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:

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

WHAT’S NEW – ADOBE PREMIERE PRO

WHAT’S NEW – ADOBE AFTER EFFECTS

WHAT’S NEW – ADOBE SPEEDGRADE

WHAT’S NEW – ADOBE MEDIA ENCODER

WHAT’S NEW – ADOBE STORY

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


11 Responses to Adobe Announces Major Software Updates

  1. Tito Arenal says:

    Why won’t Adobe package the upgrades and offer them to owners of previous versions of the creative suite?

  2. Stu Brannon says:

    Always fascinating how Premiere is clearly playing catch-up with so many small and big features of FCP X or even legacy FCP.

    But even if they had feature parity, I’d never use Premiere purely because of its bloated, convoluted and just plain FUGLY interface. Even with its imperfections (that are being alleviated far faster than Adobe is able to move) Apple has truly proven they are the masters of the GUI once again.

  3. Russtafa says:

    Larry how are you?
    Have to take my hat off to Adobe have used the Loudness Radar now a lot in Audition, very very useful. Have cross checked this with one of the large digital asset management agencies here and YES it works!! it is accurate, at least for EBU standard R128
    For the AVID stuff you have to go to Izotope for Insight and that costs a lot of bucks!!
    Adobe are a canny company there is NO doubt about that!!
    Larry shame I will not see you in Amsterdam at Supermeet.
    Far TOO busy..Is that a good or a bad thing??
    Best of luck
    Russ

  4. Kenny says:

    Hey Larry! Trying to understand the implications of the PPro ProRes 64-bit update…

    Will all ProRes files, both new and old, be faster? Do old files need to be re-encoded? Does the QT .mov extension provide limitations since it’s still 32-bit?

    Thanks!

    • Larry says:

      Kenny:

      These are great questions. Up until yesterday, I didn’t know there was a 64-bit version of ProRes. I’m trying to find out some answers this morning and will let you know what I learn.

      Larry

  5. Stu Brannon says:

    Wow, seriously??! You actually think the “bittedness” of the codec could have ANY effect on new or old footage?! 😀

    Gee, then I guess all my Finder files and JPEGs I created with Preview had to be converted also when they went 64bit. LOL

    • Larry says:

      Stu:

      You misunderstand. A DV file – which uses 8-bit video – that you created years ago remains a DV file. However, if I open that DV file and convert it into a ProRes 422 format, that original 8-bit file is now stored in a 10-bit space, giving me four times the room for color corrections and other image processing.

      An original gray-scale image, when opened into RGB color space, remains a gray-scale image. However, the improved color space allows you to add colors, which is not possible if the image remained a gray-scale image.

      When we converted our Macs from 32-bit memory addressing to 64-bit memory addressing, nothing about our existing images changed. However, the next time we opened them for processing, we were able to take advantage of all the new memory space and speed that the larger memory addressing provides.

      Nothing changes the source image. What changes is the potential of what we can now do with it.

      Larry

  6. Stu Brannon says:

    I’m more than aware of the technical background, yes. But even a lengthy explanation sheds no light on how anyone could assume that the way a movie file IS DECODED OR ENCODED (with the exact same codec), be it in 32 or 64bit, in anyway changes the ENCODER. ProRes is a white booked codec… the memory bandwidth in which it is encoded or OPENED in, even if it were 8 or 16 bit, has ZERO bearing on the resulting image. Merely the SPEED of the encoding and decoding (theoretically) changes and the amount of RAM that can be used for doing so.

    So if you in fact understand that, how could you possibly consider the question “Will all ProRes files, both new and old, be faster? Do old files need to be re-encoded? Does the QT .mov extension provide limitations since it’s still 32-bit?” a GREAT question? For me that merely shows that the person asking is getting a LOT of things horribly confused.

    Whether you take a trip with a VW Bug or a Ferrari makes NO difference in the route you take nor does the street need to be changed.

    • Larry says:

      Stu:

      My apologies – you are correct. My confusion was that I thought you were responding to something I wrote, when you were actually responding to the questions of a reader.

      Larry

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