Making The Move: Adobe CS6 Production Premium and SpeedGrade
The trial version is now available at Adobe.com
I’ve decided to move over to Premiere Pro CS6 from FCP7. Its been a tough decision for me because I edit a lot. I love shooting but I spend 90% of my time in front of an NLE so yes it has to be a hassle free it just has to work kind of thing. So after all the videos I have watched I finally made a choice. Now I feel good knowing where I’m going and the more I look at CS6 and the new tools it has I’m excited to get it on release day. One thing that is up in the air right now is I/O cards. I need to replace mine with a newer model.
I have the AJA Kona LHe. It’s a great card and has worked well for me over the years. I understand AJA has decided to stop writing updates for it so CS6 won’t work with it Boo. The interesting thing is I don’t need analog inputs much anymore. I used to bring footage that was on a DVD that way but MPEG Streamclip does a better job at it. 2K is something I need. 4K is the only thing I might have to think about in the near future but not sure how near this will be. I won’t have a 4K monitor anytime soon that’s for sure. Editing native 4K would probably require a system upgrade of some kind so maybe a high powered I/O card isn’t needed. I’m going to wait on this one.
I think a lot of my reluctance to upgrade without pause was because CS5.5. I’ve had some issues with external monitoring that just frustrated me to no ends, and I kind of gave up on it. It’s not really fair because Premiere Pro CS5.5 works very well when you don’t use I/O card’s, and on a laptop it’s pretty good. How it works with native camera formats is great and Mercury Playback Engine should win an Academy Award.
One bummer is Noise Industries FXFactory doesn’t work with Premier Pro. Yet. I say yet because I really want to believe it will soon. They have it for After Effects why can’t they just get it to work for Premiere. Come on! Do it! For my promos at work I use the transitions all the time and the video plug ins are great. I can’t find another company that offers this type of package for Premier so I hope they get to it soon.
One new application that I’m looking forward to is SpeedGrade. This new member of Production Premium is for color grading. I enjoy grading footage, and It’s important to know how to do it even if you don’t want to be a colorist. It helps you understand how to shoot for finishing and give your footage every chance at looking its best.
Another grading program I have been playing with is DaVinci Resolve Lite. This is a pro grading tool that has a learning curve to it. I like it but maybe I can get away with just SpeedGrade inside the Production Premium Suite. That would be fantastic. Resolve configuration requirements for outputting requires a Blackmagic DeckLink HD Extreme 3D card. This card cost $945. For what it does its a bargain compared to AJA but If I don’t have to spend that much that would be even better. I have read on some forums that the Intensity Pro HDMI card also works for outputting Resolve. Its not supported but it works. Interesting right? The graphics card requirements for CS6 are the same as DaVinci Resolve so I’m good there. I have the nVidea Quadro 4000 beast! Grrrrr. Thank god I didn’t have to replace my video card. This is a first. It seems you always have to when you upgrade.
SpeedGrade looks like a very capable addition and I watched this video on AdobeTV and wanted to share it. It really shows how powerful it is. This might be all I need to finish with. Check it out.
Filed in: New Release • Post Production • Video Editing
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