Previously: A New Schedule, Suite — Very Suite, Premiere Pro and more…
By the way, the CUDA hack lives! Adobe has been kind enough to NOT change or lock down the .txt file architecture that allows folks to make use of non-certified nVidia GPUs. As always, this sort of thing is a “proceed at your own risk” operation but I haven’t heard of anyone’s system coming to harm from it.
This does remind me of an important, though temporary, issue (May 2011). Adobe has reported a problem – I’m not sure of the exact nature but it may be an OpenGL crash – with the nVidia 270.61 and 270.71 drivers and specifically recommends against using these drivers. Word is that nVidia will soon release a driver (270.73) that will fix the issue. In the meantime, don’t use the .61 and .71 drivers, or roll back to an older version if you have one of the offending drivers installed.
As long as we’re on the subject of bugs… CS5 users discovered a memory problem with MXF files on CS5 in which projects with very large numbers of MXF files caused system memory to be tied up by PPro and not get released for other purposes. This became a noticeable problem if there were many (hundreds) of MXF files in the project. Adobe has acknowledged the bug and done an analysis. Because the bug is deep in code and involves an MPEG-2 encoder that is licensed from another company, they felt it was impractical to fix the issue in CS5. Fortunately, CS5.5 has new components and both Adobe and multiple end users report that the bug does not exist in CS5.5. Although there is a work-around, that’s certainly unhappy news for those using MXF files who weren’t planning to upgrade imminently. It is not an issue for those of us who are upgrading; MXF files work perfectly in CS5.5.
One small but nice interface improvement is in the Audio Effects list. It is no longer divided into repetitive mono, stereo, and 5.1 groups. All audio effects exist in one location and have mouse-over Tool Tip messages to tell you which type of audio they apply to.
Titling seems a trivial topic until you have a project that needs a bunch of them. The titling applet in CS5.5 has a lot more convenience built in than before. In addition to the traditional location in File>New… there is a whole title menu in which you can base a title on an existing title or a template, and you can have multiple titles open at once in the applet.
By adding a true Merge Clips feature, Adobe has made such tasks as synching separate audio tracks from a dual system sound setup to a particular video clip significantly quicker and easier. Personally, I do this sort of thing all the time for multi-cam shoots of musical events and will really appreciate the steps it saves in post. Adobe already has a nice video overview of the process in this Adobe TV video.
You’ve probably seen in Adobe’s advertising that in addition to Premiere Pro’s own keyboard shortcut list, you can switch to using standard shortcuts for other NLEs like Avid and Final Cut, or customize your own. Yup, Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts… brings up a simple dialog box with a drop down box. It’s that easy!
Adobe Media Encoder (AME)
AME has added export settings for the latest mobile devices, sports a few nice new features, and wears a new skin. The main encoding window is now split into three areas: the Queue, Current Encode, and the Watch Folders area. Watch folders existed in CS5 but the functionality was buried in the interface so was not as easy to use.
This arrangement provides two easy ways to create multiple versions of a program. To create multiple export files, each directly from the original sequence, you can simply right click the first pending encode in the Queue, choose Duplicate, and then pick your alternate encode settings. Repeat as often as desired. Or, even easier, after creating a high quality master output file, drag it to a folder that you’ve designated in AME as a Watch Folder. Within the Watch Folders area of AME, you can reference that folder any number of times, with each instance having its own export settings.
A nice touch is that Premiere Pro sequences and After Effects comps you add to the AME Queue will now retain their names, instead of using the project name with a serial number.
Adobe Audition Returns
After being removed from CS3 nearly four years ago in favor of its less capable younger sibling Soundbooth, Adobe Audition makes a triumphant return to CS5.5 as a fully rewritten 64-bit application for both PC and Mac (previously PC only) that integrates solidly with the suite. By the way, the previous standalone version of Audition was version 3. Adobe skipped the numbering up to CS5.5 to match the suite.
Soundbooth, many who have long complained about its place in the Creative Suite will be pleased to know, has been confirmed as “end of Life” by Adobe. We do lose its capability to use and customize musical scores that were a part of Soundbooth. To be honest, though, I always felt more comfortable creating my own pieces in Audition using audio loops and never really used scores. So I won’t miss them. If you do prefer to use the score concept, there are other programs out there to do that job.
Because it handles multiple-track audio, including 5.1 video, Audition works seamlessly to sweeten Premiere Pro audio at either the clip or the sequence level, regardless of the number of tracks. And courtesy of its new 64-bit audio engine, it processes tasks, including batches of files and multiple simultaneous sessions, really fast.
In exchange for a few less-often used features that weren’t ported to 64-bit including tone/noise generation, pitch correction, scientific filters, and the graphic phase shifter, we gain a list of what will undoubtedly become must-have native effects for almost everyone: DeEsser, DeHummer, Speech Volume Leveler, and Surround Reverb. The new Audition CS5.5 also supports XML and XMP import/export, including Broadcast wav files (BWF).
Audition was already a serious digital audio workstation application in its previous iterations, and it is even more so now, plus being a tightly integrated part of the video workflow. The chemical symbol for gold is Au. Having Audition back in the Creative Suite makes me feel like I’ve struck gold, so it seems fitting that Adobe’s abbreviation for Audition is Au!
And Much More…
I haven’t even touched on most of the suite, such as After Effects which has a new Warp Stabilizer effect that works magic on par with Rotobrush and PhotoShop’s Content Aware, or the Multi-Screen Review Panel that Dreamweaver now sports to show you side by side how different browsers will display your web code.
After the complete rewrite and overwhelming plethora of new technologies in last year’s CS5, this dot release may at first blush seem a little lean. However, upon taking a closer look at the combination of enhancements to underlying code, many user interface enhancements, the powerful new features in several of the applications, and the return of Audition, I’d say that Adobe Creative Suite CS5.5 easily matches the breadth and depth of any prior release except its immediate predecessor.
Try it; you’ll like it!
About the Author
Pete Bauer at the Soyuz TMA-17 rollout, Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, prior to its mission to the International Space Station in Dec. 2009.
Although life took his professional pursuits in other directions, Pete never lost that passion. Since his retirement from the U.S. Air Force as a flight surgeon, his civilian practice of Aerospace Medicine in the Houston area has afforded him greater time and opportunities to re-ignite that old flame.
Starting as a DV Info Net lurker in 2002, Pete quickly became a daily presence on the forum and has been one of the site’s stable of Wranglers and a DVi Contributing Editor since early 2004.
