Premiere Pro CS3 Beta Download
 

For those wishing to play with the upcoming release of the new Premiere Pro
CS3 there is a Beta version for download here....

http://labs.adobe.com/

What the!?!?! HDV and MPEG not supported? What a crock!

Yeah, there is such a thing as releasing a beta that is so unfinished as to be useless. This was clearly an attempt to convince some who might be looking at Final Cut Pro on the Mac to think about going with Adobe's Production bundle instead.

I'll admit, I'm still considering it - as a Photoshop owner, I can upgrade to the Production bundle for less than the cost of FCP, and get Illustrator CS3 and Flash thrown in. However, the fact that I can't actually do anything meaningful with the beta is irritating enough to keep me on the fence for the time being.

As a Sony HDR-SR1 owner, I'm resigning myself to not having native AVCHD editing anytime soon, so I'm currently using Parallels/Boot Camp to convert my AVCHD files to Cineform AVIs, which play fine on the Mac side via Cineform's beta codecs, but also don't work with Premiere Pro ("unsupported compression").

Rick

The issue is not so much "unfinished" as licensing. No HDV support is because it is turned off, not that it is not finished. None of the Premiere Pro trials have supported MPEG video. The released versions do.

Anyone know if you can load Cineform on PP CS3... if so, then HD will be supported in the Beta......

I'm just as curious. I'm installing it now. I'll you know.

691mb download. This could take a few...

Although the HDV codecs/plugins/presets are present with the CS3 install and load, (including cineforms that I copied over from PPro2). You are still limited to DV capture and image size. There is an HDV folder in the presents, but blank, and sure enough, after loading the cineform code, the Cineform present folder is there but is also blank.

Changing to desktop mode still would only allow a DV resolution project.

It's not only just HDV/Mpeg, it's even uncompressed HD. I couldn't even capture/work with uncompressed Adobe HD-SDI or Prospect. You're stuck with good old DV editing mode or it's crash, crash, crash.

To be fair, I agree with the HDV license issues, and that cineform may need some treaks. However, I think if they should have just crippled HDV/Mpeg itself and allowed other licensed code to be tested on it, rather than an across the board larger than 480i restriction...

Thank Peter, Well that sucks.... before I went to work this morning I downloaded the beta and put in a Cineform intermediate file (AVI) and edited
a couple of seconds to see what would happen. Thats when I saw no HD
output...

But it did at least handle the intermediate file and it did put out SD...

I was hoping I could override the limits put on it by Adobe... but no go :-(

I understand your frustration. What's the sense, this beta is not for HD.

Thanks for the info. I'm downloading it now. (4%) 1 hr, 37 minutes left, but never mind, I wasn't planning on an early night anyway.

Yeah, I found out it was a licensing issue after I posted.

Still, it seems a little ridiculous - everybody and their brother wants to edit HD now, and not being able to test HD *anything*, no-way, no-how, kinda makes the beta seem pretty pointless.

From what I can tell, PP3 has very few new additions, this upgrade is more
likely for MAC and Vista........

If by "very few" new additions, you aren't counting the inclusion of Encore with BluRay and Flash SWF export support plus OnLocation (formerly DV Rack), time remapping, a big interface makeover for the Project panel that allows on-the-fly clip searches and storyboarding, and Device Central to create output for mobile devices, then maybe. Not every user will care about every feature, but IMO those major features plus Vista and Mac compatibility are significant...especially for those of us using the rest of the Studio apps, whose new features and their integration will really improve workflows.

How does the new project panel allow for storyboarding? I love doing storyboarding and would be interested in getting the scoop on how it works!