Adobe Purchases IRIDAS

[www.businesswire.com]

I believe Adobe has just answered the "Apple Color" question. Wowee wow. Once this gets integrated into the suite, there will be even less of a reason to migrate back to FCP in the future.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
biscardicreative.com

Whoa. Nice move by Adobe there, a grading tool was all that was missing. Heading off to the IBC in Amsterdam this weekend anyway so that's definetly the first exhibitor booth I'm headed to. Maybe they'll have something more to say about when, pricing, etc...


Clay

Cool, someone who is actually there!!!! I'm loving this purchase but I also hope they continue to talk to FilmLight about the BaseLight plug-in. Would love to have the option to use both.

But the new CS6 package is looking mighty strong now with all the hints I keep getting from Adobe and now we have the answer to our missing Apple Color. Add the Tangent Design Element Control surface released today and we have on hell of a good day for the editor / colorist!

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
biscardicreative.com

Yup, actually going there. We're off to see the wizard(s)...

Thanks for the heads up on the new tangent panel. Looks like that will be stop #2 on the exhibitor tour.

Will post whatever we can learn about Speed Grade and the Element here next Monday or Tuesday.


Clay

Yeah...wow...again Adobe with great timing in taking advantage of Apple's colossal brain fart. All Adobe needs is to do is incorporate a solid 3D app (Maxon's Cinema 4D) and 3D tracker into the suite and it's one-stop shoppin'.

Nice work Adobe. Keep it up

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Thanks for the kudos guys. This is really great news for us at Adobe. More info to come on this. For now, check out this blog post: [blogs.adobe.com]

Kevin Monahan
Social Support Lead, DV Products
Adobe
Adobe After Effects
Adobe Premiere Pro
Adobe After Effects and Premiere Pro Community Blog
Follow Me on Twitter!

Here's the post-Amsterdam update after seeing, talking, touching, learning:

Tangent Element Panels: Nice, big improvement. Much more solid build quality than the Wave. Balls are the same but track better. Rings are very nicely engineered, very DaVinci panel-like feel and solidity. Very crisp white parameter displays instead of the blue ones on the Wave panel. Release date sometime around year-end. Each of the 4 components can be bought indiviually. Connectivity is stil USB. A powered USB bus accomodates all 4 units in the set. They estimate pricing at about double the current Wave price, maybe a bit more. Application support: other than Apple Color, see the press release on their site for the current status. They're not promising but are working hard towards having SpeedGrade and DaVinci on board by release date.

SpeedGrade: no solid information to report, although all the people Adobe do indeed seem very excited about it. When asked directly, they respond with a wink and a smile and say hang on a bit. It's happening. So, yeah, definetly something major to look forward to there. Often heard mentions from Adobe people about CS6. They're tight-lipped at the moment, but seem very confident that it will be a major release and not too far down the road.


Other cool stuff/buzz/impressions/observations in no special order:

Adobe: in general, one can't say enough good things about Adobe. Feeling like a refugee coming from FCS, it is indeed a totally new experience to deal with a company that is responsive, wants to take the time to talk to you one on one, takes down your email address and promises to provide the right support contacts to help with transitioning, wants to know what features you'd like to see, what issues you're having, etc. etc. etc. Great company, great tools, great support, excellent attitude, very committed, fair pricing. Very happy to have started the migration to CS5.5 for my shop.

DaVinci: new release is awesome. They're very proud of it and pushing it hard. Some real game-changer stuff in the (free!) update. A wink and a smile from these guys too about becoming platform independent.

FCP: saw just one exhibitor (Canon) running X to demo DSLR workflow. That says a lot. Otherwise, everyone else's demos involving FCP workflows still running on 7. ProRes codecs still at the center of many worklfows (ProRes being arguably FCP's greatest legacy). Meantime, huge traffic at Adobe and Avid booths.

Apple: no-show as usual. Not unsurprisingly, lots of speculative buzz on the exhibition floor though as to whether or not there will be a new MacPro. Precious little thunderbolt gear visible except at Blackmagic and Promise. Expected to see at least some prototype thunderbolt slot expansion gear. Nope, none in sight. Meantime, the divergence in perfomance possibilities between MacOS and PC rigs is widening dramtically. Apple is pushing it really, really hard now with the pro users. My take after many conversations on the subject: heads up on the new MacPro issue (hope I'm wrong).

NVIDIA: omg. Performance! Check the Tesla card. Saw demos running AE and Maya on PC. Very, very impressive. PC only, but not because they want it that way (see previous).

Glyph: YES! No more power bricks. Going to buy one soon to try out. ESata, 2x FW800, USB standard on all the models I saw. Way cool design too.

Mocha: just keeps getting better. The AE CS5.5 workflow is far better than with FCP7. Saw the new pro version Demo. Outstanding.

DSLRs: Disappointing. Nothing new there. It was all the rage two years ago when the 7D had it's premiere at the IBC. This time around though the same cameras, same glass, same lame plastic strips on the lenses for follow-focus and zoom, no new Canon-Raw or other codecs, no SDI out, no improved viewfinders, and so on. Seems to have hit the wall on development for the moment whilst manufacturers reap the fruits.

RED Epic 5K: Unreal but real. Game changer.

Arri Alexa: Ditto. Big impressive booth compared to RED's surprisingly very modest presence (although I missed their presentation in the theater), lots of traffic at Arri.

Smoke: way cool excellent Demo at the Supermeet. And a way steep learning curve at a way high price point ($15k) as seems typical from Autodesk. But, a truly fascinating and extremely deep app. Total eye-opener and definetly a must to at least know about.

And many, many more bits and pieces too numerous to go into here.

But here's my overall take-home:

#1. Plenty of good news and opportunities for those moving to other NLE's.
#2. The entire industry reacted to X and the FCS EOL within just a few months. It's all platform independent now. The choice is yours, you won't get fooled again.



Cheers,
Clay

Great report Clay

Thanks

Michael Horton
-------------------

Full house and a great time with wonderful people
Cant wait for next year

Michael Horton
-------------------

Thanks Clay

I think you might have missed a few stands that were showing Thunderbolt solutions. I wrote up a summary here:

[www.empoweringcreativity.com]

Cheers,
Matt

Yes, I did miss that Sonnet offering. They had one of the smaller booths, and I remember passing by but it was pretty crowded there, now I know why.



Thanx,
Clay