, and easy
assembly of multiple clips on the same timeline.
After Effects 7.0
 Screen image from Audition 2.0 showing new mixing engine with Mackey-based control surfaces, effects rack and video clip sequences. |
• Graph Editor, which provides complete visual control over
keyframe editing on the timeline, and easy sync across layers.
• High dynamic range color capability.
• Hundreds of customizable pre-sets and behaviors for animated
text, background movies, effects and transitions; real-time, high-fidelity
open-GL support that can accelerate renders up to three or four times
faster than at anytime in the past (as well as when exporting out
to a file); creative blur effects, such as lens blur, fast blur, smart
blur and compound blur.
• Timewarp, which allows users to take normal speed video and
slow it down without any field blending anomalies.
What’s Missing?
What features might make Production Studio an even better product?
“Film keycode is one missing critical feature that would allow
for deeper market penetration, but that could be solved by a third-party
developer,” Rosenberg says. “Also, from a user/customer
standpoint, I would love to see more native format support for DVC
Pro, compressed HD and SD; the ability to open Premiere projects in
Audition; and native OMF support for Audition and Premiere Pro. The
biggest missing feature though, is unified media management (which
now can only be done through Adobe Bridge). But, truth be told, no
one is as good as Avid in that department. Both Premiere Pro and Final
Cut Pro could do better with that.”
 After Effects 7.0 screen shot displaying the new graph editor feature. |
Rozek believes that a current limitation of Premiere Pro is its lack of film support. “Most big budget feature and TV shows still shoot on film and require a negative cut list for archival purposes and for syndication in other countries,” he explains. “I’m guessing that a cut list tool is in the works, since Premiere Pro has added the ability to display footage and frame counts in the timeline.”
The lack of a Mac version will also be conspicuous, since Premiere 6.5 in 2003 was the last Mac-compatible version before Adobe began developing specifically for PC. “I don’t know Adobe’s future plans, but as an editor, I would love to see the Production Studio compete with FCP and Motion on the Mac,” says Rosenberg. “It would be fun to watch and good for the consumer.”
As a studio group of products, however, Rosenberg feels that Production Studio is leaps ahead of Final Cut Studio. “After Effects and Motion are simply not on equal playing fields,” he says. “Neither is Soundtrack and Audition, which is an amazing application that’s been doing things for the last three versions that Soundtrack touted as groundbreaking features at NAB in 2005. Premiere Pro and Final Cut go head-to-head quite well, but Apple’s DVD Studio Pro offers more for DVD authoring than Encore DVD.”
 Adobe Bridge screenshot, with clip display and metadata. |
“One of the things that makes us different from both Apple and Avid is that those systems are based on proprietary hardware.” Bowman explains. “We are an open system, so we don’t play favorites with formats, “We work with Microsoft video for windows, AVI files, QuickTime and anybody’s hardware—and that gives us a terrific advantage. In addition, Premiere Pro was designed to be frame rate- and resolution-independent, which makes it ideal for HD workflows.”
Plugged In
Adobe products have always enjoyed a very rich plug-in ecosystem,
and with Premiere Pro sharing the same plug-in specs as After Effects,
many can be shared within the Studio.
Some of the most useful are:
• Automatic Duck (www.automatic duck.com) makes project conversion
tools such as Pro Import and Pro Export that can convert from After
Effects or Premiere Pro to Final Cut Pro; or FCP to Premiere Pro and/or
Avid, etc.
• Synthetic Aperture’s Color Finesse (www.synthetic-ap.com)
adds high-end telecine-style color correction.
• Trapcode’s Shine (www.trapcode.com) produces fast light
effects that closely resemble 3-D volumetric light, but are actually
a 2-D effect, with special controls to make shimmering lights and
numerous coloring modes.
• Re:Vision Effects, Inc. (www.revisionfx.com) makes terrific
plug-ins, such as Traxtor and RSMB for slow motion, de-interlacing
and motion blur.
• Not a plug in, but of great interest to editors, the Matrox
Axio 2.0 engine (www.matrox.com) now supports Adobe Production Studio
and features no-render HD and SD finishing in a wide range of compressed
and uncompressed formats, including two channels of uncompressed HD
in real time.
“Third-party developers are really taking advantage of the After
Effects SDK,” adds Bowman. “With each successive release,
Premiere Pro has added more and more rich support for After Effects’
plug-ins, so the majority will work for both.”
 Screenshot from Encore DVD 2.0 displaying new Flowchart feature's visual refererence structure. |
Adobe also hasn’t neglected the important issues of training and customer support. Three hours of DVD instruction are included in the box, and the help system links to tips and technologies on the Adobe.com site. In addition, Production Studio comes with a series of upgrade options from the point of products that customers might already own. Says Bowman, “We want our customers to understand that not only is this a brand new, fully integrated product, but there are transformational new releases of all the products it contains. Production Studio offers creative control over every aspect of a project, and is designed to save time with workflow efficiencies like Dynamic Link. We pride ourselves on allowing customers to achieve professional results, no matter what format they are working in.”
At press time, Adobe Production Studio was so new that it’s difficult to say what markets it will eventually penetrate. Editors don’t like to switch tools—except perhaps at four in the morning when the Mac locks up and they have to transcode a file or go to Ctrl+Alt+delete to get out of a frozen application. It does seem likely that the Production Studio will share the same opportunities in the indie world as Final Cut Studio, especially for desktop DI and HD finishing.
“There are a lot of success stories of people who have achieved incredible results with very low overhead but with high levels of control,” says Rosenberg. “This is capable of high-end long-form, but still has a few more hurdles to pass,” such as the media management issue, which is not prohibitive. It’s just a matter of knowing what to expect from the software.”
“Production Studio is one of the few comprehensive packages which operates on a Windows platform,” Rozek concludes. “You may find an array of Windows software that will do what some of the individual components of the bundle will, but no one else makes a package with this kind of integration between programs.” l
Michael Kunkes is a freelance editor and writer specializing in animation, production and post-production.
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