Adobe takes the lid off CS4

It’s been a busy time at Adobe lately, as they’ve released today new versions of just about every piece of software that they make. But for Videomaker readers, lets break down their new Creative Suite 4 Production Premium bundle, available in October for $1,699.

We managed to finagle a beta version of CS4, that we’ve been playing with for a while now and I’ll go through some of the new features of each part of the package below. But first off, a broad overview is in order. As you may have heard already, there’s been a shift to a new interface across the board for all apps. This common interface makes working in each individual program a lot easier, especially as most users might not be as savvy in one app, as they are in another.

Talking with Adobe about CS4 in a general sense revealed that this release was all about stability and work flow enhancements, rather than new features. That’s not to say there’s not anything new (I highlight these below), but I applaud the effort in refining the core usefulness of the programs. Many people make their living in Adobe applications, and solving work flow issues is by far more important on a day to day basis than the latest effect.

The tricky part about releasing these utilities is that Adobe at this point is largely competing with itself, is there enough here in CS4 to be worth the $599 upgrade from CS3? What do you really get? We’ll go into more detail in an upcoming review once we get the final versions in, but based on the Beta software, here’s what Adobe’s got coming:

After Effects: New features to the de facto motion graphics tool include live Photoshop 3D layers import, dynamic linking between Premiere and Soundbooth. A new amazing tool I’ve found has been the inclusion of Mocha, a tracking application that allows you to say replace a billboard in your shot with one you make up yourself, even as the camera moves, pans, and tracks. It works remarkably well. Less useful is the addition of the cartoon effect, which I found interesting, but in the end a bit gimmicky.

Premiere: New features to the NLE include: AVCHD support is here natively! You’ll need a pretty powerful computer but all you AVCHD users out there can finally rejoice. Also included is Speech Search, a fantastic idea with a lot of promise that still falls a little flat in practical use. The idea of speech search is that the computer can analyze the audio tracks of your video, and convert them to text automatically in the computer. There are a thousand uses for this, including clip navigation. Just click on the word “banana” in the script, and the video playhead automatically snaps to that part of the video. Other uses include transcription of course, and as metadata once your video hits the web, it’s a lot easier for search engines to find the text of your video, than search through the video itself. Speech Search works pretty well as long as you have a person reading in a steady constant tone, such as reading off a newspaper or a teleprompter. If however you’ve got multiple people talking, or in casual conversation, Speech Search has a hard time with the translation. Still though with a little cleanup work Speech Search can be one of those revoutions in workflow and ease of use.

Photoshop:  The big new feature in Photoshop has to be the 3D painting and compositing tools, that allow you to paint directly onto 3D shapes, and minor for photography users, but big for videographers is the enhanced motion graphics editing, allowing you to sync audio cue points from within Photoshop itself.

Flash: I’ve come to the conclusion that the very next piece of software that I need to master is Flash. Not another editor, not another motion graphics package, but Flash. It is going to be the dominant player in the online video space for a while yet, and the idea of interactive video just seems to be ripe with creative possibilities. To that end, there are several new features that are going to make it easier for me to learn. The first is a new motion editor, that uses the same interface and workflow as After Effects. The idea being if you can create animations in AE, you can now use that same knowlege to make animations in Flash. Also interesting are the 3D tool, and the new inverse kinematics engine is going to allow a lot of crazy stuff out there on the web.

Illustrator:  Always seemed to me to be the odd duck in the Production Premium Bundle. I hardly ever use it to create my own art, but perhaps there are users out there who put it to good use creating custom artwork for video production. The new features include multiple art boards so you’re more organized on screen, and the new gradient tool, which is a common tool they’ve gone back to the drawing board on, and come up with some amazingly useful interface changes.

Soundbooth: Adobe’s newest digital audio workstation for videographers, has several new features. Speech Search, I mentioned in the Premiere section,  but also multi-track support has been added much to the relief of many users.

On Location: The new features to this incredibly useful recording and monitoring tool include the new interface, and Intel Mac support. Gone are the replica hardware faces, and now it has the same sleek interface as the other Adobe apps. And to answer the prayers of many Mac users who watched their PC brethren with envy for this software, On Location also runs on Intel based Macs natively.

Encore: The disc authoring package has some cool new features, including pop-up menu support for Blu-ray discs, a fire-wire video out for monitoring on a TV rather than a computer monitor, and enhanced flash output. This last feature I find incredibly useful, as it allows you to take your DVD and create a flash version of it, that you can put directly on the web with menus and navigation all intact. All without having to visit the Flash app itself.

We will of course be reviewing the Creative Suite 4 Production Premium bundle once we get our hot little hands on the gold master. So stay tuned for more Adobe news and details.