

Premiere Pro always seemed a bit cramped and techy for a creative tool. Personally we like the 'big media focus' on the user interface. If you're on Premiere Pro CS5.5 it's perhaps not an essential upgrade, but for everyone else, and particularly if have a NVIDIA CUDA card in your machine, it's definitely worth a trial. Apple caught flak for changing the interface and workflow its users were so adhered to, but while there's a new interface and many enhancements here, there's not the same revolutionary overhaul that so alienated some of Apple's user base. There's also a limited number of Adobe-certified GPU cards recommended for GPU-accelerated rendering, though it's good that users of the recently released Macbook Pro, if not other laptop users, can take advantage of this power. However, although there's a lot to like, there are (albeit a few) bugs in the (preview version) of the software and the Warp Stabilizer couldn't handle everything thrown at it. The wide-open UI is also very welcome - as of course is GPU acceleration.

Trimming is a lot faster both in the Timeline and in the Program Monitor, as is the application of effects via double-click and Adjustment Layers. Good features include the new Project panel and Media Browser functionality- both as an alternative to using the source monitor and the ability to really speed up the workflow.
