A New Day For a Skeptic
 

I have been scolded for being snarky. How could anyone be a CS4 survivor and not?

I have been a very harsh critic of Adobe (for explanation... see above). The irony of being a "faithful customer" since Premiere 3.0 is certainly not lost on me. I am also an unapologetic fan of Cineform, both of their product and their business approach. I would wager I am not the only one on this forum that would have completely parted ways with Adobe were it not for their innovation.

It reached a point where I actually joined the Edius 5 contingent. It's a fantastic software, and it has now taken it's place on a portable system that is companion to the EX1 on out of town projects that benefit from rough client edits at the end of each day.

When CS5 was announced, and snippets began to trickle out about the sky high hardware requirements, I took an attitude of... "okay... some great performance, but it's going to cost a bundle". And none of it mattered if stability and some of the awkward work flows weren't addressed.

At this point I should say that CS4 on a 64-bit machine made huge strides in stability which was a welcomed respite from seemingly constant crashes on ample hardware of virtually all previous incarnations of Premiere.

Which brings us to the CS5/Neo 5 combination. Working with a trial-beta combo on a very, very humble workstation, I feel like I have been provided a brand new tool box with all the components. A two year old Core Two Duo with only 4gb of RAM and a cheap ATI video card aren't enough of an obstacle to see nearly flawless (albeit single track) video playback of my HDLink converted 1080p EX footage. I say "nearly", because on a occasion, it appears that the video track has to "ramp up" for a second or two before complete fluidity kicks in.

This is a long post, but it has been a long winding trip. First of all, congrats and thanks to all of the Cineform crew. We see a few of their names on a regular basis here... I'm sure there are others behind the scenes that deserve a ton of thanks as well. Thanks and kudos to Adobe. They have transformed Premiere into a responsive tool, and they clearly listened to editors by tweaking some of the work flow.

I think the only area where Adobe may have slipped was in the pre-release information flow. Instead of touting the 20 tracks of realtime video with expensive and limited selection hardware, they should have been getting the word out how responsive CS5 was with a fairly spartan setup. I very nearly had my order placed for new motherboard, i7 processor, 24gb of RAM, and a top of the line CUDA video card. After demo, I now know that a GTX285 and RAM increase to maybe 12gb is all I need. A painless upgrade (no relicensing/registering OS and softwares), and easy on the pocketbook.

Stephen, Adam... and there's many more of you, whom dealt with the frustrations of the last 18 months and the black hole of CS4 and shared our frustration and skepticism here. I think our struggles may be over at last. I said that if this new release of CS5 together with the revamped Neo line (thank you for the free upgrade Cineform) worked as billed, I would be back here singing it's praises. It is well deserved.

Aaaaarrrrrgggggggggg!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I feel the power of the RING drawing me to the bloody fires of Endor...no...no...no, it can't be true!

Can there be life after CS4? Can a leopard change it's spots? Can a 500lb gorilla actually make sweet music?

Marty, I fear the winds of the Pacific have blown your mind into the deep waters of Crater Lake! Since they are so pure, may they wash away the memories of 2009's CS4 and allow you to plumb CS5's depths and continue to report a (relatively) pain-free experience.

We're watching...(still with a telescope)...

I bought CS4 and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt.

C'mon Stephen..... take the plunge. You know you want too!

Maybe we can resort to our old ways when CS6 is released?

Marty, I'm listening to every word and softly drooling. Will likely bite the bullet this week.

I downloaded the trial, but I can't bring my finger to click on the "install" button yet. Oh, the pain, the pain!

Actually I'll be making a separate partition to do that in a few days.

Jump Adam, you know you can't last..........

It's fun being on this side of peer-pressure.

Stephen
I hesitate to say this (Murphy's Law is alive & well), but I was steeled for a lot of pain, FUD, smoke and lightening- I had imaged my C: drive, prepaired for the worst, etc., and...
It was all such a no-brainer that it was embarassing.
It was about as exciting as installing MS Word.
When it was over, add Neo v. 5, click on PPro, AE, Encore, import old CS4 projects, open a new project, and duhh... everything worked!! It's still working, and it's been a whole week!!
Go forth without fear, my son...

So far, so good! Everything works great out of the box together. CS3 / 4 gone forever, starting new project and will work with CS5 / NEO5 going forward. I am still unclear why old CS3 projects load in desktop mode but it does not seem to be a big deal. Have not had a crash yet even importing some pretty massive old cs3 projects worked fine. It's been a long wait but worth the drama of CS4.

