Adobe resurrects Premiere for the Mac

Tenolian Bell · January 4, 2007

Adobe Systems said Thursday that the next version of Adobe Production Studio, its the integrated video and audio post-production tool set, will include a new version its Premiere Pro video editing software for the Macintosh when it ships in the middle of the year.

"Film, video and web professionals currently using Adobe After Effects, Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator on the Mac will soon be able to harness the power of completely new Macintosh releases of Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe Encore DVD and Adobe Soundbooth," the company said in a statement to the media, referring to the upcoming milestone revision to Production Studio.

Adobe added it will offer the first public demonstration of the new software bundle during the Macworld 2007 Conference and Exhibition at The Moscone Center in San Francisco next week.

The San Jose, Calif.-based software developer discontinued support for Premier on the Mac back in 2003, citing Apple's increased efforts in the market segment with its own line of digital video editing applications like Final Cut Pro.

"Our customers wanted all the components in Adobe Production Studio to be available on both the Macintosh and Windows platforms," said John Loiacono, senior vice president of Creative Solutions Business Unit at Adobe. "We listened and believe that an innovative new cross-platform video suite, anchored by powerhouse releases of Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe After Effects, will really shake up the industry."

The new version of Adobe Production Studio will include Adobe After Effects for compositing, effects and animation; Adobe Premiere Pro for non-linear editing; Adobe Encore DVD for DVD authoring; Adobe Photoshop; Adobe Illustrator; as well as the time-saving workflow enhancements offered by Adobe Dynamic Link.

Adobe also said that Soundbooth will take the place of Adobe Audition in the new version of Adobe Production Studio, and that Audition will continue to be developed for audio professionals as a stand-alone product for Windows.

Adobe Production Studio for Macintosh will be available for purchase in mid-2007 as a Universal Binary for Intel-based Macs, the company said.

Jonathan Bowerbank · January 4, 2007

It's about time, and makes perfect sense, but it's kind of a waste. A lot of people own Mac's solely for the Final Cut Studio. I can't think of a reason why anyone would shell out for Adobe Premiere when they can just get FCP for a system that's

Tenolian Bell · January 5, 2007

Looking at the market numbers for Adobe it makes sense.

Apple has a marketshare of about 6% in the US and 4.2% in Europe.

In that 6% over 40% of Adobe's professional product sales are to Mac users.

Its estimated that somewhere between 50% and 60% of the video editing market uses Macs.

Since the Intel transition in 2006 Apple has sold more computers in this calendar year than it has ever sold in its history. Apple also outpaced the general computer market in sales.

As for the consumer.

Competition in general is good.

There is likely a sizable amount of people who will switch to Mac from Windows and are more comfortable with Premiere.

Any post houses who are invested in Premiere can now add Macs to their shop or switch their shop entirely to Mac with less worry of interrupting their current workflow.

I agree though that there are Mac users who owned Premiere feel burned by Adobe's pull out from the Mac platform and will probably never use Premiere again.

Tenolian Bell · January 5, 2007

Its estimated that somewhere between 50% and 60% of the video editing market uses Macs.

I left out that around 60% of Avid's high end professional sales are to Mac users.

Phil Rhodes · January 5, 2007

Hi,

Actually I can't see anyone going to a Mac when the same software will run on a PC - FCP has been the only reason to own a Mac for years. Otherwise you're just paying the cost of a top of the range current PC and getting eighteen-month-old, non-top-of-the-range performance in a Mac.

Phil

Tenolian Bell · January 5, 2007

Actually I can't see anyone going to a Mac when the same software will run on a PC - FCP has been the only reason to own a Mac for years.

Most all Mac users really like OS X. Most of whom never use Final Cut Pro.

Otherwise you're just paying the cost of a top of the range current PC and getting eighteen-month-old, non-top-of-the-range performance in a Mac.

Are you seriously making this claim when Apple is using Intel Core Duo and Intel's latest chip sets. The exact same processors and chip sets that everyone else is using.

