Well the news from IBC has started to roll out, and the first thing that I’ve seen that has really shown promise of being a game changer: Adobe Anywhere. The premise is fairly simple, you have a server computer that hosts your media. You log into your Adobe Anywhere account and instantly you have access to your material on your server computer or any storage that it is attached to. The media can be in the next room or thousands of miles away, and in theory, it doesn’t matter. You can work with full resolution HD material, wherever and whenever you please. The amazing thing is that you can access all of this media from Adobe’s big three video apps, Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Prelude.
Of course, the proof will be in the pudding of how well this seemingly magical streaming service works and of course there are a lot of unanswered questions:
Is the media being compressed on the back end? Does the quality you see depend on your internet connection? Is there a sync period where your machine has to download any kind of local proxy? Where do plugins need to be installed?
But if it works as advertised this represents a major paradigm shift for an industry currently weighed down by external drives and endlessly growing media. No longer do you have to collect your After Effects projects and deal with the ordeal of combining the version you updated at home with the one you started at work. No longer do you have to project manage your edits. You can log them in Prelude and edit them in Premiere, directly from home or the road. Time will tell, but at very least, I can say I want to see more. As for what it shows us, a big take away from this is who is Adobe targeting with their software. This is not meant for prosumers. This is an amazing professional feature that has the potential to literally revolutionize an industry. The other thing I can see, Adobe is innovating and this represents an obvious long-term development period and commitment to their users.