Adobe no longer selling software!
- Thread starter sonnyboo
- Start date
You can run it on two computers simultaneously. I can vouch for that.
I'm loving it so far, I really can't say enough good things about the business model. Like others in the thread have said, any software purchased is outdated in a few months anyway. It's the same reason I advise 90% of people to rent gear, chances are by the third time you use it it's outdated. Even now if you're using software daily, as I am, CC works out way less
I used to use Matrox RT cards in my machines too way back when. I feel your upgrade pain. Modern processors and ESPECIALLY the Mercury Engine/CUDA combo from CS5 on has negated the need for it. Layers upon layers of real time HD and beyond editing with your everyday effects and no render time. It's fun. I even edit 3K/4K-ish (4080x768) weekly for a 3 Screen IMAG setup and it all plays real time. There's an AJA card in one of my machines for Beta capture, but it's more or less been collecting dust. Hasn't been used in a year and a half now. Even with CC the Adobe upgrades and third-party hardware upgrades wouldn't act any different than it would with the traditional license. You don't have to automatically update CC software if you don't want to. Download manager let's me know when there's an update and it's up to me to allow the download and install it.
With the automatic upgrades I'm about to be using C4D lite in the mix for no extra charge. My entire CS6 lifetime through creative cloud will end up having cost me about $180-220 then the rest of the money I would have spent goes to newer and better!
I don't hide it, I'm an Adobe fan, but there's a reason for it.
I'm loving it so far, I really can't say enough good things about the business model. Like others in the thread have said, any software purchased is outdated in a few months anyway. It's the same reason I advise 90% of people to rent gear, chances are by the third time you use it it's outdated. Even now if you're using software daily, as I am, CC works out way less
I used to use Matrox RT cards in my machines too way back when. I feel your upgrade pain. Modern processors and ESPECIALLY the Mercury Engine/CUDA combo from CS5 on has negated the need for it. Layers upon layers of real time HD and beyond editing with your everyday effects and no render time. It's fun. I even edit 3K/4K-ish (4080x768) weekly for a 3 Screen IMAG setup and it all plays real time. There's an AJA card in one of my machines for Beta capture, but it's more or less been collecting dust. Hasn't been used in a year and a half now. Even with CC the Adobe upgrades and third-party hardware upgrades wouldn't act any different than it would with the traditional license. You don't have to automatically update CC software if you don't want to. Download manager let's me know when there's an update and it's up to me to allow the download and install it.
With the automatic upgrades I'm about to be using C4D lite in the mix for no extra charge. My entire CS6 lifetime through creative cloud will end up having cost me about $180-220 then the rest of the money I would have spent goes to newer and better!
I don't hide it, I'm an Adobe fan, but there's a reason for it.
Personally, I'm actually not generally interested in 'awesomeness' from software like this which is primarily a functional tool (as opposed to a game or something that gets boring over time). 90% of what I use in Photoshop on a regular basis has been in the software since I started using it... actually, I take that back, getting layers in version 3.0 was a pretty big deal. AE is similar, I haven't upgraded for a couple versions now because the old version still works just as well as it always did. Hell, the interface was actually better before the whole CS overhaul a few years back - I held out on that upgrade until the old version simply wasn't compatible with my system any more. The new C4D functionality is the first significant upgrade to AE in years that I can remember being particularly interested in.
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I agree with Photoshop, for the uses I have for it, I don't believe there have any massive improvements since CS2 (which I learnt on). However After Effects and Premiere have dramatically improved. One small feature in Premiere which has saved so much time since getting CS6 ist he ability to move files around and edit things while it's still playing. I'm not sure about CS5 or 5.5, but previously moving anything would result in stopped playback. That's just one of so many features I use now that wasn't in the program only 2 years ago.
