Huge Performance Breakthroughs and Radical Feature Innovations Accelerate Next-Generation Video Production Workflows

SAN JOSE, Calif. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — April 11, 2010 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq: ADBE) today announced Adobe® Creative Suite® 5 Production Premium, the complete solution for creating professional video, audio and interactive content that can be delivered online, on-air and on device. Packed with performance breakthroughs and offerings to streamline script-to-screen workflows, Adobe Creative Suite 5 Production Premium contains new releases of flagship CS components, including Adobe After Effects® CS5, Adobe Premiere® Pro CS5, Adobe Photoshop® CS5 Extended (see separate release), Adobe Illustrator® CS5 (see separate release), Adobe Flash® Professional CS5, Adobe Soundbooth® CS5, Adobe OnLocation™ CS5, Adobe Encore® CS5, Adobe Flash Catalyst™ CS5 (see separate release), as well as integration with Adobe Story, part of the new Adobe CS Live online services (CS Live services are complimentary for a limited time).*

Key innovations and product offerings include native 64-bit support across Mac and Windows®, the highly anticipated Adobe Mercury Playback Engine, expanded tapeless workflows, a new automated Rotoscoping tool as well as integration with Adobe Story*. These features and functionality can accelerate workflows from scriptwriting through post-production, dramatically increase productivity, and provide the power to help video editors, motion graphics designers, visual effects artists, and broadcast and post-production professionals to craft great stories and create engaging media experiences for virtually any screen.

“Our professional video team continues to crank out new innovations and have made performance the core of every change in Adobe Creative Suite 5 Production Premium,” said John Loiacono, senior vice president and general manager for Creative Solutions at Adobe. “From the introduction of the Mercury Playback Engine, to the script-to-screen workflow that begins with Adobe Story, this is a game-changing release that takes video production workflow to the next level.”

Work Dramatically Faster

Adobe Creative Suite 5 Production Premium ups the ante with industry-leading performance breakthroughs and innovations that accelerate the professional video workflow. The new Mercury Playback Engine allows users to open projects faster, refine effects-rich HD sequences in real time, enjoy smooth scrubbing, and play back complex projects without rendering. This NVIDIA® GPU-accelerated, 64-bit native engine enables users to see results instantly when applying multiple color corrections and effects across many video layers, and to work in real time on complex timelines and long-form projects with thousands of clips—whether a project is in SD, HD, 2K, or 4K.

Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects and Photoshop are now native 64-bit applications on both Mac and Windows, allowing users to get the most out of their hardware investment and work faster and more fluidly. Expanded native support for tapeless media, including the latest DSLR cameras from Canon, Nikon, Panasonic and others, makes the industry’s best tapeless workflow even better. Users can edit native tapeless footage immediately after transferring it from the camera, avoiding transcoding or rewrapping of footage. New support for XDCAM HD 50, AVCCAM, DPX, and AVC-Intra, as well as enhanced RED support, builds on existing capabilities for P2, XDCAM EX and HD, and AVCHD. Adobe Premiere Pro users can also now take advantage of new powerful logging options for tapeless cameras in Adobe OnLocation CS5.

“Adobe Creative Suite Production Premium has become the staple throughout our creative services area,” said Marty Faubell, vice president of engineering for Hearst Television. “Unleashing the powerful new features of CS5 is a step our creative storytellers can’t wait to take. We are quickly moving forward with Adobe to enable tapeless workflows, rich in metadata that will enhance content management and delivery to all of our platforms. The power and sophistication of Creative Suite 5 will advance our efforts to be more efficient and competitive in a business that changes daily.”

Craft Great Stories

Post-production workflows in Adobe Creative Suite 5 Production Premium will benefit from several new innovations that enhance creative expression while simplifying everyday tasks. The revolutionary time-saving Roto Brush tool in After Effects works like the Quick Select tool in Photoshop; enabling users to isolate moving foreground elements from backgrounds in a fraction of the time and with extreme precision. With Photoshop CS5 Extended users can create eye-popping 3D assets, paint more naturally and remove unwanted objects. Automatic scene detection in Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 creates separate clips from HDV tapes and finds and removes gaps in sequences instantly. Adobe Flash Catalyst CS5 allows users to design interactive online video portfolios without writing code. Video pros will be able to more effectively target mobile devices in conjunction with the much anticipated release of Flash Player 10.1 which is optimized for high performance on mobile screens and designed to take advantage of native device capabilities for a richer, more immersive user experience.

Collaborate Efficiently

Adobe CS5 Production Premium helps users collaborate more efficiently by easily integrating into existing toolsets and workflows. Adobe tools provide roundtrip editing between Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 and Apple Final Cut Pro or Avid Media Composer, giving users and workgroups maximum flexibility when moving assets between applications and collaborating on projects.

Adobe CS5 Production Premium integrates with Adobe Story*, a collaborative scriptwriting service, to improve production and post-production workflows by enabling users to leverage scripts for shot lists in Adobe OnLocation, import captured footage into Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 for a preliminary rough cut and use Speech Alignment to synch the script to the footage. Integration with CS Review* service helps eliminate the hassle of client and team reviews by allowing users to review dailies, storyboards, style boards and edited works in progress. Users gain access to convenient services for sharing project information with team members through Acrobat.com. All of these are part of Adobe CS Live*, a new set of five online services that accelerate key aspects of the creative workflow. CS Live online services are complimentary for a limited time and currently include: Adobe Story, Adobe CS Review, Acrobat.com, Adobe BrowserLab, and SiteCatalyst® NetAverages™ from Omniture. Integration with CS Review will not be available in initial shipping versions of Adobe Premiere Pro CS5. In order to use CS Review with Adobe Premiere Pro, customers will need to install a future update.