At Microfilmmaker, we really try to make sure that we do in-depth research for you when it comes to looking at editing software. Because your editing software can really allow you to excel in filmmaking, it's something we take very seriously. All the more so because it seems like there are so many different editing options on the market. I, and the reviewers who assisted with this review, come from a predominantly Mac background, which makes us especially good at comparing PC editing systems to see how they stack up.

Truth be told, I, like most Mac people, have felt that no PC editing software could ever really rival the Mac editing options. While Vegas has a lot of options, the fact that it never behaved like a traditional video editing software made it feel inferior to the likes of the Mac-based Final Cut Pro and Avid. Old versions of Adobe Premiere had had similar flaws and did not impress me when I had come into contact with them. As such, when we got ready to review the Premiere Pro 2-centered Adobe Production Studio Premium, I, and the rest of our team, really examined this package under a microscope. We spent two months to review this--one month going through the previous version (called the Adobe Video Collection) and one month going through the newest version. And, what we found, in the end, shocked and awed us.

Adobe has always had strong products for certain applications: like Photoshop for photo design, Illustrator for illustration design, and After Effects for special effects and animated titles. However, for the most part, none of their programs have made inter-working terribly simple. To create a file in After Effects, you had to export out a quicktime or .avi from your favorite editing program, mess around with it in After Effects, render a whole new quicktime, and then import the new quicktime into your editing program. Photoshop files and Illustrator files weren't much easier, with many editing programs discarding individual layers when you imported them. Sure, there were ways to cheat and workaround a few of these issues, but it all ended up being a real hassle.

Well, in the Adobe Production Studio Premium, the hassle goes right out the window. Adobe has redesigned the look and feel of the core video editing components: Premiere Pro 2, After Effects 7 Professional, Encore DVD 2, and Audition 2. These components now look very similar to one another and all feature completely customizable, docking workspaces without clumsy floating tablets. This means that you can tweak and redesign each work space to accommodate specific needs you will run into as you work and edit. For example, setting up an intelligent layout for color correction in most editing programs is a major pain but, in the new Premiere Pro 2, it's quite easy. (There's even a nice default color correction layout, although I found designing my own gave me a little more flexibility.) Once you've designed the layout you want, it's a snap to save it, create a customized shortcut to it, and even share your layouts with other users or take them with you on a thumb drive.

We'll get into more of the ways all the programs work together in our Ease of Use, Depth of Options, and Performance sections. However, suffice it to say that, for folks who thought that the Mac-based Final Cut Pro Studio was the be-all, end-all to integrated editing, we found that the PC-based APSP simply smoked it. It has virtually all the features found in FCP 5 and the FCP Studio, including HDV and multicam support, plus it includes Photoshop CS2 and Illustrator CS2, both of which have been streamlined to work better with video files and the Production Studio, as well as the Production Studio-only version of Adobe Bridge, which allows you to search and catalogue footage, audio, and pictures even more expansively than the new search tools in FCP 5.

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