Adobe offers 50% off CS5.5 to Final Cut Pro customers
 

If you're looking for a relatively inexpensive way to add or switch to Adobe Creative Suite CS5.5, now's your chance:

"Adobe... today announced an upgrade program for video professionals who have purchased any version of Apple Final Cut Pro or Avid Media Composer and want to switch to industry-leading professional video tools by Adobe... these customers will be eligible for a 50 percent savings on Adobe Creative Suite CS5.5 Production Premium or Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5"

Full story here: Adobe Announces Switcher Program For Video Professionals at DVInfo.net

Re: Adobe offers 50% off CS5.5 to Final Cut Pro customers
 

Wow! Excellent news!

Re: Adobe offers 50% off CS5.5 to Final Cut Pro customers
 

Ouch... great move of Adobe, big doubts for me.
It's still a very expensive program, but it's a very powerful suite and as a future RED customer, they seem to be very 'into' the RED Workflow.

Re: Adobe offers 50% off CS5.5 to Final Cut Pro customers
 

at the discounted price, i am very interested.

ymmv

be well

rob
smalltalk productions

Re: Adobe offers 50% off CS5.5 to Final Cut Pro customers
 

Why these price differences are just... not reasonable anymore? I was very tempted by this offer, untill I went to the Adobe Store in Belgium. The software costs 1900 euros full without VAT. That's 2700 dollars at this point, that's a 1000 dollar difference with the American store.

Sorry, but I'm having a hard time justifiying this...

Re: Adobe offers 50% off CS5.5 to Final Cut Pro customers
 

If one is planning to switch to a Red, software cost might end up being relatively small.

Re: Adobe offers 50% off CS5.5 to Final Cut Pro customers
 

Mathieu,

Why don't you simply order it from States? I do it all the time, avoiding these ridiculous price differences.

Re: Adobe offers 50% off CS5.5 to Final Cut Pro customers
 

Wow that is attractive... i hope the folks outside of the US could enjoy the offer too.

Re: Adobe offers 50% off CS5.5 to Final Cut Pro customers
 

I thought that the US dealers weren't allowed to ship outside of the US (per their licensing with Adobe)?

And, BTW, a very smart move by Adobe. Very smart. Since Apple seem to have EOL'd DVD Studio Pro, editors need an ongoing solution for DVD creation (and Blu-ray). After all, what are new editors supposed to buy for pro DVD creation? The answer is Encore. Which is only sold with Premiere Pro. The lack of DVD creation is, to me, the biggest strategic blunder by Apple in the FCP X rollout. Even bigger than releasing FCP X version 1.0 as a half-done. Long-term, this lack of DVD (and Blu-ray) creation solutions for video editors will send many over to Encore and Premiere Pro. Just out of self-protection. This discount is a very, very smart move by Adobe. The next few months is really going to be their time to "pounce".

Re: Adobe offers 50% off CS5.5 to Final Cut Pro customers
 

Also keep in mind that Adobe offers very attractive education pricing to students, staff, and faculty of qualifying institutions, see: educational software pricing | Adobe

Re: Adobe offers 50% off CS5.5 to Final Cut Pro customers
 

Considering there is a preset for RED footage when I open premiere I would think that its very easy to work with. Never directly edited RED footage though... Need to get on that...

Re: Adobe offers 50% off CS5.5 to Final Cut Pro customers
 

Tempting - the purchase code is SWITCH. I'm interested in buying two copies, but I only have one copy of FCS.

Does anyone know how the authorization/upgrade process works with Adobe (couldn't find the details on their site)? I expect I can only obtain one license at the discounted price, but hope I'm wrong.

Re: Adobe offers 50% off CS5.5 to Final Cut Pro customers
 

Some will, some will not. Anyway, with such price differences, one can afford to fly to NY, stay over weekend, have great time, buy software and go back home, still spending less then buying the software in Europe.

Re: Adobe offers 50% off CS5.5 to Final Cut Pro customers
 

Just remember to add the sales tax to the quoted US figures.

Re: Adobe offers 50% off CS5.5 to Final Cut Pro customers
 

And now I wonder whether a loyal Adobe user could get 50% off CS5.5 as well :-p

Re: Adobe offers 50% off CS5.5 to Final Cut Pro customers
 

Yes, the offer it's worldwide: The Genesis Project : Backing up Adobe’s commitment to Pro’s – making it easy to switch

...this offer is WORLDWIDE, so no one is being left out!"

