You can tell from our reviews that we liked this new release very much. However there were a few things we had issue with. On the whole it’s a great release and its price point would almost make our complaining sound like petty nit-picking. Except for the fact we are not talking about a mid-level company that targets the consumer and Sally homemaker.

This is Adobe and they are squarely targeting the mid to high level professional graphics and video market. With that as your market you have to expect demanding customers who need to work in competitive environments and depend on their tools to work as expected. Most of them here do.

The areas of the suite that fall down on the job is the audio. Soundbooth is just not yet up to the task of single-handedly holding up its end of the production process. Not with heavyweights like AE and PS and PP holding up the other ends. This would be fine if we were talking about Adobe’s Web suite, but a video package needs the best audio tools you can throw at it.

While we have to do more work with it before being definitive, we also tend to question whether Encore is up for the task as well. Again, it would be fine for a web or multimedia package but its tools may not be up to the needs of a pro video shop. Could Sony’s DVD Architect or Apple’s DVD Studio offer you more?

Adobe continues to make their Bridge application the center post of their suite of software. This time around it runs much more efficiently so we have less complaints. A few notes on it: The Find/Search function defaults to working with indexed files only–you will probably need to click on the “include non-indexed fields” option. More problematic was its inability to go directly to a specific subfolder. For example if you have a desktop folder open and realize it would be better to use Bridge to view it, how can you get Bridge to open that folder directly? We couldn’t figure a convenient way. (Clumsy work-around: drag to add the folder to Bridge’s favorites list along the left, click on it to select, and then delete the entry. Works, but clumsy.)

Installation was an issue for us on a few levels, and we know for others. First off installation of all the CS tools have been slow and take a lot of room on your hard drive. Installing just one application of the suite is sometimes painfully slow to the point of thinking the computer has hung (this is when one or more have already been installed and you are now installing additional at a later date). We saw this under CS2 and again now. Oddly, when you install the whole suite at once things move along at a more normal clip. So if you have the hard drive space, install it all at one time and be done.

This leads us to another possible issue. While Adobe has worked to cover your whole team’s needs with the Production Premium suite, you can not divie up one copy of the suite to many different worker bees in your shop. Instead Adobe limits you to a maximum of two installs. While this means you can’t spread the wealth of one copy of the suite to everyone, allowing two concurrent activations does seem very reasonable to us.

Recommendations
If your work involves high end video/film production and little multimedia, Apple’s suite may be better suited to your needs. Or maybe make the leap to an Avid. You will still need to purchase a compositor.

Short of the most strenuous needs however, this suite should deliver everything you could want—except perhaps audio. In addition, there is no other company that can provide you with Photoshop, Illustrator or Flash functionality so you might end up needing to buy those anyway (which would be $750 in upgrades alone, assuming you already own them).

Nope, Adobe figured this one out. The tools and prices just make too much sense to ignore. This is going to be a big-big seller and make a lot of happy graphics folk.