Cineform really are an awesome company on so many levels, the value of their tools (first light), can't be overstated. I am not aware of many companies that would spend the time interfacing with their customers like these guys on these forums. They obviously care deeply about their product and this time appear to have delivered a nice integration. Hats off to Adobe also for a well thought out and designed release. I would recommend the CS5/NEO5 combination to anyone fearful of making the jump, although its early days I have a good feeling about this, and now it seems we finally have a world class editing solution.

Must... resist.... arrggghhhh.... can .... not

Must... warn... others........

Just thought I would let you all know that I just UNINSTALLED CS4.

It's gone, done, finished. I feel as though I should scrub the hard drive with Clorox.

I'm thinking about doing a multicamera shoot of the mini bonfire which will be fueled by its packaging and discs.

I will then take said footage and edit it with CS5.

Sort of a digital Donner Party.... but in a good way.

I'm remembering back in the 1990s when the NLE software and ordinary desktop systems could just barely, barely do DV editing. It was constant crash & burn, lock-up, failure to compile, on and on...
Every little hardware advance, software upgrade, was an occasion for the triumph of hope over experience.
Finally, just as it all got good enough to begin to edit painlessly, HD hits the scene and it's back to digging in the dirt with sticks.
At last, I think we are finally back to where we were pre HD. With CS5, Neo5, Intel i7, Win7 64, monster RAM, RAID, CUDA, MPE we are finally master of it all- HDV, Red, AVCHD, DSLR, XDCam, EX, whatever.
It's been a long journey- just don't start thinking too much about 3-D :-)
I mean I'm ready for a little rest...

LMAO @ "and it's back to digging in the dirt with sticks."

Yes CS5 looks to be a winner and thank god for that. As for 3D I just hope the collective public wakes up and see's it for the scam that it is. May it endure a slow and painful death until it takes its place alongside laserdisk...

Well said Robert... I would just add that the stunning development of the past few weeks for me is the realization that it doesn't require the radical hardware upgrades that we were hearing about in the pre-release time frame.

Working with CS5 After Effects is a pleasant surprise as well. With a 4gb RAM, Core 2 Duo, Win7 64 system, I can get 14fps playback @ full resolution with a 1080p MXF clip... about 12fps with CFHD.

That doesn't sound very impressive.... but it's After Effects and I'm used to seeing 6 or 7fps.

Tomorrow I bump up to 8gb of RAM and add a GTX 285. A cutting edge computer two years ago. Merely a "fancy stick" by today's standards.

Good plan Marty! But please dance around the fire and add some dramatic music and closes as you gleefully stomp on the boxes before roasting them...then post them for our viewing pleasure.

(Adam...resist...resist! I'm sure it's all a devious plan to suck our bodies of blood...)

Stephen.... Adam's just a little north of here. I suggest we meet at Grants Pass and form a posse to rescue the poor guy. His last few posts are definitely from a man crying for help. And if you print them out, scan them... then drop them into any CS4 program, the error message says "NewTek Toaster".

It may be too late. We just need to save ourselves.

You guys are too funny! I have four projects to get out by the end of next week and then... I will have gone over to the dark side and ordered CS5.

Marty, you and Robert are in cahoots to drag our screaming bodies into the future!

I confess I like the idea of a smooth HD (2K, 4K included) and powerful editing/production experience. Since we have 4 workstations to upgrade to this new CS5 rocketship, it's a pretty hefty bundle for us to get all on the same page.

Added to that, is the need for 2 new cams, and our American/Brazilian national launch-offs for our new TETELESTAI series. Since we do all our own work from end to end, we're hammering out a new website and eCommerce site too, to handle the whole thing. Truth is, we just haven't had the time or resources yet to make the CS5 switch.

We'll get there when the dust starts to settle a bit and we have a few min to breathe.

In the meantime, I'm still watching carefully for any signs of "cutting edger bleeding"...

Okay, I give! I just pulled the pin on my CS5 order and I guess it'll be here next week....

Now, about that free upgrade from PHD4 to the new Neo5....

Stephen
Honestly, given that you are doing all the many things you are doing, then whatever you are using must be working- I can't imagine any big rush to make all of these changes.
But, you will eventually end up there & I'm betting that you will be pleased with the results :)

Robert, I think that's a pretty accurate assessment of where we're at.

Many thanks again to CF for keeping people like us in mind when they build in backwards compatibility to their products. I'm sure we're not alone in taking our time updating. Production environments do lend themselves well to radical, quick changes!

You guys keep us posted on what you're seeing with this new stuff and we'll be all set when we finally take the plunge.