This brings us into the new implementation of text transcription in CS5. Now that the script is actually part of the CS5 workflow, they've cleverly added an option to the text transcription program that will permit the program to compare the actual dialogue recorded to the script. Since most films have between 80% - 90% adherence to the script, this makes the reliability of the transcription and timing much better. (Essentially, now the program just has to line up the script to when the words are spoken and, for those things that confuse it, you can correct its transcript in post.)
To continue this theme, Encore CS5's Flash export options now include the ability to create a direct search of the transcript in the Flash window. This means that if you have a 10 minute interview video, your viewers can simply type in a key word from the transcript and the video will fast forward to that section. (This should also simplify the process of Search Engine Optimization for your video.) Just the concept of the script integration alone shows how Adobe has kept the full arc of the filmmaker firmly in its sites throughout this process!
Photoshop's Repoussé feature allows you to create 3D Text in Photoshop, which can then me overlaid over video.
Some other cooll additions to the suite come in the form of:
A greatly improved Mocha tracking plugin for After Effects CS5 (including the Shape Rotoscoping abilities).
The new Flash Catalyst makes basic Flash creation extremely simple for non-technical people.
Photoshop's new Repoussé tool allows you to create powerful 3D titles by simply converting text into a 3D construct. (Creative uses could allow you to do things like the titles from JJ Abram's 'Fringe.')
The Puppet Tool transitions from an exclusive AE feature to a Photoshop feature as well, allowing you to deform people and things for effective backgrounds and promotional work.
The Ultra vector-based keyer returns to Adobe's lineup, this time as an After Effects/Premiere Pro plugin which can leverage the Mercury playback improvements.
Despite all the cool strides forward that Adobe took in CS5, there were some major areas that were overlooked in this release. The following are some areas we'd really like to see looked into in CS6.
Multitrack Soundbooth Dynamic Link – Since CS3, we've been waiting for the ability to snag multiple tracks of audio in Premiere Pro and replace them with a Soundbooth .ASND composition in the same way you can grab multiple video tracks and replace them with an AE composition.
Photoshop Dynamic Link – Video paint has been a part of Photoshop since CS3 and each incarnation has made it more powerful. However, as we get into a world of 1080P HD video and 2K and above RED footage, we need to have a better way to photopaint footage without exporting out the entire video stream. The ideal implementation for this might be to allow you to select a small "cropped" area of a video track, kick it into photoshop for photopainting, and then kick it back into AE. With a little tweaking, the Camera RAW engine might provide the perfect non-destructive way of doing this. This would mean that your hard drive only has to save the the RAW-style photopainting or augmentation you're doing as opposed to uncompressed footage (without you having to crop and line up the footage yourself or mess with transparency layers).
ADR Functionality for Soundbooth – I've been harping on this one since CS4 unveiled the dialogue transcription tool. The CS5 inclusion of a comparative transcription-to-script makes this even closer to viability. We all want our audio to be awesome on set, but there's always the chance that a rogue bull, a demufflered Harley, or a high speed police chase will screw up our perfect take. For these situations, ADR is a necessary evil. Since Soundbooth is designed to make common audio tasks simple for video people, the inclusion of an easy to use ADR looping and teleprompter setup would be a natural fit. (Adobe already uses part of this technology for their Visual Communicator line.)
Performance
Our test machine for this review was our PC based rig which has a modest 2.5 Ghz i5 with 8 Gigs of DDR3 RAM, a Quadro FX 4800 1.5 Gb DDR3 video card (provided by nVidia), and Windows 7 Ultimate x64. The overall performance with this setup was pretty stable, although we had a few crashes when we got into some pretty heavy 100 layer AE Dynamic Links for Depleted: Day 419. (Strangely, we also ran into a weird bug in which the "Unsharp Mask" plugin would crash After Effects if it was part of Dynamic Link.)
