As an old school Premiere user who jumped ship back in the days when Premiere just wasn’t staying progressive with the features tools, and just general STABILITY for god’s sake, it is a nice breath of fresh air to see what the latest version of the product has in store. Adobe started winning me back to Premiere with the first Pro release that really addressed a lot of the issues with the ground up rework they did. Now with Premiere Pro 2 I am a happy Adobe Video bundle enthusiast again. So what’s new different and exciting you ask? First off lets talk about the first launch look. Say goodbye to the old horse that used to brand the product, now its all about the new glass film reel look all shiny and new. More importantly the IDE got the same face lift. Those of you who are familiar with After Effects will immediately recognize the new look and feel and love it. Kudos for Adobe for the new interfaces across the video line. Some good usability work went into them, and they function very nicely on single or double monitors. One of the major benefit of similar interfaces across products is the ease of learning a new application when that familiarity is there.
Next up one of my absolute favorite features is something new called Clip Notes. These nifty little items can be a life saver in time and headaches when it comes to client review and feedback. This can really help revolutionize the way editors have to deliver and integrate client feedback. Essentially what they are is your edited video sequence/project outputted into an Acrobat PDF file, with viewer input/commenting enabled all automatically associated with the timecode! Ohh and get this – you then take this nifty PDF file and import to back and the comments are directly thrown down on your timeline at the timecode they were inputted on within the PDF. Fricken AWESOME! And I usually am NOT a fan of PDF’s or Acrobat, but this time defiantly a hit. Just as a note the client should only need a free copy or Acrobat Reader.
Another one of the biggest new features is the sexy new Multi-Camera Editing support. Now you can truly expedite multi-cam editing with in an effective interface and clean modifyable output no plug-ins needed. Configurable audio control options are a nice touch – by default uses the audio from camera 1 for the duration but as mentioned it can be changed. As a hotkey fan the basic integration of quick real-time editing with hotkeys for these types of sources really makes this a winner.
Overall I am really happy with the new version of Premiere Pro 2. I think it is starting to really step up the features and with somewhat regular new versions being released I honestly think it is a major competitor for the desktop video editing once again. So far stability and performance have been just fine for me on multiple laptops. A few other features really worth mentioning are.
Cross Product Integration – Excellent After Effects cross integration really makes a big difference on more complex projects. Rendering impacts of course but defiantly headed in the right direction with the native support for AFX Compositions.
DVD Creation Enhancements – Now this stuff is getting pretty sexy in Premiere. You can actually develop DVD motion menu’s, audio options, and easy chapter markers. Great for those quick DVD’s without having to drop out to another program. Still has the basic export video/audio track only to DVD as well.
Native HD Support – This is huge new feature. Pretty much a necessity, and looks like they did it right. Great support across the board, and excellent performance, with the option for advanced realtime hardware acceleration.
Transparent Video Layer – This miht seem like something little to a lot of people but I really like this new feature that lets you apply effects and such to a transparent layer that cascades onto the tracks below. Definitely a great idea that started in Photoshop and is now available in Premiere.
Adobe Media Encoder – The tool isn’t new but the major revamp was needed and appreciated. Good job all around, nice features options and output and finally my blessed Flash Video Output is supported!