Yeah, Premier is probably the one app in the whole suite that has undergone real significant upgrades over the past few years, I tend to forget about it though because I don't use it at all. I can't think of much that's changed in AE though, other than a couple things like the puppet tool and warp stabilizer that are useful for specialized tasks. But the core tools for compositing and motion graphics are essentially the same as they were 10 years ago.
I can see that. I've made pretty good use out of the last several major updates though: mercury, warp stabilizer and camera tracking in AE. Mercury was huge since CS5 in premiere too. Even in photoshop, I've used repousse (sp?) in a few big projects when I got it.
I needed an encore update a few versions back to burn Blu-Rays, onlocation was a cool release that has come in handy whenever we can manage a dedicated data tech, and don't get me started on audition and spectral audio editing. Game changer for my workflow.
It's easy to get comfortable in your software and I still delay a bit in upgrades until I can plan extra time for a project where I can really sink my teeth into the update and any interface changes. It can be annoying at first, but once the "oh that's why they changed it" clicks it's brilliant. Honestly, in premiere I'm not 100% into CS6 yet for that reason. About half of my edits are still in 5.5 because I have templates built for those clients. Each time I use CS6 though it I want to switch completely and this summer when I have time I will!
I do appreciate the other point view on the subscription release, but I don't understand it. It's the business model of the future, especially considering the ease of digital piracy. Look at the success of Netflix and Spotify. Ownership will always have it's place, I'll never lease a car because I drive close to 30,000 work miles a year living in Texas where even in the major cities nothing is in walking distance. Software like this, when it actually works out to hundreds less a year, makes sense to me to rent. To each their own though! Adobe has said it'll make a way for those who physically can't connect every month (think a 3 month documentary shoot in the jungle) to use their software and to call customer support to discuss an extended license. Wouldn't hurt to call if you're in that bandwagon!
I needed an encore update a few versions back to burn Blu-Rays, onlocation was a cool release that has come in handy whenever we can manage a dedicated data tech, and don't get me started on audition and spectral audio editing. Game changer for my workflow.
It's easy to get comfortable in your software and I still delay a bit in upgrades until I can plan extra time for a project where I can really sink my teeth into the update and any interface changes. It can be annoying at first, but once the "oh that's why they changed it" clicks it's brilliant. Honestly, in premiere I'm not 100% into CS6 yet for that reason. About half of my edits are still in 5.5 because I have templates built for those clients. Each time I use CS6 though it I want to switch completely and this summer when I have time I will!
I do appreciate the other point view on the subscription release, but I don't understand it. It's the business model of the future, especially considering the ease of digital piracy. Look at the success of Netflix and Spotify. Ownership will always have it's place, I'll never lease a car because I drive close to 30,000 work miles a year living in Texas where even in the major cities nothing is in walking distance. Software like this, when it actually works out to hundreds less a year, makes sense to me to rent. To each their own though! Adobe has said it'll make a way for those who physically can't connect every month (think a 3 month documentary shoot in the jungle) to use their software and to call customer support to discuss an extended license. Wouldn't hurt to call if you're in that bandwagon!
In the video I think he actually says that if you get a 12 month licence (which you would, wouldn't you???) you only have to connect every 6 months
My 2c:
This seems like another large company making things really difficult for the paying users in attempt to stifle the pirates who will find a way around it within a month anyway.
A long time ago when I used to do some work in radio, we had a Mac Pro running a Pro Tools install, and we had a PC networked to the on-air computers and the playout/automation system that we'd dub commercials into. The PC was relatively old, but the techs were continually upgrading components, rather than simply building an entirely new computer. The PC was what was initially used for the stations' first computer-based sound editing, at the time they were using Soundscape, now owned by Solid State Logic. The station had a large base of clients, both new and old. For the new clients, we'd simply use Pro Tools, and the old clients wanting new commercials. There were, however, many times when old clients would call up and request one small change to their old commercial, to be used as a new commercial, or ask for certain parts of their old commercials, or even times when the station itself would do promos using old production elements. We'd then have to fire up Soundscape (which took forever to load
), grab the parts we needed and port them over to Pro Tools.
