Training
Review: Complete Training
for Premiere Pro CS4, Pg. 2
Depth of Options
Complete training for Premiere Pro CS4 contains a huge amount of information. With a runtime of eight and a half hours the content is exhaustive. The tutorials cover: Starting a Project, Organizing Media, Sequences, Editing, Effects, Audio, Creating Titles and Output in Adobe Premiere Pro CS4, as well as using On Location CS4, Encore CS4 and Dynamic Link.
Each section has a breakdown of each step that makes that section work. For instance, in the Editing lesson, Tim Kolb uses and explains each of the following: Preferences, Interface, Editing Basics, Tools, Timeline Navigation, Transitions and Multi-cam Editing. So, effectively each lesson is divided in smaller specific sections that can be learned and grasped efficiently.
The information given is offered in the order that seems most useful. That being said, I recommend going through the entire training program in the order it is presented in and not skipping ahead. Each lesson is in fact a building block to the next lesson, so it is important not to leave anything out.
Example of a lesson playing.
Performance
I found that Complete Training is a very successful tool for learning Premiere Pro. Before now, I had never used this Adobe program to edit on. In film school, we were taught all of the “standards” at the time: Avid, Final Cut Pro, even Quantel if you can believe that. But, never before had I ventured into Premiere territory. Complete Training for Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 is a great safety net. After completing the lessons I feel just as well versed in this system as any of the other ones that I have trained on. That is saying a lot.
Now here are my beefs. The overall video quality is kind of weak. I understand with the long runtime the video quality will suffer, but sometimes it was hard to tell what some of the icons/tabs etc. actually looked like at that scale and resolution.
Another thing that I believe is worth stating is that the software is presented running on a PC. I am a Mac user. So, while I was watching, in the back of my mind I was always going through the differences in platforms. Something also that should be brought up is this software is presented in a way that mainly would appeal to someone who cranks out a lot of industrial type content. Most of the time the Host has a tendency to go for the most acceptable, smallest file footprint output not the best or highest quality. That is fine for someone who makes their living putting out local car commercials. But, if I am going to take the time to light, compose and shoot a subject from a script that someone has poured there heart and soul into, it is going to be an anamorphic widescreen transfer at the highest quality my system can handle.
Lastly, while the audio production value starts out ok, it sort of wears out its welcome by playing the same five second jingle between each section. That coupled with the reuse of essentially the same three car clips over and over again through the whole DVD-Rom. Yikes.
