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SYNOPSIS:
Premiere Pro CS3 brings the Adobe NLE back to the Mac as a polished-looking product capable of handling most editing needs with ease. Editors who demand deep capability and minute control may find a few features lacking in what is essentially a version 1.0 MacTel product, but shops that use other Adobe tools, such as Photoshop and After Effects, will enjoy the integration (if they spring for the full CS3 Production Premium suite) and will find Premiere Pro a nice addition to their dock.
PRICE:
$799 (includes Encore CS3 and OnLocation CS3), upgrade price $299 for past Premiere users
FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Adobe Systems
www.adobe.com
as a longtime Mac-based Premiere editor, I switched to Final Cut Pro 1 only because Premiere 5- the latest version when FCP debuted- was a lethargic editor with a new and unwelcome user interface. If I had to learn a new program from scratch, I figured I'd give Final Cut Pro a try, and I've never looked back.
Now, with the Intel-only Mac version of Premiere Pro CS3, we can be assured that there's no legacy Mac code holding this version of Premiere back; it's a ported-to-Mac version of the software that was redesigned from the ground up as Premiere Pro after Adobe abandoned the Mac platform. Also, Adobe has seen fit to offer FCP users a keyboard preset so they can make the transition to Premiere Pro a little easier by keeping keyboard commands and hot keys the same.
I tested a beta version of Premiere CS3 for this review. I am looking at it primarily from the viewpoint of DV and HDV editing, DVD authoring, and Flash export for event videographers - and of course the transition challenges and value proposition of switching NLEs for curious FCP users. I did not investigate 24p, film matchbacks, integration with Soundbooth [see Jan Ozer's article, pp. 18-22], nor the powerful features of After Effects. I also did not go into depth with Encore, even though Premiere Pro CS3 ships with it, whether you purchase the standalone version or Premiere Pro as part of the Production Premium bundle.
INSTALLATION AND LAUNCH
It took a two-hour install from five DVDs to get the entire CS3 Production Premium onto my Core 2...