Windows 7 Sequel: Thumbs-Up
The Redmond, Wash.-based software giant has placed a lot of emphasis on performance since the problems that emerged with Windows Vista. It also gives us the chance to take a new look at many existing applications to see how they now work on Windows 7 with industry-standard hardware. One of the first areas we decided to try was in video rendering with Adobe Premiere Pro CS4.
We installed Adobe Premiere Pro, version 4, on a PC running Windows 7 64-bit and an Intel Core 2 Duo T6500 at 2.10 GHz. The system was built with 4 GB of RAM.
One of the strengths of Premiere Pro is the number of video formats for which it provides support. In particular, we wanted to see how it handled editing simple .AVI format video from a Flip camera and then converting it to Adobe's .FLV format.
Download and installation of the software—even using Adobe's aggravatingly quirky installation manager—took about 15 minutes. The installation included Adobe Bridge CS4, Adobe Device Central CS4, Adobe Encore CS4, Adobe ExtendScript Toolkit CS4, Adobe Extension Manager CS4, Adobe Media Encoder CS4 and Adobe OnLocation CS4, in addition to Premiere Pro CS4.
Premiere 4 is robust. Indeed, just a few years ago an application like this would have required workstation-strength hardware to operate effectively. While it may take a light amount of training to fully leverage its tools, functions and capabilities, it's clear that Adobe has developed an application that delivers professional-grade video editing and rendering for a broad audience.
The simple task we undertook went without any major hitches. The entire process of transferring the .AVI file onto the PC, importing it into Premiere Pro, editing a small, 30-second clip and rendering it into a .FLV file output took about 25 minutes. We went back and found it just as simple to drag and drop a video-only track of the .AVI into an editing timeline and inserting a separate audio file (as if to create a music video) or to drag and drop an audio file into a timeline to create a multimedia slide show.
Along the way, the performance was strong. Converting a 600-MB, .AVI clip to a .WMV format did take about an hour and 20 minutes on this PC, but that was still decent performance.
The application's price does remain one potential inhibitor for smaller businesses: A full version of the application is list-priced at $799 -- which is roughly the cost of an entire PC with Windows 7 64-bit. But with in-house marketing and multimedia becoming more of a requirement for enterprises of all sizes, and with the power and potential of delivering significant value, it's a solution to which VARs should give consideration when discussing that aspect of a business with customers. The price-performance curve of all video technology -- from HD video cameras to delivery via Web or other means -- has been increasing significantly over the past 18 months and promises to continue.
An investment now in Adobe's powerful Premiere Pro CS4 could pay significant dividends in the not-too-distant future for businesses of all sizes, and this is an application that we think could easily make sense in a number of different scenarios. We recommend its current and future value proposition.
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