Compared to an actual seminar from a trainer of Tim Kolb’s caliber, $99.99 is a very good price point. (Many day seminars run from $200 - $1000 or more.)
Now, with that said, in my first draft of this review, the price for this training was $149, at which point I didn't rate it as highly as I do now, because of the amount of competition for more in-depth training at a somewhat comparable price point. (For example, Total Training has been offering a 34 hour training kit for $320, which is just a little over double the original price for this set.) However, at the new $99.99 price point, it's quite well-priced for the introductory primer it's intended to be, especially for folks who don't have 34 hours to go through a more drawn out training set. For filmmakers who want a brief overview of how CS4: Production Premium operates and a strong dose of the techniques necessary to start playing around with it intelligently themselves, this is a great deal. [Note: Additionally, it should be noted that Class on Demand actually chose to reduce the price-point in large part due to our recommendations here at MFM, which really goes to show you that they, like Adobe, are really trying to make low-budget filmmakers' needs a priority.]
Tim Kolb does a nice job of explaining the basics of CS4 Production Premium to the masses. As an introductory training kit, this is a pretty useful way to go. Despite more in-depth offerings from Total Training, the new lower price point for this package to makes it a no-brainer for most new CS4 users to pick up.
To get a good feel for the style of training offered in this package, be sure to check out our video "reprint" of the Media Encoder chapter which has been published in this issue of MFM.
