Adobe Announces Major Software Updates

One of the promises Adobe made when it went to its new subscription pricing was to make much more frequent updates to all their software. This evening, less than five months after the initial CC release, Adobe emphasized its promises with updates to:

• Adobe Prelude
• Adobe Prelude Live Logger (new)
• Adobe Premiere Pro
• Adobe After Effects
• Adobe SpeedGrade
• Adobe Media Encoder
• Adobe Story Plus

Plus, they’ve beefed up Adobe Anywhere, Adobe’s server-based collaboration environment for enterprises and large production groups. The announcements were made Sept. 9. Software will be previewed at IBC in Amsterdam starting Sept. 13. Product release is scheduled for October, though the specific release date has not been announced.

NOTE: These updates apply only to the CC version of Adobe’s software. The CS6 release remains unchanged.

You can read their press release here.  And this is the news as I got it from Adobe.

WHAT’S NEW – ADOBE ANYWHERE

New with this release of Adobe Anywhere is integration with After Effects, support for “growing files” (which are video files you can edit while they are still being recorded — think sports), Network-based voice over support, project data redundancy, project archive and restore, plus a new iPad app and extended API support to allow custom development.

The iPad app is interesting because it allows users to view productions and play back sequences directly from the Anywhere server to an iPad located in the field or a remote location. The iPad app does not require Premiere in order to play back an edited sequence.

NOTE: In conversations with Adobe, I was told that they want to roll-out Adobe Anywhere to companies large enough to have internal IT departments to make sure the initial server architecture is properly setup and implemented. Adobe’s goal is to roll this out to smaller groups in coming months.

WHAT’S NEW – ADOBE PRELUDE

• Prelude now supports live logging, where you can start logging a live event, or during shooting of a production, using an iPad, then combine the logging notes with media during ingest using Prelude.
• Prelude has always allowed logging clips and creating rough cuts. Now we can export clips and subclips from Prelude using Adobe Media Encoder to Premiere or a video logging site.
• Prelude now imports still images into a rough cut.
• Prelude now generates a list of markers that you can print. This is especially useful for loggers to share notes with producers.
• Plus, support for new media and metadata formats. Specifically, Prelude did not support logging GoPro cameras, now it does.

WHAT’S NEW – ADOBE PREMIERE PRO

• Premiere now supports a round-trip Direct Link (meaning no exporting) between Premiere and SpeedGrade. This allows faster experiments with color corrections and looks.
• Streamlined editing, with a new monitor “overlay” that allows editors to see key data such as time code and camera angle on top of media during playback.
• Expanded native 4K, Ultra HD and RAW format support. This includes a laundry list of new file formats: Cinema DNG, Sony RAW, Phantom Cine, Sony XAVC Long GOP, Panasonic AVC Ultra, 64-bit ProRes decoding and more.
• Improve multicam editing allows for viewing output change during multicam editing. Plus, editors can easily rearrange angles or turn them on or off.
• Improved closed captioning.
• Improved clip relinking to support linking low-res proxy files to high-res camera masters.
• The ability to mix down multi-channel audio to stereo for monitoring.
• And a new XML export to Autodesk Smoke.

WHAT’S NEW – ADOBE AFTER EFFECTS

• Yay!! Adobe has combined a mask with a motion tracker to make it much easier to track a mask as the image moves. If you’ve never needed to track a mask, I can hear you yawning. But if you have… well, yawning never crossed your mind.
• Improve up-resing (also called “up-scaling”) tools to retain image quality when scaling an SD image up to HD frame sizes.
• Live property links between clips. Adjust one and the linked clip adjusts by the same amount.
• Faster warp stabilizer and 3D camera tracker; up to 80% faster.
• Better GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) optimizations, especially for the ray-traced 3D renderer for extruded text and shapes.
• The Media Browser from Premiere now is in After Effects; plus, the Media Browser can access media stored on an Anywhere server. This makes it much easier to share comps between team members.
• Support for Apple Retina displays to make sure you see every pixel in your project.

WHAT’S NEW – ADOBE SPEEDGRADE

• The new Direct Link with Adobe Premiere Pro means fast and easy opening of Premiere projects in SpeedGrade for color correction, then a single click to send graded projects back to Premiere.
• Create and save multiple masks in one .look file. Plus, copy and modify looks between shots or projects.
• Quickly apply camera patches to balance the color spaces between different cameras.
• All the file formats supported by Premiere Pro are now supported by SpeedGrade.
• Premiere Pro sequences now appear on their own Timeline in SpeedGrade.

WHAT’S NEW – ADOBE MEDIA ENCODER

• AME now supports “filters” to add watermarks, burn-in timecode, and apply color “LUTS” (Look-Up TableS) when encoding files.
• Preference files can quickly be synced between multiple computers using Adobe’s Creative Cloud.
• AME is now GPU accelerated for rendering and compression.

WHAT’S NEW – ADOBE STORY

• Story now shares lists more easily and can now import set lists, character lists, and tag lists.
• See the status of everyone to whom you have shared a project.

SUMMARY

When I met with Adobe to discuss some of these new features, I was impressed with the sense of urgency they have about updating their applications and responding to the needs of the market.

As Bill Roberts, director of video product management at Adobe, said: “Broadcasters and video pros have limited resources and are under increasing pressure to deliver more on shorter timelines and smaller budgets, so they need solutions that streamline workflows and enable more efficiency.”

I’m looking forward to working with these new applications when they get released in October.

As always, let me know what you think.

Larry