So we are finally treated to Adobe’s Creative Suite 5, the newest version of it’s long-running and multi-awarded digital multimedia manipulation software suite. If you’ve had your RAM upgarde already, got that 64bit OS running, have lots and lots of internal and external hard drive space all set up to be the perfect video editing machine — then all you need is the software for it (and a good video card – more on this later). Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 seems to be the one you video editors and HD freaks have been waiting for. But first — for those who will be too lazy to read the whole article — here are the highlights.
Adobe Creative Suite 5
Good things:
- 64-bit native – This is what you have been waiting for — being able to take advantage of 64bit technology
- GPU acceleration – Free up your CPU of the cycles and reps, let your kick-ass GPU do the dirty work while your CPU relaxes
- Extensive high-def support – almost everything and anything you can think of in high-def, this baby will crunch it
Not-so-good things:
- GPU acceleration supported on only a few cards – Only 5 cards, to be exact
- CPU rendering is leisurely by comparison - While GPU rendering is a big boost, seems that the CPU is not doing the work that it can do — a waste for those quad core Intel babies that you have
- Interface text is too small - We take issue, but you might not. But then small is really that — small.
The long and short of it:
An video editing suite that has been due for 64-bit support finally gets it. A word of caution: if you really want your video workflow to fly and justify that hardware you saved up for, you may need to get an expensive nVidia CUDA-capable graphics card.
Still here? Watch this video first to appreciate Adobe Premiere Pro CS5:
Fully 64-bit native
32-bit versions of Windows have this annoying thing – they can recognize only 4GB of RAM at most. Bummer. On a 32-bit system, once all your startup programs load, you have little left over memory to load and run resource-intensive apps.
With Creative Suite 5, and with Premiere Pro more specifically — together with the tag along-but-equally-essential Media Encoder CS5, Encore CS5, and After Effects CS5 — all of these are now 64-bit native. That has been long overdue (ever since Vista came out), but we at MacPCWiz raise a few eyebrows at the decision that Adobe will NOT be offering 32-bit versions of these applications; you need to have a 64-bit OS to run them.
Install a version of Creative Suite 5 on a typical high-end system — a quad-core procs, Windows 7 64-bit, 8GB of RAM — you may not notice a substantial improvement from Adobe CS4, especially if you don’t have the recommended GPUs installed. You will notice however, and I bet to your sweet surprise, that you will have none of the RAM-related problems you probably encountered with Premiere Pro CS4–none of the slow reading and writing of data to the hard drive instead of to RAM, fewer playback and timeline scrubbing hesitations, and generally smoother operation overall.
Graphics to give you the boost
One of the biggest benefits of Premiere Pro CS5 is the continuing trend of using GPU power. Adobe says that Premiere Pro can “solve many computational problems in a fraction of the time a CPU would take to perform the same task” and thus can render HD video much more quickly–freeing your CPU to handle “background tasks.”
Here’s the catch, though: Adobe has qualified just five graphics cards for use with Premiere Pro–all of which are nVidia’s CUDA-capable cards. Four of these are Quadro workstation cards, ranging in cost from roughly $800 to more than $2000; the sole desktop card so far is the GTX 285, which sells for about $400 — only the GTX 285 and one of the Quadros will work in a Mac.
SLI configuration? No go. Bummer.
Adobe says it will also support new cards from nVidia’s Fermi line, such as the GTX 470 and GTX 480.
What we think
Adobe’s move to a 64-bit-native application is a bold one, but people are sure to follow. What strikes us as strange, is that Adobe may be promoting a video editing industry where those who wanted to edit analog video on their computers will have to have $3,000 video cards in their computers. Sure, 64-bit computers have become common, and your average consumer will be able to use one with Premiere Pro to create great video productions — but they have to be willing to wait. If video editing is your job, you know that time spent rendering is just time you could be earning more money with, if you get our drift. But make no doubt about it, investing in this application and one of those expensive nVidia cards is guaranteed to speed up your workflow.
With everything going to high-def these days, Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 – coupled with a stable and robust internal or external blu-ray burner – should be an interesting enough jump for video professionals.