Now, I'm not a professional editor, and whilst I've spent some time at post houses, I've not spent a large amount of time on the payroll at any, so I'm not sure how this translates to video. However, it doesn't seem unfathomable that clients would want parts of old commercials brought into new commercials. Now, if you've that work on anything prior to CS6, and still have it installed, that's perfectly fine. But, if you've done such work on Creative Cloud services - how the hell are you going to access it? Let's say you're now using Nuke, but even if you're using a newer version of CS. Do you have to pay an extra fee? What if they release an update (a la FCX) where it's not backwards compatible? Suddenly you have CS6 work you can never access ever again? Let's say you're a 'sometimes' user and decide this is great, cos you're really only paying for as much as you use. You make your film, and then you find no need to keep AE or Premiere around on your computer so you cancel your subscription.
A year down the track, you've submitted your film to a festival and they ask for it in a different format. Do you need to pay a fee again to access your software, simply to export into a different format?
I'd also be interested in how this works for post houses, who would normally be purchasing multiple licenses, rather than multiple box sets..
It's interesting - Adobe have been offering cloud services for a while, priced almost identically and it hasn't really seemed to have taken off. Part of me thinks that if the Creative Cloud was really what people wanted, they would have found themselves only selling the Creative Cloud rather than box sets. It's almost like they've decided 'everybody wants this!' and tried to force it on us all. It's an interesting move, but one that I think will be detrimental. It sounds like they've been hit by slow sales on all fronts - at least this way they can hope to generate a bit more revenue.
What happens to those who already own a box set CS6? Do they also have to purchase a CC license? To me, it seems those who already own CS6 (or even CS5) have no real need to 'upgrade' to the cloud, at least for now. I certainly haven't heard anything that would make me want to immediately upgrade. I went from CS3 to CS6 - mostly because I upgraded to a 64-bit OS. CS6 is certainly more feature rich than CS3, but there was no real imperative to upgrade other than to take advantage of the 64-bit processing. Most of the things I use in CS6 (I have Photoshop, Illustrator and AE) I could have done in CS3, even if it took me 6 button clicks instead of 1.
This seems like another large company making things really difficult for the paying users in attempt to stifle the pirates who will find a way around it within a month anyway.
A long time ago when I used to do some work in radio, we had a Mac Pro running a Pro Tools install, and we had a PC networked to the on-air computers and the playout/automation system that we'd dub commercials into. The PC was relatively old, but the techs were continually upgrading components, rather than simply building an entirely new computer. The PC was what was initially used for the stations' first computer-based sound editing, at the time they were using Soundscape, now owned by Solid State Logic. The station had a large base of clients, both new and old. For the new clients, we'd simply use Pro Tools, and the old clients wanting new commercials. There were, however, many times when old clients would call up and request one small change to their old commercial, to be used as a new commercial, or ask for certain parts of their old commercials, or even times when the station itself would do promos using old production elements. We'd then have to fire up Soundscape (which took forever to load
), grab the parts we needed and port them over to Pro Tools.Now, I'm not a professional editor, and whilst I've spent some time at post houses, I've not spent a large amount of time on the payroll at any, so I'm not sure how this translates to video. However, it doesn't seem unfathomable that clients would want parts of old commercials brought into new commercials. Now, if you've that work on anything prior to CS6, and still have it installed, that's perfectly fine. But, if you've done such work on Creative Cloud services - how the hell are you going to access it? Let's say you're now using Nuke, but even if you're using a newer version of CS. Do you have to pay an extra fee? What if they release an update (a la FCX) where it's not backwards compatible? Suddenly you have CS6 work you can never access ever again? Let's say you're a 'sometimes' user and decide this is great, cos you're really only paying for as much as you use. You make your film, and then you find no need to keep AE or Premiere around on your computer so you cancel your subscription.