Phil Rhodes · January 5, 2007

Hi,

> Are you seriously making this claim when Apple is using Intel Core Duo and Intel's latest chip sets. The exact

> same processors and chip sets that everyone else is using.

Yes but the issue is that you'll still be paying what would be an early-adopter price for it in a year. Macs are becoming more and more pointless as time goes on; they now run the same processors and in a lot of cases the same software so why would anyone want to pay the premium for the hardware...

Phil

Tenolian Bell · January 5, 2007

Since the Intel transition there have been a myriad of price comparisons. Generally what's found is that a similarly configured Mac and Dell are roughly the same price. Sometimes the Mac can even come out cheaper.

Dell_vs_Mac_Pro.tiff

Dell_vs_MacBookPro.tiff

Macs are becoming more and more pointless as time goes on; they now run the same processors and in a lot of cases the same software so why would anyone want to pay the premium for the hardware...

OS X and Windows interface, layout, and design elements have some significant differences. Adobe will have to redesign Premiere. For one it will have to be Quicktime based (like it originally was) instead of AVI based. And the interface will have to cooperate with OS X layout and design. In the end the software is not exactly the same. That is a lot of effort for something that is pointless.

As far as the hardware costs. Even though Dell and HP sells millions of $500 computers. Those are not in any shape or form the same computer Apple sells. To buy a Dell or HP similar to the Apple you have to pay a similar price.

Tenolian Bell · January 6, 2007

Here is an article that details the differences between Windows and OS X.

It clear show that despite the fact Mac use the same hardware as most other PC's it works under its own design philosophy. In fact it influences design for the rest of the industry.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/showAr...&queryText=

Keith Mottram · January 10, 2007

Hi,

Actually I can't see anyone going to a Mac when the same software will run on a PC - FCP has been the only reason to own a Mac for years.

Phil

No Phil, the fact that they're not pain in the arse virus prone ugly piece of poop is the reason people have owned macs for years...

bollocks to premier as well, bunch of splitters, comeing back when the times are good ("its all because of intel" my arse- its because no editor wants to touch a PC with a bargepole, why cant they hold their hands up like avid)... so fu** off with your two bob PC styled edit software, though you can leave a copy of AE7 on my desk if you like.

Phil Rhodes · January 10, 2007

Hi,

That's kind of ironic, given that the reason Premiere Pro is now easy to backport to the Mac is that the codebase is now shared with AE...

Phil

james smyth · January 10, 2007

This Mac vs. PC stuff is all very fascinating, but can we get back to the topic?

Premiere is a good and useful tool. Having some competition on the Mac will give Apple incentive to boost development on FCP to keep their edge. Whatever people's opinions on Mac VS. PC are, the simple fact is that this is all well and good news for consumers.

Edited January 10, 2007 by james smyth

Phil Rhodes · January 10, 2007

Hi,

See, the thing is I've always quite liked Premiere. FCP works much more like Avid, which is never something I've been able to get on with very well. This is almost certainly because I'm originally (and by training) a computer person who does film, whereas the Avid/FCP paradigm is the other way - aimed at film people who do computers. Personally I think that bending the workflow to the tool actually increases efficiency quite a bit, but it does mean that you have to be willing to learn the tool on its own terms, and that's not how most software is written.

Phil

Keith Mottram · January 11, 2007

Hi,

See, the thing is I've always quite liked Premiere. FCP works much more like Avid, which is never something I've been able to get on with very well. This is almost certainly because I'm originally (and by training) a computer person who does film, whereas the Avid/FCP paradigm is the other way - aimed at film people who do computers. Personally I think that bending the workflow to the tool actually increases efficiency quite a bit, but it does mean that you have to be willing to learn the tool on its own terms, and that's not how most software is written.

Phil

Phil, i was of course taking the piss in my last post- but what you say here is interesting because it is the main reason why i prefer FCP to Avid. I grew up with computers but learnt to cut on Avid. FCP is a good compromise and its interface flexibility is hugely important to me. Premier however leaves me cold i feel like i'm working on a computer...

