Adobe CS4: The Next Tier, Part 1

You''ve undoubtedly heard about Adobe Creative Suite 4 (CS4), and you probably are already familiar with many of the top new features. In this month''s Affordable HD, I wanted to introduce you to the next tier of features, or those that didn''t get top billing, but should be considered in the upgrade decision and/or used as soon as you install CS4.

Since I use these applications the most and know them best, I''ll focus on Premiere Pro, Soundbooth, Encore, and the new Adobe Media Encoder. In the great tradition of radio programming, I''ll talk about the juiciest application last (that would be Premiere Pro), just to make sure you return for the next segment.

Note that I''m still working from the press beta that I received back in August, so there may be some small interface tweaks going forward. Also, I''ll withhold any judgment on actual performance until I get the final code.

As a final caveat, I recognize that there are many different editing styles and project types; the next tier features that I''ve selected will generally save me time or make me more creative, but they certainly won''t float everyone''s boat. Conversely, there are new features that I haven''t mentioned that some users will go absolutely nuts over. I apologize in advance if I omitted the features that you feel are most critical.

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Edit Expertise: Suite News Like the proverbial blind men and the elephant, everyone who touches Adobe Creative Suite 4 Production Premium (CS4) will experience a different product as... Adobe CS4: The Next Tier, Part 2 In the last installment, I covered the top Adobe Creative Suite 4 (CS4) features you probably didn''t hear about for Adobe Encore, Soundbooth, and Media Encoder. Here, I''ll describe the same types of features for Premiere Pro. Just for the record, the most ink-worthy new features in Premiere Pro CS4 include AVCHD support and the extension of Dynamic Link...

Figure 1. Encore CS4 now supports subtitles for Blu-ray projects.
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Encore is CS4''s DVD/Blu-ray-authoring component. Trophy new features include the simple ability to make changes in the video project via the Edit Original command and Dynamic Link support from Premiere Pro to Encore, which means no rendering before authorinng. Encore CS4 is also the only prosumer authoring program to support pop-up menus for Blu-ray Discs, a killer feature.

Figure 2. Encore CS4 also does dual-layer discs.
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You may not know that Adobe also addressed a couple of major negatives in the program. For example, though Encore has long supported subtitles for traditional DVDs, there was no support for Blu-ray subtitles. As you can see in Figure 1, that''s no longer the case.

Encore CS3 was also one of the few Blu-ray capable authoring programs that supported only single-layer discs, another deficit corrected in CS4 (see Figure 2).

Figure 3. Adobe greatly expanded Encore''s Flash-output capabilities.
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Finally, in CS3, Adobe added Flash-output capabilities to Encore, which essentially allowed you to create a DVD-like playback environment for the Web. It was one-button simple, but it was overly structured and lacked configurability. For example, there were only three output presets, all 4:3, so your widescreen video played with letterboxes on top and bottom.

In CS4, Adobe expanded the number of presets to 18, including both 4:3 and 16:9, and nine HD presets. You can also customize your presentation for delivery via progressive download or a Flash Media Server. If you were intrigued by the ability to output your optical disc projects to the Web in CS3 but felt it too limited, now''s the time to take another look.

Figure 4. Speech to text in Adobe Soundbooth.
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The first version of audio editor Soundbooth had a low value proposition to most Windows-based users; that is, less functionality in a less flexible, more structured interface than Audition, the program it replaced. I''m sure I''m not the only person who returns to Audition for most serious audio editing.

With CS4, Adobe addressed Soundbooth''s single most important feature deficit vis-à-vis Audition by adding multitrack editing, which no doubt you''ve heard. What you may not know is that Adobe also incorporated speech-to-text functionality into Soundbooth (see Figure 4). In the figure, you see both the transcript (from the Vice Presidential debate, as downloaded from the NPR site) and the Speech Transcription Options screen.

Though they're not 100-percent accurate, the results are a great start, and this functionality would be extremely valuable for any radio station or organization that creates or collects audio podcasts or similar projects. For example, one could imagine National Public Radio converting all of its key interviews to text for posting on its website, if only to enhance the metadata associated with the downloadable audio. For many producers, this could be one of CS4''s killer unsung features.

Figure 5. You can now preview before producing your .mp3 file.
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Another nice bit of functionality is MP3 preview, which lets you preview your audio at the selected bit rate and channels before rendering (see Figure 5).

One feature that didn''t make it into CS4, to my dismay, was the ability to preview the noise being removed in Soundbooth''s Noise Reduction feature. If you''ve used noise reduction filters in another program such as Sony Creative Software Sound Forge, Apple Soundtrack Pro, or Audition, you''ll probably recall the ability to preview both the sound after noise reduction and the sound actually being removed from the audio file.

Figure 6. Audition's Keep Only Noise preview didn''t make it into Soundbooth.
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For example, as you can see in Figure 6, if you preview with the Keep Only Noise radio button checked in Audition, you''ll hear only the noise being removed from the audio file. For me, this preview is highly useful because if you hear speech or music during that preview, you know you''re degrading the sound that you''re seeking to enhance.

Figure 7. Soundbooth''s Noise dialog, with no noise-only preview.
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Figure 7 shows Soundbooth''s Noise dialog. When you click Preview, you can toggle the noise reduction effect on and off via the green icon to the left of the Preview button, but there is no noise-only preview. Interestingly, one of the most emotional moments during the CS3 editorial preview meetings was when an editor from another publication literally stood up and called Soundbooth “worthless” because this feature was omitted. While I thought then and now that this was somewhat of an overstatement, I certainly won''t use Soundbooth for noise reduction until it supports noise-only preview.

Figure 8. Encoding presets for Flash H.264 files in Adobe Media Encoder CS4.
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In CS4, Adobe Media Encoder blossomed into a fully functional batch-encoding tool that rivals most standalone tools from other vendors in functionality. It has the one feature no program from a third party can currently match: the ability to encode a sequence from Premiere Pro, as well as standalone files. It also can encode files placed in a watch folder, which is a great feature for sharing encoding functionality within a workgroup. Encoding isn''t automated, though; you have to manually start the queue after the files are dropped in the watch folder.

For me, one of the most valuable additions to the Adobe Media Encoder was a comprehensive set of H.264 encoding presets for Flash. By way of background, Adobe announced H.264 support within Flash back in late 2007, but the company has offered little guidance regarding how to actually produce H.264 files for Flash delivery. In this regard, the extensive HD and SD presets in the Adobe Media Encoder shown in Figure 8 represent Adobe''s best practices for H.264 Flash encoding.

Figure 9. The key parameters from Adobe''s H.264 presets for Flash delivery.
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I thought this data so important that for a recent seminar that I hosted on H.264 encoding, I gleaned the key information from the presets and presented them to my attendees. For your convenience, Figure 9 contains the PowerPoint slide from the seminar.

Looking at the numbers, they seem a bit conservative, and you might try encoding at lower data rates to see if you can get the necessary bandwidth at a lower data rate, but they should be a very useful starting point for any web producer encoding H.264 videos for Flash delivery.

OK, consider this the appetizer. In two weeks, you get the main course: the top second-tier features in Premiere Pro CS4.