MIVA and CS4 Recap June 3, 2009

Our meeting at Bastone’s in downtown Royal Oak featured Terry White- Director, North America Creative Pro Technical Sales for Adobe Systems, Inc. Terry has presented Adobe products before and does a great job showing us how Adobe products can help our workflow and ultimately increase our cash flow.

We were shown how Adobe CS4 Production Suite can take our productions to the next level.

Although Adobe products work great with various tape formats, Terry showed us how Adobe is going to tapeless video acquisition like Flash Memory/SD Cards. He took footage directly from an SD card through his USB port and edited directly in Premiere Pro CS4 without conforming any footage. He could edit in realtime while adding various effects inside of Premiere Pro or After Effects via Dynamic Link.

Terry showed us how we can acquire footage straight from the camera to our laptop hard drives using On-Location, even if our cameras typically use mini-dv tapes to digitize footage. One more way we can use the equipment we already have and save more time than before.

Using Dynamic Link, we learned how to work in Premiere Pro, After Effects and Encore simultaneously with compositions and timelines without having to save or render to see updated changes.

When our work is done, we saw how powerful the Adobe Media Encoder is in order to output our work in various formats using all the common and useful presets like: Youtube (SQ/HQ), MPEG-2, MPEG-2 DVD, MPEG-2 Blu-ray, Quicktime, iPod, and etc.

Perhaps the most amazing feature of Premiere Pro CS4 is its ability to edit our homemade uncopyrighted DVDs straight from the Disc. Only like a few minutes of your wedding video? Take those few minutes and piece them together into a one song highlight in no time. Wait no, maybe the coolest new feature is how CS4 can transcribe your audio and allow you to get the dialogue in a window you can copy and paste into whatever you need it for… Yes, it will listen to your talent’s voice and type out the words.

Don’t want to send a DVD to a client to proof? Use Encore to build you a Flash project that you can upload to a server. It will work just like a DVD, but you don’t have to go through the effort of burning the disc and sending it to the client. Or, need a Demo DVD? Have Encore build it for you and send the link to the client, they can watch your DVD on the computer saving you time and money.

It’s amazing how much better Adobe products get every year. Thanks to Terry for coming out again. We hope to see you again soon.

Terry has been with Adobe for over a decade and has extensive knowledge of Adobe’s Creative Professional product line.

In his current position, he leads a team of Solution Engineers and Product Specialists that focus on Professional Publishing, Web Authoring and Digital Video/Audio. Terry is an Adobe Certified Expert and Creative Suite Master. He has been active in the industry for over 20 years and is the founder and president of MacGroup-Detroit, “ Michigan’s largest Macintosh users group and is a columnist for Layers Magazine and X-Ology Magazine. Terry is the host of the top ranked Adobe Creative Suite Video Podcast. He is also the author of Secrets of the Adobe Bridge and co-author of The iPhone Book, The iPhone Book 2nd Edition and InDesign CS/CS2 Killer Tips. Terry is a key presenter at major industry shows around the world.