David W Scott · January 11, 2007

Re: roots of the different interfaces

It always seemed to me that the Premiere interface was more like editing film. Truly non-linear.

The Avid interface was more like editing linear video (in a tape-based online suite).

The FCP pro interface seemed to straddle the two, and Premiere has evolved into something more like FCP and Avid.

For what it's worth, I have always been very uncomfortable with the Avid interface. I am comfortable working in both FCP and Premiere. But my fastest, most productive editing was always using Media 100 (don't laugh! I love it!) I learned to cut on both Steenbeck flatbeds (film) and linear tape suites.

Re: the importance of Premiere

To me, the real significance of Adobe's announcement isn't Premiere, its Encore DVD. DVD Studio Pro has been the ONLY authoring application for too long, and the Mac deserves some competition in DVD authoring.

Edited January 11, 2007 by David W Scott

Phil Rhodes · January 11, 2007

Hi,

> It always seemed to me that the Premiere interface was more like editing film. Truly non-linear.

> The Avid interface was more like editing linear video (in a tape-based online suite).

Yeah, that's exactly what I mean. My father has just put together a new Pro Tools suite which he's trying to get used to after some time cutting audio tracks for video productions in Premiere, and he's finding Pro Tools to be a real bind to get used to for exactly these reasons.

Avid and FCP always feel like a really great computer editor which has been stuffed up to try and make it "more familiar" to old-style video people. Since there's very few of them left now, it seems to be an approach of questionable longevity, to say the least. This is a very common problem with all kinds of media software.

Phil

Sam Wells · January 11, 2007

Hi,

See, the thing is I've always quite liked Premiere. FCP works much more like Avid, which is never something I've been able to get on with very well. This is almost certainly because I'm originally (and by training) a computer person who does film, whereas the Avid/FCP paradigm is the other way - aimed at film people who do computers.

Well I learned to cut on "Steenbeck" (and before that "Moviola Rewinds" 1.x and Moviscop 2.0 - the green colored upgrade - which has a logical workflow to say the least... and is non-linear compared to ANY old school video editing system (I've done Convergence & Sony and hated em all -- iMovie smokes CMX !)

I agree bending to the paradigm - to an extent - can yield dividends (I personally *like* ProTools because they only went so far in indulging a machine-based emulation - took em while to put in real markers and not just that archaic autolocater -- and I always laid out PT sessions in terms of *voices* not "tracks" (which don't exist)..

That said all the NLE's seem designed by 'computer folks' for better or worse (and wasn't what became FCP written by developers hired away from Adobe by Macromedia ??) ..but I'm not sure I'd want a GUI with picture of film plates and shuttle controls :blink:

In truth, *I'd* like to see FCP or an NLE work something like a sequencer (Performer, Logic).

A "programmable" timeline that did actions - loop events, loop with variation etc.

But that's "just me" probably.

(I've looked at some "VJ" software but none seems to have any great precision..)

-Sam Wells

Tenolian Bell · January 13, 2007

No Phil, the fact that they're not pain in the arse virus prone ugly piece of poop is the reason people have owned macs for years...

bollocks to premier as well, bunch of splitters, comeing back when the times are good ("its all because of intel" my arse- its because no editor wants to touch a PC with a bargepole, why cant they hold their hands up like avid)... so fu** off with your two bob PC styled edit software, though you can leave a copy of AE7 on my desk if you like.

Its great Premiere is coming back to the Mac. The Mac in order to survive needs major platforms like Adobe Production Suites to develop for it.

PC's are still the far majority. Apple is expected to sell around 5 million of the 70 million computers estimated to be sold in the US this year.

Tenolian Bell · February 13, 2007

Adobe Premiere Pro - first on the Mac

Adobe will not only be returning Premiere Pro to the Mac with the launch of Production Studio later this year, the new version of Adobe?s real-time editing solution will be available on the Mac before it is available on the PC.

