SAN JOSE, CA - In what can be viewed as a concession of the Mac-based NLE software business to Apple's Final Cut Pro, Adobe (www.adobe.com) has released its newest version of Premiere for the Windows XP only.
According to Adobe Premiere product manager Bruce Bowman, Premiere Pro will ship in August and addresses many of the perceived shortcomings within the tool, most notably render-free editing and full-resolution realtime playback.
Adobe has licensed technology from Synthetic Aperture to provide three-point color correction within Premiere Pro. The tool now supports all video formats, including QuickTime, and allows for multiple timelines, which can be nested within one main timeline. The new release features tighter integration with Adobe's After Effects (now upgraded to V.6.0) compositing and animation tool, along with customizable keyboard short cuts.
Premiere's audio capabilities have been enhanced for importing and exporting 24-bit, 96kHz sound files. Sound can also be edited down to sub-frame measurements for pop and click removal. Premiere Pro now offers VST plug-in support, allowing users to take advantage of the many popular audio processors that are available from developers. In addition, Adobe has included 17 VST plug-ins licensed from Spectral Designs, including reverb, EQ, pitch shift, dynamics, DeNoiser and multiband compressor. Device control within Premiere has been improved within the upcoming release. With the scene detection controls, users can divide raw DV footage into scene-based clips and create low-rez, scene-based clips for offline editing. After assembling a rough cut, they can batch capture full resolution versions of the clips they need. The tool can also export AVI and MPEG files for use in Adobe's Encore DVD authoring tool.
Premiere Pro will be priced at $699. Existing Premiere users will be able to upgrade to the new release for $199. Adobe is also making a "Video Collection" available, containing After Effects, Premiere Pro and Encore DVD. The package will have a 90-day introductory price of $799, which will then go up to $999. A "Pro Collection" will be available in August as well ($1,499), containing After Effects Pro, Premiere Pro, Encore DVD and Photoshop.