A year down the track, you've submitted your film to a festival and they ask for it in a different format. Do you need to pay a fee again to access your software, simply to export into a different format?
I'd also be interested in how this works for post houses, who would normally be purchasing multiple licenses, rather than multiple box sets..
It's interesting - Adobe have been offering cloud services for a while, priced almost identically and it hasn't really seemed to have taken off. Part of me thinks that if the Creative Cloud was really what people wanted, they would have found themselves only selling the Creative Cloud rather than box sets. It's almost like they've decided 'everybody wants this!' and tried to force it on us all. It's an interesting move, but one that I think will be detrimental. It sounds like they've been hit by slow sales on all fronts - at least this way they can hope to generate a bit more revenue.
What happens to those who already own a box set CS6? Do they also have to purchase a CC license? To me, it seems those who already own CS6 (or even CS5) have no real need to 'upgrade' to the cloud, at least for now. I certainly haven't heard anything that would make me want to immediately upgrade. I went from CS3 to CS6 - mostly because I upgraded to a 64-bit OS. CS6 is certainly more feature rich than CS3, but there was no real imperative to upgrade other than to take advantage of the 64-bit processing. Most of the things I use in CS6 (I have Photoshop, Illustrator and AE) I could have done in CS3, even if it took me 6 button clicks instead of 1.
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Which Nvidia cards have HD-SDI/Component/HDMI/SD-SDI/S-video/BNC/XLR audio inputs and outputs of the timeline in Premiere?
No, those cards negate the need for real time rendering - NOT the professional deck inputs and outputs. We use those every single day ingesting footage from betaSP, digibeta, 3/4", and other analog sources.
And I think this particular discussion highlights what's really wrong with this move - it's not that cloud-based rental software is a bad thing, it's that eliminating the option to purchase outright seems to ignore the fact that their user base has an incredibly diverse set of needs and workflows. For some, the rental model is great - but for others it's completely disruptive.
I will admit, this move doesn't affect me in anyway. When it comes time for me to purchase Adobe's products, which will be sooner rather than later, I have every intention of using Creative Cloud. Creative Cloud is a much cheaper alternative for me.
But...I don't think it's ok for companies to be heading in this direction. People should have the right to purchase your product outright. This business model allows the company to give out marginal, meaningless updates and continue charging you for it. I should have the option to use my product for 10 years if I so choose before upgrading.
Many of you have mentioned updating to CS5.5 or CS6 all the way from CS3. Imagine the money lost if you had to pay a monthly subscription for all of that time instead of purchasing the product. Now you could be forced into paying for stagnation of product. Adobe can essentially become GM.
But...I don't think it's ok for companies to be heading in this direction. People should have the right to purchase your product outright. This business model allows the company to give out marginal, meaningless updates and continue charging you for it. I should have the option to use my product for 10 years if I so choose before upgrading.
Many of you have mentioned updating to CS5.5 or CS6 all the way from CS3. Imagine the money lost if you had to pay a monthly subscription for all of that time instead of purchasing the product. Now you could be forced into paying for stagnation of product. Adobe can essentially become GM.
Just think now if you ONLY had the option of leasing your car and had to do it on a yearly basis? You probably would buy a car from another manufacturer (good thing you currently have that option in real life).
This rental model doesn't work out to be hundreds less a year for individuals like myself. $50 per month (12 month commitment) equals $600 per year. How is that saving the majority of users money?
If the lease worked out to be LESS expensive than buying I'd be happy to lease and swap out every year. The car was probably a bad metaphor though, because unlike software automobile hardware isn't making groundbreaking or game changing improvements every 6-12 months.
Pretty easily. CS6 Master Collection is approx $2100 (Amazon.com) right now. Honestly, that's not really a fair judge because it's been out for a year. Typically the Master collection runs $2500 at launch. If you upgrade every year ($600-1000 averaged looking at prior upgrade costs). For the example, I'm using the lower of each of the numbers.