?It will be a new version,? confirmed Adobe?s Premiere Pro product manager Giles Baker. ?The Mac will get the next version of Premiere Pro, the Windows product will follow suit later.? Both versions will be identical in features, confirmed Baker: ?The intent is wherever possible to have exact parity between the Windows and the Macintosh versions.?

Back to the Mac

Baker went on to confirm why his company had decided to bring Premiere back to the Mac three years after deciding to stop support for the platform. At that time the company cited Apple?s increased efforts in the digital-video market, particularly with Final Cut Pro. However, the landscape has changed in the intervening years, and Adobe has seen an increased interest in its video products from sectors that previously had no need for video tools.

It is this ?bigger picture? that Adobe is addressing. ?What we are seeing is more and more people from traditional print and web backgrounds moving towards video,? explained Baker. ?Adobe is embracing the move towards publishing video online.?

?A lot of the traditionally print-oriented organisations now have a web presence, and they need to move towards motion video and graphics. They also need to get content onto mobile devices. We have the technology for all of that,? added Baker.

Adobe has watched as the interest in its video applications on the Windows platform has increased, and anticipates that the interest from the Mac platform could be equal or even greater. ?In 2006 we saw a huge amount of success with Production Studio. On the Windows platform our business last year went up 50 per cent as a result of the new version,? claimed Baker.

?We also saw a huge amount of demand from Macintosh customers, and if you look at the creative community it?s about 60:40 Mac, and these Mac users who?ve traditionally been using the Adobe tools are now starting to look at video,? he added.

Baker believes that, since these publishing professionals are already using Adobe products (InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator), adopting other Adobe products will be a natural choice for them. ?As they think about moving into video it?s inevitable that they are going to look to us,? he said. ?We make it easy for people to go from one product to another, rather than having to go to a different company and learn a different application.?

Similarly, ?Dreamweaver is pretty much the standard for any level web authoring,? said Baker, suggesting that web developers would also be more inclined towards an Adobe (previously Macromedia) product.

But it?s not just people new to video publishing that these video products will appeal to. ?It?s a suite that doesn?t only make sense for people starting out with Adobe products, but for anyone who is using Avid or Final Cut to do their video production,? added Baker. Also, since Mac professionals already use After Effects, Baker believes the new Production Studio suite will appeal because they will be able to take advantage all of the other tools that come as part of the bundle.

Production Studio will include Adobe After Effects Professional, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Soundbooth, Adobe Encore DVD, and Adobe Illustrator software. Baker confirmed new versions of Photoshop and Illustrator would be included in Production Studio when it launches.

Timing is everything

It isn?t only the increased interest in video that lead to Adobe?s decision to bring Production Studio to the Mac, however. ?Apple?s decision to put Intel processors in the Mac was something that helped us in our development,? confirmed Baker. ?I don?t think it was something that would have changed the fact that we would have come back to the Mac, but it definitely makes it easier for us. Plus we have a ton of expertise with Intel processors that we?ve built over a number of years on the Windows platform, and that translates across.?

?The speed bump that you get when you go to an Intel processor or an Intel-based Mac is quite amazing. We?re literally blown away by the new Intel processing performance, it?s really fantastic,? added Baker.

Notably, it is just as the Mac has become a more interesting proposition to Adobe that the Windows platform has become problematic. Currently Adobe is aware of ?major problems with Encore? in the current version of Production Studio when running on Vista.

?The current version of Production Studio will work with Vista but the simple reality is that we shipped these products a year before Vista came out. We are working with Microsoft to ensure that all of the problems found are worked around in Vista, to make sure that our products work. The best solution will be the next version of our products, which will be fully tested and engineered for Vista.?

Baker went on to confirm that this next version of Production Studio for Windows will be identical to the soon-to-launch Production Studio for Mac, but is likely to follow some time after that product ships for the Mac.