Wednesday
Sep052012
Adobe Anywhere
Wednesday, September 5, 2012 at 10:33AM Back in May I wrote:
The “big iron” days are over. Simplicity is the new powerful. Fast is the new good. The computer is the new hardest working guy in the room. Except it’s no longer in the room.
Looks like Adobe agrees:
Promising!
Update on Wednesday, September 5, 2012 at 12:25PM by
Stu
Stu
The press release lists After Effects among the supported apps.
Reader Comments (9)
Very cool!!
Next step, solve the "infinite plugins with infinite versions" issue (maybe using a white list) and link that server to an Adobe Cloud for nearly unlimited rendering power
The promisse is cool. We have to wait and see how will work as more users start using.
At least, it would help the rebel filmmaker in not spending amounts of money on hardware for rendering.
Probably the single coolest feature I have heard announced from adobe. I would love if they would also include this with after effects as well.
It is that "standard infrastructure" they mention that concerns me. Too lazy to verify the exact details, I know they said nVidia GPU (CUDA acceleration to pre-render before streaming - so there's definite scaling limitations going on here!), but also mentioned some kind of storage that I'm sure is not cheap.
All this is doing is pushing the heavy lifting from the machine on your end to the machine on the server end. The heavy iron has been moved behind the curtain, but it still has to exist.
So Stu - step 1 is shareable infrastructure, step 2 is RENTABLE infrastructure. With the nature of business today (specifically the crap rates paid for editing), editors can't afford this kind of infrastructure, and small editorial houses would be challenged as well.
RENTABLE.
So - does this create a business opportunity for somebody? House the commodity hardware in some place in LA with a fat pipe like 1 Wilshire?
^ To me it sounded as if the server doesn't need to be anything really special: as long as it has an nvidia GPU and fast storage, it sounds like it will work. Your regular editing workstation should do. What you get now is (a) the ability to work on it while being away from it, using, say, a Mac Air or an ultrabook, and (b) the ability to allow others to work on your machine too, also remotely, tinkering directly with your projects (and not through copies and versions of the project).
Also: now is a good time for all of you Mac lovers to start throwing stones at Apple central: with the world moving in this direction, the lack of a powerful Mac server will just feel more and more painful (until the cloud takes that place, then an imac will probably do).
fxguide has an interesting article about it http://www.fxguide.com/featured/new-tech-adobe-anywhere/
hopefully they won't only aim at the bradcasters but instead think about all the independent filmmakers out there
That fxguide article explains it all quite well. Very cool indeed.
Also, it seems like the server doesn't need to have Premiere at all, just Anywhere, which may even be sold separately from the Production Premium suite. I don't know how this is going to work with your miriad of 3rd party plugins, but if it does, you've actually found your way out of the "Apple doesn't sell me the hardware I want" problem:
* get an iMac, MBP, Mac Air, anything you like, for editing, and install Production Premium for Mac on that machine
* get a Windows workstation with lots of processing power and fast storage, and install Anywhere for Windows on that machine
You don't even need to have a monitor on the server: configure it properly, and leave it by a fast LAN connection. Turn it on when you need it, click the on/off button again when you don't. You won't even have to see all these Windows windows that you Mac lovers seem to hate so much :)
This is definately the beginnings of something really interesting. I've been pretty harsh on Adobe and particularly Premiere before, but I'm starting to think that Adobe actually really get the way that modern, pro creative teams work - with members often working remotely across sites, and even in other time zones...
The Creative cloud approach has had some issues, but having been using it for a while I'm really sold on the flexibility that it provides, and this is just the next logical and better step. I'm really impressed with how Adobe seem to be really tackling the complex issues of pro workflow, particularly at a time when Apple have taken the fork in the road to more consumer landscape, or maybe even simplification to the point of near uselessness in the case of FCP X.
Improvements like this make me think that Premiere might not be the third horse for long. Adobe should be definately be applauded for going full bore at this, rather than just adding a 'Share on Facebook' option!
Whoah. This could be major for independent filmmakers as well as large broadcast companies. I'm curious to see how this actually comes out as it hasn't been released yet. I usually immediately implement new solutions and bleed painfully as the bugs get worked out, can't wait for this to arrive.