Here at the show, Adobe Systems introduced major upgrades to its entire Video Collection Suite, releasing Premiere Pro 1.5, After Effects 6.5, Encore 1.5 and Audition 1.5.
"These are user driven upgrades," said Bruce Bowman, Adobe product manager for the video collection suite. "We have over a million editors using our products. We are serious about being in the video business and have listened to our customers in building these upgrades."
Premiere 1.5 includes many new features that will give editors of DV, SD, HDV and HD video projects a more efficient and creative workflow.
The extensive list includes: new audio plug-ins to reduce 60hz hum and voiceover speech sibilance; Bezier keyframe support; true 3D effects; auto image control plug-ins from Photoshop CS such as levels, color, contrast, and shadows-and-highlights, plus all installed After effects plug-ins can now be accessed by Premiere Pro.
Clips move seamlessly between After Effects and Premiere Pro with a simple copy and paste. You can import and export project components using industry standard AAF and EDL file formats and import and edit in any standard HD resolution, including 480p, 720p, and 1080i.
Project manager, a major upgrade, allows the editor to recoup precious drive space by deleting unused source clips from a project timeline.
AFTER EFFECTS 6.5
After Effects 6.5 has over 100 new features, including and advanced clone tool, disk caching, 60 new effects and FireWire video output amongst others.
In the professional edition, After Effects is transformed into a high-level 32-bit floating-point color corrector with bundled plug-in Color Finesse from Synthetic Aperture. Motion tracking is also improved, there is scripting support, and new text animation features.
Major news is the ability to save any animation attribute or sets of expressions and apply them to new layers. Motion graphic artists can now have entire collections of personal effects.
Adobe has also added GridIron from X Factor, a grid computing technology, not a renderfarm, that uses multiple CPUs from networked computers to realtime render and playback projects during the design process.
AUDITION 1.5
Adobe Audition 1.5 offers new pitch correction and reverb effects, ReWire support, support for VST (Virtual Studio Technology) 20 new sample sessions and 500 new royalty-free production music loops. Adobe Audition 1.5 adds customizable keyboard shortcut sets and clip time stretching as well as expanded audio preview options.
ENCORE 1.5
In Adobe Encore DVD 1.5, the Library can now be used to organize individual text layers, vector shapes, background layers and layer sets. There is a new Styles palette, support for Photoshop guides and previewing your menus on an external video monitor as you edit.
Adobe adds background transcoding and QuickTime support to Encore DVD 1.5. You can import QuickTime video files and convert them to MPEG-2 for use in your project or bring in audio-only QuickTime files and transcode them to Dolby Digital audio.
Users can configure project window arrangements for specific tasks, and then save them for future use. Adobe Encore DVD also offers improved troubleshooting checks navigation, layout, disc capacity, bit rates and subtitles.
There is full support for Photoshop CS, including nested layer sets and non-square pixels. Adobe Encore DVD can recognize and set markers created in After Effects 1.5 and Premiere Pro 1.5 as chapter stops.
Bowman made clear that for Adobe the issue is not about competing with Apple or Avid, or any other editing product, but "about building the best possible editing system we are capable of." Adobe's strength lies in the high level of integration between products, their committed dedication to open systems, and their close collaboration with hardware and software developers.