Adobe Premiere Pro
Adobe Premiere
Pro CS5 software lets you edit faster with true native format support.
Get breakthrough performance on workstations and laptops; streamline
collaboration; and boost productivity with an efficient, robust,
cross-platform editing workflow.
Enhanced Performance
The improved performance comes courtesy of Adobe's Mercury
Playback Engine, which was devised for CS5 from the ground up to take
advantage of 64-bit processors. Because most of the tasks in Premiere
can take a long time (especially if you're adding lots of effects or
rendering a long movie) this alone can be a tremendous time-saver. The
revamp also means that you can do real-time HD chroma keying with the
included Ultra keyer, which is optimized to tackle real-world green
screen conditions, and capable of complex keys on smoke, liquids, and
transparent objects.
f you're using a computer with a 32-bit CPU or operating system, however, your system will be unable to run Premiere Pro
CS5. Adobe claims to have conducted research and discovered that very
few existing customers would be affected. Given the prevalence of
64-bit systems in recent years, that's quite believable. If you're one
of that underpowered minority looking to dive intoPremiere Pro CS5,
you'll need to factor a new system (or at least a thorough upgrade of
certain components) into the purchase price. Alternately, if you're
using a 32-bit version of Windows and purchased a copy of CS5 Master Collection of CS5 Production Premium, Adobe includes a copy of Premiere Pro CS4, which is compatible with 32-bit systems.
Like its CS4 predecessor, Premiere Pro
CS5 supports hardware acceleration (which can energize effects
processing even more), but there's an even touchier caveat here.
Whereas CS4 supported a range of video chipsets from both Nvidia and
ATI, the newMercury Playback Engine was programmed to work exclusively
with Nvidia's CUDA technology. As this writing, the full list of
supported video cards includes the GeForce GTX 285 ($400 street, )
consumer-level card, and the Quadro FX 3800, FX 4800, FX 5800, and CX
workstation cards. (Adobe tells us that testing is underway on Nvidia's
latest consumer releases, the GeForce GTX 470 and 480, but has offered
no information yet about their compatibility.) Owners of even the most
powerful new AMD cards, whether the consumer dual-GPU Radeon HD 5970 or
the workstation FirePro models, are entirely out of luck.
New Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 Features
But even users of unsupported video cards will benefit from some of Premiere Pro
CS5's changes—just because you're not running on the of the supported
cards doesn't mean you can't run CS5. If you're working on a really
tough sequence, such as one that uses RED (4K) files or lots of
effects, you can "fake" it by dialing down the resolution to as much as
one-sixteenth during playback, so your computer can handle it. To make
it easier to focus on individual moments, you can set the Pause
resolution to "Full" to see the picture in all its detail even if your
hardware gives you trouble watching
it in motion. This is a thoughtful compromise that generally improves
performance on slower or non-workstation machines (like the one we used
for testing), and is helpful enough to be worthy of celebration even by
owners of faster computers.
Also
introduced is support for many other kinds of standards and
technologies. The software now recognizes Sony XDCAM HD 50, Panasonic
AVCCAM, DPX, and AVC-Intra, for tapeless recording; as well as for
additional support for certain D-SLRs from Canon, Nikon, and Panasonic.
You can also now import RED (R3D) files without transcoding them or installing
other software, and a special Source Settings option for RED lets you
tweak every aspect of the footage for individual or multiple clips.
More intriguingly: You can now open projects made in, and share them
between, Final Cut Pro and Avid video software.
Note
