We're hacked off with Adobe's inflated prices in Europe, so are delighted to be able to tell you that it's currently possible to get a copy of the company's Production Studio Standard suite for £312 less than the £1,075 list price.
Amazingly, and rather like those wonderful schemes that money-saving expert Martin Lewis comes up with, there's even an added bonus - a £470 Matrox RT.X100 video editing card that gets thrown in for free. Use that with the software or flog it off to help fund your £763 outlay.
Two little problems, though. First, DVC - the company that is the key to this great, if rather convoluted, deal - only has about 10 of the Matrox RT.X100 Collection hardware/software bundles available. Second, you need to make sure to buy before April 17 - purchases after that date don't qualify for the Adobe-implemented free upgrade deal to Product Studio Standard.
What is Adobe Production Studio Standard? Well, it consists of three main programs. There are two new brand-new apps - video-editor Premiere 2.0 and special-effects program After Effects 7.0 Standard - along with the latest V2 iteration of Adobe's Photoshop image editor. Check out Part One of our Production Studio preview to find out more.
What you get in-pack with the Matrox bundle, as well as the card, is Adobe's four-program Video Collection Standard. This has a different mix of programs to Production Studio Standard and they're older versions, too (but we can't figure out quite which ones). The list is headed by Premiere Pro and After Effects Standard and also includes the Encore DVD authoring app, as well as the Audition sound editor. Photoshop isn't part of the bundle - you only get that (the latest CS2 version), plus Premiere 2 and AE7, after Adobe upgrades you for free.
There are two further catches that we can see - one big, one unknown. The biggy is that DVC has all available copies of the Matrox RT.X100 Collection with it at the VideoForum show at Earls Court 2 - which ends at 4pm tomorrow (Thursday, Feb 9). So unless you get along to the show, you won't know until Friday whether there are any left-overs.
The unknown - and it only really matters to people who plan to keep the Matrox card and run the new Adobe stuff on it - is that the Matrox driver to support Premiere Pro 2.0 is still in beta. The release version is expected by the end of this month but that deadline could come and go and, of course, we have no way of knowing how well the drivers will work.
For more on VideoForum, check out our show preview and keep an eye out for further show reports on the HEXUS.lifestyle front page.
HEXUS.links
DVC - home page
HEXUS.opinion - Adobe still ripping off EU buyers?
HEXUS.preview - Adobe Creative Suite Production Studio - Pt1
VideoForum - Exhibitors' list
VideoForum - Free seminar list
VideoForum - Home page