Promo Code: SWITCH

Yes per the Terms and conditions, depending of what Adobe product you own today: Terms and conditions

Re: Adobe offers 50% off CS5.5 to Final Cut Pro customers
 

Avid has a similar "crossgrade" program that they just extended.

I'd recommend anyone who's serious about their career in post production to take advantage of the cross grades. Not necessarily to "jump ship", but as an opportunity to expand your toolset & skillset.

Re: Adobe offers 50% off CS5.5 to Final Cut Pro customers
 

Just so you all know....

I just tried to use the promo code SWITCH for Adobe Production Suit CS 5.5 (upgrade)....

the promo code didn't work, contacted Adobe direct and they say.. no, they will not honor upgrades,
they only want FCP converts...

Re: Adobe offers 50% off CS5.5 to Final Cut Pro customers
 

Just to avoid confusion, in my post i compared both download-only prices, and both without VAT.

Re: Adobe offers 50% off CS5.5 to Final Cut Pro customers
 

Upgrades are $399 from 5.0 no discount.

Re: Adobe offers 50% off CS5.5 to Final Cut Pro customers
 

Just wondering. Because CS5.5 is optimised to run best on Nvidia cards (CUDA), which don't come as standard with Macs, this has meant that you can only get best performance using a Mac Pro. Too bad if you are using a MacBook Pro or an iMac.

However, with the new Thunderbolt ports on MBPs and iMacs, I was wondering if it's possible to put a Nvidia card into some sort of enclosure and hook it up to a Thunderbolt port. Would OS X recognise it? Would PPro5.5 be able to recognise and fully leverage its CUDA capabilities even though it is not installed internally?

This would be a really big deal, if possible. (In view of the incredibly tempting offer of 50% off.)

Anybody tried it already?

Anybody know?

(Any Adobe representatives care to chime in?)

Re: Adobe offers 50% off CS5.5 to Final Cut Pro customers
 

For hardware acceleration WITHOUT a nvidia card, the Matrox Mini with Max is what you need.

Last I checked, Adobe had 2 discounted offers: one for switchers and one for anyone with any version of Photoshop or After Effects going back several versions (I think PS CS2 or AE 7). The upgrade was around $1100 but discounted $200-300. Check Videoguys.com as I saw it there. They also have a great promotion to get Avid MC 5.5 and Adobe CS5.5 together for ~$1700.

Re: Adobe offers 50% off CS5.5 to Final Cut Pro customers
 

Thanks, Steve. But I would never buy a Matrox product again after my experience with the Matrox MXO.

Hence my question about whether it's possible to hook up a NVIDIA card externally through Thunderbolt.

Anybody know?

Re: Adobe offers 50% off CS5.5 to Final Cut Pro customers
 

Hi David,

I don't blame you one bit. After my experience with the MXO2 Mini, I will never purchase anything from them again.

To your main question: I know that it is possible to do what you want with the Expresscard slot. The key is whether or not the TB ports have direct access to the PCI Express.....AND I just googled it and the answer is YES. On the MBP, the TB connection has access to a PCIe x4 in addition to the Displayport.
Intel Thunderbolt: a closer look (updated with video) -- Engadget

Now, you just need to wait for a company to release the external case for holding a video card. However, the downside could be cost. I can't recall the product, but someone released an external video card case designed to connect via the Expresscard slot, and I don't think it was cheap (around $200 maybe not including the video card).

Re: Adobe offers 50% off CS5.5 to Final Cut Pro customers
 

Thanks, Steve.

That's very good to know. Right now, I'm planning out my hardware/software roadmap for the next 24 months and am currently leaning towards the scenario of running a pimped-out new iMac as a "two-car garage" with FCP and Production Premium CS5.5 side-by-side. And running an externally enclosed Nvidia graphics card through a Thunderbolt port for optimum CS5.5 performance (if possible).

Oddly enough, the cessation of DVD Studio Pro is a real tipping point for me. What if a future OS update "breaks" it? I need a pro authoring solution for DVDs (the ability to author a large number of "stories" plus complex menu structures) and would prefer something with a future roadmap and that will be supported if future OS bugs occur. Hence Encore is looking more and more like a "must-have". And it's the same thing with Soundtrack Pro ...

