Adobe ® Premiere Pro CS5.5
By Howard Berenbon
In my December 2010 column I reviewed the latest Adobe Premiere Pro, at the time, version CS5. It appears, while everyone was celebrating Christmas and New Years, Adobe was busy working on more improvements to their line of creativity software, with version CS5.5 in the making. By April 2011, many of their programs were updated with more features than before including Adobe Premiere Pro, now version CS5.5.
I have to say, Adobe® Premiere Pro CS5.5 is a nifty neat professional video editing program for creating fast and efficient tapeless videos. It’s faster than CS4 because it uses the 64-bit environment and the newly introduced (with CS5), and lightning fast, GPU-accelerated Mercury Playback Engine (of course your operating system must be 64-bit Windows or Mac). In fact, if I had to pick just two features that make this program sing it would be the 64-bit environment with the enhanced Mercury Playback Engine and the Speech Search (okay, that would be three). This incredible Speech Search lets you search the spoken dialogue and jump to a frame that matches.
Adobe® Premiere Pro lets you optimize your video footage and record digital video directly to your hard drive using the latest digital video cameras. Clips can be easily edited with special effects added to produce high quality professional products, in various video and audio formats, fast. Improvements include a faster Mercury Playback Engine now workable on laptops, flexible and more precise editing tools, fast and reliable multi-screen encoding, variable playback resolutions, direct integration with Adobe Story, closed caption support, easily move audio clips to and from Adobe Audition and better integration with other Adobe products.
Getting Started
After you run Premiere CS5.5, the main menu opens with the following command menus at the top:
File Edit Project Clip Sequence Marker Title Window Help
In the center of the screen, a small window allows quick access to creating a new project, opening a recent project or accessing a Help menu. Help is important, so you’ll be happy to see the Adobe Community Help screen after you click the Help folder. There, you’ll find lots of clickable resources and a search box if you have a specific question. Now back to the main menu to see what this program can do.
To start a new project, click on the New Project folder and a dialogue box appears with your initial file settings including Action and Title Safe Areas, Video and Audio display formats and video capture mode (DV or HDV) and Video Rendering and Playback (default is Mercury Playback Engine). If you’re new to Premiere Pro, just keep the default settings, enter the new project name at the bottom, and remember where you saved it (or change the location), then click OK. Note: a project is made up of your video and audio assets, including sequences. A new screen opens entitled New Sequence with Sequence Presets, General (video and audio settings) and Tracks tabs with the Sequence name: Sequence 1 (a sequence is a video portion of your project). Now, you can pick your video preset, either standard or widescreen, and leave the rest of the settings at the default values. Then enter a name for the sequence, or leave it as Sequence 1. Click OK once again, and a few seconds later (at least with my new Lenovo desktop) your work area appears.
Version CS5.5 looks very much like CS5 with five panels in the work area. The Project Panel is at the top left (same as in CS5) and includes the Project tab (with project name) and all your project files (video, audio and graphics) that make up your project. One difference, the special Effects tab now defaults to the top next to the Project tab. As you build your project, you’ll see the names of your assets (video and audio, etc.) appear in that panel. Below that panel are three more tabs: Info, History and Resource Central which includes the News and Templates tabs. Once you locate your assets, then drag each to the Projects Panel. You can also view your files before you add them to your project. To the right of the Projects Panel is your Source Panel (a small video monitor) where you can edit your video and audio and drag to your Timeline, which appears below. You’ll preview your project in the Program Panel (the second small video monitor) and when you’re ready, you can save it to various formats. You can even save your completed project as a pdf file to send to your client over the Internet for approval.
What’s New and Improved in Adobe Premier Pro CS5.5
Enhanced Mercury Playback Engine
Get amazing performance from the Adobe Mercury Playback Engine on both desktops and laptops (Windows® and Mac OS). Natively 64-bit and optimized for modern CPUs, Mercury delivers astounding performance with or without GPU acceleration.
Variable playback resolution
Edit high-resolution projects on lower spec computers with the ability to adjust the playback resolution in the Source or Program Monitor. Separate Playback and Pause resolutions give you more control over monitoring.
GPU-accelerated effects
Speed up your creative workflow by seeing the results of many effects without having to render them first, thanks to GPU acceleration and the enhanced 64-bit Adobe Mercury Playback Engine, now on workstations and laptops.
Video preview format and resolution settings
Adjust the video preview format and resolution to promote smooth playback when your computer's hardware is unable to play back the full sequence frame size in real time.
Extensive native file-based workflow
Eliminate time-consuming transcoding and rewrapping and maximize quality thanks to native support for P2; XDCAM EX, HD, and HD50; JVC ProHD, AVCHD, and AVCCAM; DPX; and Canon and Nikon DSLR cameras as well as enhanced support for RED R3D, Canon XF, and more.
Unparalleled Adobe integration
Effortlessly move assets between Adobe Premiere Pro and other Adobe Creative Suite® Production Premium components — Adobe After Effects, Photoshop Extended, Illustrator, Flash Catalyst, and, new in CS5.5, Adobe Audition.
Flexible, precise and reliable editing tools
Edit the way you want with widely accepted, customizable NLE shortcuts and powerful, intuitive trimming and editing tools that give you more precision and control. Boost productivity with dual-system sound support and enhanced project exchange with Final Cut Pro and Avid software.
Fast, reliable multiscreen delivery
Output your work for computers, smartphones, tablets, and television with Adobe Media Encoder CS5.5. Use intuitive presets and contextual menus to set up sequences once for multiple formats, and batch encode while you keep editing.
Roundtrip workflows with Adobe Audition
Get a fast, flexible roundtrip audio workflow with Adobe Audition® CS5.5 software. Pass individual audio clips and multitrack mixes or complete video sequences between Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5 and Adobe Audition for editing and sweetening.
Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5 sells for $799.00 and is available for the IBM PC or compatible multi-media computer with an Intel® Pentium® 4 or AMD Athlon® 64 processor (Intel Core™2 Duo or AMD Phenom® II recommended) or faster processor running Windows 7 / Vista with 2 GB RAM, 10 GB of hard disk space for installation, 7200 RPM hard disk drive, 1,280 x 900 screen resolution and a DVD burner for video creation. 64-bit edition of Vista or Windows 7 required for Premiere Pro and After Effects. Also available for the Mac with a Multicore Intel processor, Mac OS X v10.5.7–10.6.3, 2 GB RAM, 26.3 GB of hard disk space for installation, 1,280 x 900 screen resolution and a DVD burner for video creation. For more information, or to order, visit Amazon.com.
Software Companies Mentioned
Adobe Systems Incorporated
345 Park Ave
San Jose, CA 95110-2704
URL: www.adobe.com
800-833-6687
