Production Premium CS3

Encore CS3

Aside from Blu-ray support, Encore only has one new feature to shout about, but it's a pretty impressive one. While Encore is primarily for DVD (and now Blu-ray) authoring, Adobe has added the ability to export to Flash as well. Any menus, chapter points and navigation controls are preserved and converted to cue points and Flash elements, allowing you to create a Web-ready version of any DVD you've authored. In addition to the more obvious implementation of this feature, this could be used to obtain quick client approval for a DVD, or to create a lightweight version of your work that can be distributed via CD for PC playback.

Photoshop CS3 Extended

While we'd refer you to our earlier review of CS3 Design Premium (see p82, June) for full details of what's new in Photoshop (and Flash CS3 Professional, for that matter), Production Premium comes with Photoshop Extended, which has a useful trick up its sleeve for video artists. Instead of having to export a filmstrip (FLM) file from Premiere Pro in order to apply rotoscoping or graphic layer effects to video, Photoshop CS3 Extended allows you to import video files, with each frame as a layer and a timeline for navigation. Add this to the fact that all Photoshop effects can be applied to assets within After Effects and you start to see the tight integration that gives this suite a clear advantage over many of its rivals.

Soundbooth CS3

Audition was always an uncomfortable pairing with Premiere Pro, and presented a challenge to any video editor unused to the tool conventions used by audio professionals. By replacing it with Soundbooth, video editors can now achieve their audio fine-tuning in a considerably simpler environment (the Hard Limit process has now been replaced by a 'Louder' button, for example).

While musicians may miss the low-latency multi-track recorder and scientific filters, editors still have access to the spectral frequency display (an invaluable tool when it comes to cleaning up recordings), and more intuitive tools for audio tweaking. Soundbooth even borrows from Photoshop, offering a Spot Healing tool to fill in the audio gap caused by deleting transient noises.

Also useful is the auto-scoring tool. This lets you create a custom music score to match the length of your video simply by picking a theme and setting keyframes to adjust the intensity and composition at specific points. Again, nothing new, but a better interface than some of its rivals (including Sony's Cinescore).

Ultra CS3 and OnLocation CS3

Aside from the branding, Ultra CS3 hasn't changed at all, and still offers the same quick and effective chroma keying and virtual set generation as it always has. It still lacks an Undo button, and is strictly PC-only, but newcomers may find this an invaluable way of overcoming the limitations of a small studio -- just as we did when we used it for the Back to Basics videos on the cover disc.

No change, either, in DV Rack, except that it's now called OnLocation. This is a calibration and monitoring tool that lets you check colour, focus and audio during off-site recordings, avoiding costly re-shoots. It can also turn your notebook into a hard-disk recorder, cutting out lengthy logging and capture sessions back at the editing suite. Both Ultra and OnLocation are Windows only, though OnLocation can be used with Bootcamp.

Sadly, two pages aren't nearly enough to cover everything that's new here. Brief additional highlights include FLV preview in Bridge (a hint towards Adobe's standalone Media Player currently in development), and the new Device Central, which offers video format details and previews on an extensive (though not exhaustive) array of mobile devices.