I'm really liking what FCP X can do (I'm slowly working my way through the Steve Martin tutorials at the moment) and want to stay with that roadmap too, as they hopefully update it with enough features to make it viable to use on a paying job. But I'm thinking of dropping "classic" FCP as soon as possible and open old FCP projects with PPro5.5.

Then I can decide the most efficient and productive workflow to use on a project-by-project basis (FCP X or PPro).

I feel that Apple have cut down my options with their EOL (end-of-line) of a number of FCS applications. The appeal of this 50% off CS5.5 deal is that it will fully restore my options. And I like that. I'll make my final decision in a few weeks and part of that will hinge, for me, on this external Nvidia graphics card idea.

Steve has found that the Thunderbolt spec will support it. I guess it just now depends on a vendor making a graphics card case with Thunderbolt connection and then someone putting it to the acid test and making sure that the OS and PPro5.5 both "play nice" with it.

Re: Adobe offers 50% off CS5.5 to Final Cut Pro customers
 

David I suggest you read up on what exactly will be sped up by having a CUDA card. Most of CS5s mercury improvements work using the RAM and CPU so you don't necessarily need one. A CUDA card will only help on h.264 encoding and maybe some rendering of specific effects. A decently spec'd imac with a ton of ram might be all you need though.

I edit on a mac pro without a CUDA card and everything works better in CS5 compared to previous versions. Dynamic link is more stable now that CS apps can utilize all the machine's RAM, and my Canon 7D footage plays back perfectly.

Re: Adobe offers 50% off CS5.5 to Final Cut Pro customers
 

Definitely do your research -- and try before you buy with Adobe's 30 day free trial -- but I would suggest that you do seek a hardware solution that allows you to take advantage of CUDA. Brian's right that CS5.5 processes the timeline very efficiently even without CUDA, but I can't imagine that any of us in the pro editing realm really edits a major project without using effects.

And that's where CUDA really shines. It isn't just a few obscure effects, but 39 or so of the most commonly used transitions and effects, PLUS the fixed effects like motion (scaling, positioning, rotation), opacity, and the blend modes (eg overlay, additive):

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/premiere...A65A9AC80.html

I usually can do a whole project, color correction, transitions, etc using only the CUDA accelerated effects and therefore never see a background render during the entire edit. If I do have a need for a CPU-intensive, non-accelerated effect, I can just tweak the effect and either render it once or disable it until I'm ready to export.

So my opinion is that even if your system can't do CUDA, PPro will still perform very well, but if at all possible, do go CUDA.

Re: Adobe offers 50% off CS5.5 to Final Cut Pro customers
 

Is the Adobe Premiere CS5.5 30-day trial a fully functional version? I downloaded the CS5 trial version when it came out & discovered that it was missing crucial CODECs e.g. H.264 for the Canon DSLRs so it was useless for evaluating the claims of being able to edit H.264 natively.

The only affordable CUDA enabled card for the Mac Pro is the now discontinued Nvida GTX 285 which can only occasionally be found for sale used. The vast majority of GTX 285 cards that you find for sale on eBay are not genuine Mac cards but PC ones that have been flashed with hacked firmware to enable them to be used in a Mac Pro although AFAIK there is no issue with using a re-flashed PC card.

Re: Adobe offers 50% off CS5.5 to Final Cut Pro customers
 

CS 5.5 trial is fully functional except Encore, which will not open in trial mode.

You might also try to look for hacked GTX460 for Mac. I remember seeing it somewhere on the net, but don't remember the place.

Re: Adobe offers 50% off CS5.5 to Final Cut Pro customers
 

If you're installing Production Premium or Master Collection, there are also some third party After Effects features that aren't available in the trial: Mocha, Keylight, CycoreFX, Color Finesse LE, ProEXR, and Digieffects FreeFrom.

But for PPro, as Bart said, everything is there and working except Encore won't open in the trial. They have changed this from previous versions that didn't contain MPEG2 codecs. See also my short article on CS5.5:

A Spring Surprise from Adobe: CS5.5 at DVInfo.net

Re: Adobe offers 50% off CS5.5 to Final Cut Pro customers
 

Amen. These "deals" that Adobe is offering are nothing compared to educational pricing. Their already ridiculous pricing is brought down to reasonable levels for educators and students.

Re: Adobe offers 50% off CS5.5 to Final Cut Pro customers
 

I'm very interested in this offer. Yes the price is still high but you get a hell of a lot more than Final Cut Suite used to give.

