Discovering Creative Suite 5.5: Key New Features for Video Editors
- Introducing Creative Suite 5.5
- Speedy Start with Premiere Pro
- After Effects Rocks
- Audition Replaces Soundbooth
- The Adobe Media Encoder Matures
Introducing Creative Suite 5.5
Adobe's new 64-bit Creative Suite 5 was already a major advance on CS4. In fact, when speaking at events, I introduced the new Mercury Playback Engine with CUDA support (using the graphics card to boost performance) as a game changer. As an editor, the combination of flexible editing tools (see Figure 1) and exceptional real-time performance made Premiere Pro CS5 an excellent all-rounder.
Having 64-bit support in applications like Photoshop CS5 made a difference when working with super-high-resolution multilayered images, but it was the domain of the editor that was transformed. Suddenly, HD started to feel like old DV. Fast, responsive, and stable.
With CS5.5, Adobe has developed the Mercury Playback Engine even further, given After Effects new stereoscopic powers and an incredible image stabilizer, replaced Soundbooth with Audition, and reworked the Media Encoder.