Now, if you don't own any Adobe software: One year of owning the software averages to $175 a month. Three years of software and upgrades averages to $91.60 a month. Yes, you own it forever if you decide to stop upgrading, but you own outdated software forever. Software that like all software will eventually stop getting updates for hardware. Software that won't work with MP7 or 4K or whatever new codecs and standards are around the corner.
If you bought the software now and NEVER upgraded you'd have to use it for 43 months or longer for creative cloud to be more expensive. That's a dinosaur in software terms. That's like using CS2 or CS3 now. Yes, the basics still work, assuming you aren't on the latest OSX or Windows 8 or whatever, and assuming you haven't upgraded your hardware which is now largely incompatible with older software. If you haven't upgraded anything and are still running the same stuff then it's got to be hard to be competitive in the marketplace with the guys who can do it faster and better with newer software.
The math for Student and Teacher edition works the same way. Sure, you can get CS6 for $912 (amazon.com). Upgrades are still $400-600. Three years of that (assuming you even can legally qualify for all three years of that) is $47.50 a month versus the Creative Cloud price of $19.99.
Let's say you don't use all the Master collection, most honestly won't. The Design and Production Premium versions are only $400-900 less so the math still works out in favor, plus you do get all the extra software for the odd times you do need it.
Little benefits still come into play too. I was in the field and needed to use the software. I didn't have my computer handy, but a friend did. I was able to download a program and authorize it (deauthorizing one of my other computers) and I was good to go. Theoretically I could have even edited files I had in the cloud or save that project and work on it on my computer when I got home if I needed to.
It's a free market so we'll see how it plays out. People are resistant to change, but Adobe is really good about listening to their customers. Believe it or not this move came out of that. The noise we're hearing now is from a minority of people who can't or won't adapt to the new system. If I'm wrong though, they'll go out of business and this will never happen again. I'm pretty sure that's not going to happen though.
Pretty easily. CS6 Master Collection is approx $2100 (Amazon.com) right now. Honestly, that's not really a fair judge because it's been out for a year. Typically the Master collection runs $2500 at launch. If you upgrade every year ($600-1000 averaged looking at prior upgrade costs). For the example, I'm using the lower of each of the numbers.
Now, if you don't own any Adobe software: One year of owning the software averages to $175 a month. Three years of software and upgrades averages to $91.60 a month. Yes, you own it forever if you decide to stop upgrading, but you own outdated software forever. Software that like all software will eventually stop getting updates for hardware. Software that won't work with MP7 or 4K or whatever new codecs and standards are around the corner.
If you bought the software now and NEVER upgraded you'd have to use it for 43 months or longer for creative cloud to be more expensive. That's a dinosaur in software terms. That's like using CS2 or CS3 now. Yes, the basics still work, assuming you aren't on the latest OSX or Windows 8 or whatever, and assuming you haven't upgraded your hardware which is now largely incompatible with older software. If you haven't upgraded anything and are still running the same stuff then it's got to be hard to be competitive in the marketplace with the guys who can do it faster and better with newer software.
The math for Student and Teacher edition works the same way. Sure, you can get CS6 for $912 (amazon.com). Upgrades are still $400-600. Three years of that (assuming you even can legally qualify for all three years of that) is $47.50 a month versus the Creative Cloud price of $19.99.
Let's say you don't use all the Master collection, most honestly won't. The Design and Production Premium versions are only $400-900 less so the math still works out in favor, plus you do get all the extra software for the odd times you do need it.
Little benefits still come into play too. I was in the field and needed to use the software. I didn't have my computer handy, but a friend did. I was able to download a program and authorize it (deauthorizing one of my other computers) and I was good to go. Theoretically I could have even edited files I had in the cloud or save that project and work on it on my computer when I got home if I needed to.
