Adobe Premiere Pro CS5

Adobe Premiere Pro

Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 software lets you edit faster with true native format support. Get breakthrough performance on workstations and laptops; streamline collaboration; and boostproductivity with an efficient, robust, cross-platform editing workflow.

Enhanced Performance

The improved performance comes courtesy of Adobe's Mercury Playback Engine, which was devised for CS5 from the ground up to take advantage of 64-bit processors. Because most of the tasks in Premiere can take a long time (especially if you're adding lots of effects or rendering a long movie) this alone can be a tremendous time-saver. The revamp also means that you can do real-time HD chroma keying with the included Ultra keyer, which is optimized to tackle real-world green screen conditions, and capable of complex keys on smoke, liquids, and transparent objects.

f you're using a computer with a 32-bit CPU or operating system, however, your system will be unable to run Premiere Pro CS5. Adobe claims to have conducted research and discovered that very few existing customers would be affected. Given the prevalence of 64-bit systems in recent years, that's quite believable. If you're one of that underpowered minority looking to dive into Premiere Pro CS5, you'll need to factor a new system (or at least a thorough upgrade of certain components) into the purchase price. Alternately, if you're using a 32-bit version of Windows and purchased a copy of CS5 Master Collection of CS5 Production Premium, Adobe includes a copy of Premiere Pro CS4, which is compatible with 32-bit systems.

Like its CS4 predecessor, Premiere Pro CS5 supports hardware acceleration (which can energize effects processing even more), but there's an even touchier caveat here. Whereas CS4 supported a range of video chipsets from both Nvidia and ATI, the new Mercury Playback Engine was programmed to work exclusively with Nvidia's CUDA technology. As this writing, the full list of supported video cards includes the GeForce GTX 285 ($400 street, ) consumer-level card, and the Quadro FX 3800, FX 4800, FX 5800, and CX workstation cards. (Adobe tells us that testing is underway on Nvidia's latest consumer releases, the GeForce GTX 470 and 480, but has offered no information yet about their compatibility.) Owners of even the most powerful new AMD cards, whether the consumer dual-GPU Radeon HD 5970 or the workstation FirePro models, are entirely out of luck.

New Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 Features

But even users of unsupported video cards will benefit from some of Premiere Pro CS5's changes—just because you're not running on the of the supported cards doesn't mean you can't run CS5. If you're working on a really tough sequence, such as one that uses RED (4K) files or lots of effects, you can "fake" it by dialing down the resolution to as much as one-sixteenth during playback, so your computer can handle it. To make it easier to focus on individual moments, you can set the Pause resolution to "Full" to see the picture in all its detail even if your hardware gives you trouble watching it in motion. This is a thoughtful compromise that generally improves performance on slower or non-workstation machines (like the one we used for testing), and is helpful enough to be worthy of celebration even by owners of  faster computers.

Also introduced is support for many other kinds of standards and technologies. The software now recognizes Sony XDCAM HD 50, Panasonic AVCCAM, DPX, and AVC-Intra, for tapeless recording; as well as for additional support for certain D-SLRs from Canon, Nikon, and Panasonic. You can also now import RED (R3D) files without transcoding them or  installing other software, and a special Source Settings option for RED lets you tweak every aspect of the footage for individual or multiple clips. More intriguingly: You can now open projects made in, and share them between, Final Cut Pro and Avid video software.