After Effects is an industry standard tool. No matter what some people claim, Motion doesn't really touch it. Of all the things I miss from when we switched to FCPS it's AE.

You also get Audition. I still have a licence for it in it's previous guise as Cooledit (and still use it via Parallels on a regular basis) and it's a wonderful audio editor. Blows away Soundtrack Pro even though it's knocking 9 years old so hopefully there's been 9 years worth of improvements.

You also get Photoshop, THE industry standard photo editing tool.

Then there's all the Flash stuff (increasingly important) and Illustrator. In short it's a whole suite of packages to help you be creative. It's expensive even with the discount but pound for pound you get far more.

And it also looks like they will send you a boxed version if you wish.

Seems to me Adobe have a whole range of packages which are designed for professional use whereas
Apple have been cutting back and dumbing down their range.

I still have a few things to find out about but it seems like 3 years after switching to FCP it's game over. The Adobe suite looks impressive, a 50% discount makes it look more affordable and Adobe have an active interest in developing professional software rather than selling iThings.

Re: Adobe offers 50% off CS5.5 to Final Cut Pro customers
 

Can anyone answer me these questions:

- Will a USA license work on my computer (I live in Europe) ?

- Where can you buy the software in New York, and can you ask for the promotion in a retail store too?

Thanks,

EDIT: Seems B&H has the software WITH promotion. Don't know if the license works here.

Re: Adobe offers 50% off CS5.5 to Final Cut Pro customers
 

It's a good deal, just to get Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects and Encore. However, Adobe charges so much for upgrades and upgrades so frequently that they could practically give away the suite the first time hoping that you'll upgrade at some point.

Re: Adobe offers 50% off CS5.5 to Final Cut Pro customers
 

The current upgrade price for PPro is only $179 and I did the math in my recent article to learn that upgrades for the whole Production Premium suite have been running under $35/month over time.

Everyone has their own threshold for "expensive" but IMO if you're a professional, that's not a big investment for the soft-tools with which you do your job. This is Adobe's core business; software isn't a loss-leader for more expensive hardware or a la carte pricing for core NLE functionalities, as is said to be the case for some other NLE vendors. So again, just my opinion, but I think Adobe's Creative Suites are good bang for buck. More buck, more bang. Good value.

As far as the overseas costs, this keeps being brought up and obviously nobody here on the forum knows. It is what it is.

Re: Adobe offers 50% off CS5.5 to Final Cut Pro customers
 

Are you expected to go for each upgrade or can you skip a version without having to buy the full version the next time you upgrade?

Re: Adobe offers 50% off CS5.5 to Final Cut Pro customers
 

I started with Adobe Photoshop version one ... in 1991. And got just about every upgrade since but I stopped at CS3... way too many upgrades that were simply designed as extra revenue and offered little in return - and this was Illustrator, InDesign, Dreamwaver... all of them. And and yes most cost $199 or $299 ... but with 8 or 9 programs this adds up each year.

I got off the treadmill four years ago. So I am weary of Adobe. I will hold out a while.

Re: Adobe offers 50% off CS5.5 to Final Cut Pro customers
 

Jon, people make this kind of comment frequently and it makes no sense to me. Unless the company fails or they End-of-Life a product, all software companies put out new versions of their software...I'm glad that the competitive marketplace drives innovation because I wouldn't want to still be using 1994's Adobe Premiere (not Pro) on Win 3.11, eh? Nobody makes a person upgrade each time; they choose to do so. One can still use CS3 if it does the job and that costs nothing additional. If a person wants the new features of the latest version, they can decide if it is worth the asking price and if so, they'll buy.

Marcus, you can skip versions if you'd like (this is all discussed in the very brief article I linked to in my previous post). It does save a little money, but not that much really.

Re: Adobe offers 50% off CS5.5 to Final Cut Pro customers
 

How does this offer work? I mean surely it's not just a case of putting in the promo code? I can't find anything on the website that actually says what they require you to do with your old software. Or for that matter how do you prove you even have the old software they list?

Andy S

Re: Adobe offers 50% off CS5.5 to Final Cut Pro customers
 

Thanks. I'll take a look. It's not so much a question of saving money, but sometimes companies put out updates that aren't necessarily worthwhile (FCP 7). So the option to skip a version may be worthwhile. Also if Adobe sneak out V6 soon you may not want to pay an upgrade fee straight away.