Premiere Pro supports Retina displays, Windows 8
Adobe has caught up to Apple's Final Cut Pro with support for high-resolution Macs. It can use new MacBook Pro hardware acceleration, too.
- Shankland covered the tech industry for more than 25 years and was a science writer for five years before that. He has deep expertise in microprocessors, digital photography, computer hardware and software, internet standards, web technology, and more.
Adobe Systems released version 6.0.2 of Premiere Pro CS6 today, bringing support for Apple's high-resolution Retina display and for Microsoft's Windows 8.
On the Mac side of the industry, the update catches Adobe up to its top rival for video editing, Apple's Final Cut Pro X, which has had high-resolution display support since the debut of the new Retina-equipped MacBook Pro laptops in June.
I just installed the update and can confirm it looks much better. Small timecode text is much more readable, thumbnail images are clearer, and most important, video playing in a smaller window is no longer tormented by the jaggies of upscaled images.
Adobe has been trying to establish a stronger Premiere Pro business on the Mac after canceling and reinstating the version years earlier. More recently it's been trying to capitalize on some disgruntlement that greeted the arrival of the initial Final Cut Pro X in 2011. Apple has addressed some of the initial concerns by updating Final Cut Pro X.
Adobe is bringing Retina support to other CS6 programs, including Photoshop, which was one of the apps Apple used to demonstrate the new high-resolution display during its debut.
The new version of Premiere Pro also supports hardware acceleration on the new MacBook Pros Nvidia GT 650M graphics chip. GPU acceleration also is supported for the GTX 680, Adobe said.
In addition, Adobe fixed a long list of bugs and improved some performance. For the full list, check Adobe's blog post on the updated Premiere Pro.