It's a free market so we'll see how it plays out. People are resistant to change, but Adobe is really good about listening to their customers. Believe it or not this move came out of that. The noise we're hearing now is from a minority of people who can't or won't adapt to the new system. If I'm wrong though, they'll go out of business and this will never happen again. I'm pretty sure that's not going to happen though.
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With Student and Teacher editions the user cannot upgrade to the newer software, they have to buy another outright, paying another (as you listed) $912
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Have been on the cusp of switching from FCP to PremPro/AE in the past few months now looks like I'll have to stick with FCP for mean time. Not sure if I've dodged a bullet or missed an opportunity here.... Always like to get my hands on an actual disc.
The CC options seem very expensive for a "hobbyist" filmaker...and even though I can probably qualify for the Student/Teacher price I'm still a bit suspicious about all this cloud computing mularky :/
Does seem weird that as the rise of DSLR filmaking grows and grows the two main providers of editing software (Adobe/Apple) seem to be moving away from supporting that community.
The CC options seem very expensive for a "hobbyist" filmaker...and even though I can probably qualify for the Student/Teacher price I'm still a bit suspicious about all this cloud computing mularky :/
Does seem weird that as the rise of DSLR filmaking grows and grows the two main providers of editing software (Adobe/Apple) seem to be moving away from supporting that community.
I'd like to see Corel put out of middle of the road product for between their current Video Studio and After Effects. I think they could dominate the market if they released something like that for $150-$200.
I had X3 and it sucked major dick, but I also had a shitty computer running Vista. Their latest version, X6, seems to be slowly creeping past the level Premiere Elements is at. I might have to give X7 or X8 a try when they come out in the next year or so.
I had X3 and it sucked major dick, but I also had a shitty computer running Vista. Their latest version, X6, seems to be slowly creeping past the level Premiere Elements is at. I might have to give X7 or X8 a try when they come out in the next year or so.
If you're looking for something to buy, you should check out http://hitfilm.com/. It has a huge number of features for the price, including a custom 3D solver from Mocha specific to HitFilm. It's not After Effects, and (at this point at least) offers no third-party plugin API that I'm aware of. But, it is remarkably powerful featuring true 3D compositing, built-in 3D model support (lighting, textures, ambient occlusion), very configurable 3D particle engine with mobile emitters, collisions and lighting, 2D tracking, some very powerful grading tools and all the usual masking, keying, etc.
It also provides pretty usable basic editing functionality, and for users of Sony Vegas (both Pro and Movie Studio) it offers embedded functionality; simply double clicking on the clip in Vegas opens it up in HitFilm.
Sure, it's not AE, but for a lot less money, you can get something that does a very large number of the things AE does, and you get some pretty fancy functionality that requires more plug-ins with AE.
I like it at least. I've no interest in becoming involved in VFX heavily, and HitFilm lets me get things done much more simply than it seems possible in AE. And I love the embedded feature, without the single-threaded nonsense that embedded AE projects (used to at least) suffer from.
CraigL
It also provides pretty usable basic editing functionality, and for users of Sony Vegas (both Pro and Movie Studio) it offers embedded functionality; simply double clicking on the clip in Vegas opens it up in HitFilm.
Sure, it's not AE, but for a lot less money, you can get something that does a very large number of the things AE does, and you get some pretty fancy functionality that requires more plug-ins with AE.
I like it at least. I've no interest in becoming involved in VFX heavily, and HitFilm lets me get things done much more simply than it seems possible in AE. And I love the embedded feature, without the single-threaded nonsense that embedded AE projects (used to at least) suffer from.
CraigL
Thanks for the HitFilm recommendation, somehow I'd missed it but it's probably because it's windows-only right now. I see they're close to releasing a mac version though and have a kickstarter going for it. Overall it looks like a worthy competitor to AE, especially considering it's price point.
I am too, but it seems this could be very useful for collab projects. And as I understand it, you don't need to use the cloud, just connect it to the Internet on a monthly basis? (so you can still use your local files the old school way)