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Filed under: *VIDEO* •Audio •CS5 •Editing •GentryMedia Sister Sites •Mac Coalition •Post Production •Software •Final Cut Pro •

Adobe’s US$99 Premiere Elements for Mac: a first look from a pro video perspective

Last week, I attended Experience Adobe CS5 Production on a Mac here in Miami. Interestingly, the seminar was organized by a local reseller called Enhanced View Services, although promoted via Apple Events, and the actual presenters were from Adobe and Apple. Even though there was a presentation from Apple before and after the Adobe presentation, I estimate that 75% was about Adobe’s CS5. Many ProVideo Coalition readers know that I have written several articles about Final Cut Pro workflow, and more recently, I’ve published several about Premiere Pro CS5, and I will continue to do so. In addition to saying hello to the people from Apple and Adobe and hearing even more about CS5, I really wanted to see whether there would be any mention of the new US$99 Premiere Elements for Mac, which had been announced earlier in the week… and if not, I wanted to ask questions about it. In this article, you’ll find out more about what happened at this event, and the surprisingly positive answers I got about Premiere Elements for Mac.

The Adobe<>Apple relationship as viewed at Experience Adobe CS5 Production on a Mac in Miami

Considering that the general press has recently covered many Adobe<>Apple issues, and I personally have published several articles where I expressed strong opinions about Adobe’s current lead in NLE software (especially when dealing with H.264/AVCHD raw footage natively with transitions other than cuts) and my quite contrasting opinions about Adobe’s Flash, I was logically interested to see how Apple and Adobe would treat one another at this public event. Well, Apple’s Senior Systems Engineer, Orlando Luna, was quite diplomatic about it, emphasizing the heritage of good relations between the two companies, and the fact that both have embraced the open XML architecture which allows them to share projects between Final Cut Pro (6 and 7) and Premiere Pro CS (4 and 5). Orlando Luna (a personal friend for over a decade, way before he worked for Apple) also emphasized two very strong Apple technologies: the Apple ProRes422 family of códecs and Apple’s Color (which was known as Final Touch before Apple’s acquisition, and which previously cost US$25,000 for the HD version). Orlando Luna presented the power and quality of the ProRes422 family of códecs, and gave a mini demo of Color. Luna pointed out that although neither of these two Apple technologies has any parallel offered by Adobe, both can be used jointly with Adobe Premiere Pro CS5: a great reason to have both installed, especially if you need the best of both worlds. Adobe’s North American Technical Sales Manager for Video/Audio, Dave Helmly, showed the same positive attitude, and showed how Premiere Pro CS5 can also be the bridge to Adobe’s After Effects and Encore, thus extending the XML connection from/to FCP even further. It is now clear that the combination of Orlando Luna (representing Apple) and Dave Helmly (representing Adobe) at a public event turns out to be much better PR for both companies than it would be if Steve Jobs and Shantanu Narayen were to attempt something similar!

Finally, I asked about Premiere Elements for Mac!

When all of the presentations were done (without any mention of Premiere Elements) and the presenters asked for any final questions, I began asking. Some of them were public questions. Then, as they packed up their gear, I continued to converse with Dave Helmly of Adobe, and he gave me a 2-minute demo of Premiere Elements on his MacBook Pro. But before that, he told me that in reality, Premiere Elements for Mac is really a scaled-down build of Premiere Pro CS5, not an independently created application. So here were the questions and answers:

Tépper: Does Premiere Elements have 32-bit floating point processing? (This topic is covered in detail in my recent article Does Premiere CS5 achieve the impossible dream for critical evaluation monitoring?)

Helmly: Yes!

Tépper: Is the file format compatible between Premiere Elements and Premiere Pro CS5?

Helmly: Yes!

Tépper: Does Premiere Elements accept all of the file formats and códecs that Premiere Pro CS5 does?

Helmly: All but RED and XDCAM HD.

Tépper: Does Premiere Elements offer a safe area indication for its titler?

Helmly: (He showed me the safe area indications in Premiere Elements.)

Then Dave showed me the two UI (user interfaces) available in Premiere Elements (storyboard or timeline) and briefly showed me the performance when playing and making a dissolve between two raw high-definition H.264 clips in Premiere Elements on his MacBook Pro, which was impressive. He commented how much better the performance is with Premiere Elements for Mac compared with Premiere Pro CS4 on the same machine. The only thing he showed that was too much to play back smoothly without rendering was the cartoon effect.

Upcoming articles covering Premiere Elements… and Premiere Pro CS5

After hearing and experiencing the above, I decided to write articles about Premiere Elements for Mac, and about possible applications and workflows between Premiere Elements for Mac and Premiere Pro CS5 for Mac. Stay tuned…

Allan Tépper’s consulting, articles, seminars, and audio programs

Contact Allan Tépper for consulting, or find a full listing of his articles and upcoming seminars and webinars at AllanTepper.com. Listen to his TecnoTur program, which is now available both in Castilian and in English, free of charge. Search for TecnoTur in iTunes or visit TecnoTur.us for more information.

Disclosure, to comply with the FTC’s rules

Neither Adobe or Apple is paying Allan Tépper or TecnoTur LLC specifically to write this article. Some of the manufacturers listed above have contracted Tépper and/or TecnoTur LLC to carry out consulting and/or translations/localizations/transcreations. So far, none of the manufacturers listed above is/are sponsors of the TecnoTur programs, although they are welcome to do so, and some are, may be (or may have been) sponsors of ProVideo Coalition magazine. Some links to third parties listed in this article and/or on this web page may indirectly benefit TecnoTur LLC via affiliate programs.

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I look forward to your review as the full-blown suites have become a bit too big for any one person to master, let alone mastering BOTH the CS5 and FCS3 software packages just to get some vDSLR video on a Blu-ray.

In as much as it was Apple’s “consumer” apps that first offered all sorts of innovative features the pro apps did not (iMovie 1 did voiceover to the timeline while playing back your program video, iMovie 1 had background rendering while editing, and iPhoto was the first Apple app to import H.264 video from digital still cameras on a Mac) I suspect there may be similar workflow conveniences in the “consumer” Adobe apps.

I have no qualms about using whatever tool makes my job easier (especially if it’s only $120 from Adobe’s store) so I’m always open to information on alternative solutions.

Thanks for keeping your eye open and asking the salient questions!

Posted by IEBA  on  09/28  at  01:43 PM

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Thank you IEBA!
I will, and/or I shall

Allan Tépper

Posted by Allan Tépper  on  09/28  at  02:02 PM

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Does Elements have a UI that matches Pro? So that if I upgrade to Pro down the road I’ll find everything to be the same or at the least, very close?

Been thinking about expanding my toolset, and if $99 ($79 with rebate currently!) will get me a taste of Premiere, I could certainly justify the cost.

Thanks!

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  09/30  at  10:29 AM

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As a wedding photographer and doing some short videos of the wedding, this basic version of Premier will be excellent. it will give us “wedding photographer” and other portrait photographers to do a combination of video and photos in a simple to use software.  Lets face it we’d never use the features of a pro video company and never intend to, but with HD video on our cameras, we can extend our scope of work a little.

Looking forward for this application from Adobe to come out.

Posted by AbsoluteAlive  on  10/01  at  11:39 AM

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