Premiere Pro 5.5 - All Grown Up
Shane P Jul 15, 2011 8:15 AM
I have been a Premiere user since version 5 going back to 1997 or 1998 I think. Through the years the one thing that frustrated me on more occasions than I can count is the countless crashes and instability. If I had a dollar every time Premiere crashed, choked, froze, threw an error, etc., I could have probably paid cash for my house. Through the years every new version was hyped as usual about the various new features and workflows but the instability and the fear of a crash always remained and I always said to myself "yeah ok, let’s see how many of the new features I can use before I am rebooting". The fear of crashes had me saving projects after ever other cut or tweak. If I has 5 or less crashes or freezes, etc in the course of a day it was a good "productive" day.
Like many of my fellow community members here I have been paying my mortgage and making 100% of my income with Adobe's tools with Premiere being the main staple of my workflow and income. I ran Premiere Pro 1.5 for a few years and didn’t bother upgrading until the CS4 release. And to what did my wondering eyes did appear? More instability! Shocked! No I wasn't really shocked, I expected it. It's Premiere "Pro" after all right? I would have been a fool to think that a new release of PP would be stable.
All playful sarcasm and kidding aside, through the years because of my true love and passion for Adobe and Premiere Pro I never abandoned Premiere. I never even tried FCP or Avid MC in hope that PP would one day get the love and affection from the PP development team and would one day be "all grown up" and be a "big boy" like it's big brothers AE and PS.
About a week ago I downloaded the 5.5 free trial and all I can say is WOW! As I stated above "I would have been a fool to think that a new release of PP would be stable". Well...I happily swallowed a big piece of humble pie...today I am a fool. I wouldn't have believed it unless I tried it. I have been editing about 6-10 hours a day for about a week and I am just speechless. PP has been rock solid and hasn't crashed, frozen, not a hiccup. I truly can't put into words how amazed I am about the stability. I haven't enjoyed editing this much in the last week as I have had in the last 10 years. When I upgrade to the Master Collection when my trial has expired I can only hope that Dynamic Link is as rock solid. I have faith that it will be.
About 3 years ago I met a friend of my brother n' laws and we got to talking and he said he worked out in CA doing audio editing for some TV show out there (can't remember the name but a cheesy show as I recall) and he said he did his audio on Pro Tools and the editors used Avid MC. He asked me what I did and I told him, he asked what I edited on. I said PP and SB and he kind of looked at me weird.
Today I hold my head up high and when someone asks what I cut on I can proudly say Premiere Pro and when they answer I can look weird at them (unless they're smart and are cutting on PP).
PP CS5 gave FCP a fat lip and now PP CS5.5 has FCP down for the count (with a little help from Apple stubbing it's arrogant toe as well !)
Adobe, THANK YOU! There's still one more "bully" left to go after...go knock 'em out!
Shane



