The changing landscape of CS5 for Broadcast (part 1)

The Genesis Project by Dennis Radeke

The landscape in the broadcast world is changing. Big time. Think about it - broadcasters have:

• Moved from analog to digital transmission.
• From standard definition to high definition (two flavors, not one by the way).
• We've gone from a couple of formats (betacam and DV) to an ever growing list of formats.
• The world has gotten even more media saturated meaning that content has to be even better.
• Broadcasters don't worry about one screen (TV), they worry about three (TV, online, mobile)
• The world has moved from tape based (remember those?) to file-based formats.
• And oh, by the way, we've had an incredibly challenging economy that means capital expenditures (improving your equipment) have been difficult to say the least.

Without the least bit of exaggeration, many people have said that this is the perfect storm of change and with this change there's an opportunity to thrive from it. That's where Adobe's been focusing - how to make our customers succeed in this storm of change.

This will be the first of a two part entry. Here, I will outline the challenges that broadcasters are facing and how Adobe can help address them. In the second part, I'll provide some feedback I've gotten from executives on their business as well as their reactions to CS5.

Firstly, broadcasters cannot continue to keep doing things the way they've have in the past. Customers have told me that over and over again. To do the same thing is to stand still and to stand still is to die. The speed of innovation has increased and the need to try things (and get them right) has forced companies to think differently.

Two things have really driven this state of constant change from the broadcaster's perspective (though I'm sure there are more). First, there is the increase in formats and second, an increase in the number of deliverables (or screens).

The codec or format scene has exploded over the last 10 years. I remember when DV came on the scene and it was regarded both as a savior and an intruder. A savior for smaller markets because the quality was high and format inexpensive enough. An intruder to those that weren't ready to abandon Betacam and other 4:2:2 tape based formats. Today, we see Premiere Pro supporting AVCHD, AVC-Intra (all), DSLR (Canon/Nikon), DV, DVCPro50, DVCProHD, HDV, RED R3D, XDCAM EX, XDCAM HD (35 and 50mbit), with room and presets to support things like iPhone video and more. In fact, Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 is a resolution independent engine that can support just about anything that is on the system with frame sizes in excess of 8K or twice of what the RED ONE camera currently does. read more...