Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 Blog
Thoughts on CS3 by Jeff Schell

Is Adobe Forsaking Traditional Video Formats?

Spend a little time at most any Adobe user to user forum-- and it won't take long until you run into a thread decrying the fact that Adobe has some glaring omissions from their list of supported formats for their upcoming Premiere Pro CS3 release. Most notably, P2 formats and XDCAM, and AVC/AVCHD. (In other words, "professional HD" formats.)

Many editors feel this undercuts all of Adobe's efforts of re-branding Premiere as a "professional" tool. Conventional wisdom states that by omitting these professional formats, Premiere Pro is once again crippled by its own devices. (Pun!) Some editors with an HD workflow are jumping ship and heading to the Final Cut Pro camp--after all, Final Cut Pro comes ready to edit with native support for many of these formats, plus a snappy and responsive intermediate codec. For a Premiere Pro user to get this type of efficiency, (s)he would need to purchase a 3rd party product, such as Cineform Aspect.

One user posted this comment, "[Adobe is saying]... if you're an amateur, and you're only going to edit HDV and DV, go for Adobe. If you're serious, and want to deliver high quality material, buy a Mac and use Final Cut Studio."

So, what's the deal? Did Adobe make a royal blunder? Are they effectively relegating Premiere to the domain of home hobbyists?

Allow me to play Devil's (Adobe's) advocate... Lack of native HD support really just means that out of the box Premiere Pro CS3 will not support your high-end HD camcorder. However, with third party plug-ins from companies like AJA, Blackmagic, Cineform, and Matrox you will get full HD support. (And honestly, these third party vendors do HD better than Adobe anyway, and are eager to release updates for new camera formats, so it's money well spent.)

Adobe is likely banking on the fact that users who require HD workflows -- who already have a hefty investment in HD equipment and fast workstations -- will not mind spending a wee bit extra money on a third party product in order to get their HD support -- especially if that results in a quicker and higher quality HD workflow.

Off the record, an Adobe insider had this to say, "Would I like to have complete support for every format in the box with Premiere? Of course. But the fact is that we have to balance our resources. One of Premiere's strengths is in our API, allowing partners to write plugins for added support. Through various partnerships, partners extend Premiere's support of additional formats, codecs, effects, transitions, etc."

Translation: "We spent so many resources getting Premiere Pro to the Mac, we couldn't dedicate any resources to natively support these other formats." Which at first blush makes you scratch your head--why would Adobe make this decision?

Imagine you're an Adobe big wig... in your fancy leather chair, possibly sipping Cognac, in your smoking robe. (Apparently, in my head, Adobe is like the Playboy mansion.) You're thinking, "Hey-- we've got an opportunity to increase our audience base by moving to the Mac. We've got this great API and partnerships with Matrox, AJA and Cineform. These guys do it better than we do anyway. Why don't we let those guys work on getting the HD format working, and we can shift our attention to the Mac platform."  You know, it sort of makes sense.

If Adobe's goal is: a.) allow for HD formats, and b.) increase their user base, well then CS3 achieves both of those goals. Okay, I get that. And, I think if money wasn't involved, every user would say, "Great-- I *LOVE* the Cineform intermediate codec. I'll certainly use that." 

Ahh... but the problem with this logic is that money is involved. And this is basically where the beef lies. "Why should I spend more--even if it may be better than what I would have received natively--while an application like Final Cut can do this out of the box for no extra dollars?"

To the big production houses, a 3rd party product like Cineform is a drop in the financial bucket. Most of them expect to purchase a 3rd party even if Adobe had native support in Premiere Pro 3-- because they get many more bells and whistles (such as real time output, etc.) with a 3rd party integrator. So, Adobe likely is looking at the bottom line and assuming that the average Joe will complain, but the "professional" bigger customers won't mind and will happily fork over the cash. So, no harm no foul, right?

But, the Average Joe has always been Adobe's bread and butter. For every big production house that doesn't mind paying a cool thousand for 3rd party support, Adobe risks losing a few average Joe users.

Or do they? As an "Average Joe" PC user myself, do I feel a little bit shunned by Adobe? Yes, I think so. Enough so to make me jump ship? Mmm... not since the price of a Mac is more than the cost of purchasing Cineform Aspect. To me, it's a wash. So I'll grumble, but I have no cheaper alternative.

And you can bet money that someone at Adobe already did that exact same calculation when they made the decision to dedicate so many of their resources to the Mac. For as loud as some of us PC users are, we are also very entrenched in our other applications, and will likely "keep on keeping on," as the song goes.

But so help me! if Adobe drops the ball with CS4-- then I'm DEFINITELY getting a Mac.*

*Maybe.

Posted at 02:54PM May 24, 2007 by Jeff Schell in General  |  Comments[6]