Adobe Premiere 6.5

From the looks of it, Adobe is turning a simple upgrade to its wildly popular product into a major overhaul. Adobe hasn't released Premiere 6.5 yet, but our early look at the beta reveals what you can expect.

See changes as they happen
Premiere 6.5's biggest news is the addition of real-time previews, which let you view transitions, titles, and other changes instantly, without waiting for Premiere to render them. And speaking of titles, version 6.5 also includes the Adobe Title Designer, a slick tool that lets you quickly create sophisticated titles and credits within your movie. Unlike other titling tools, the Adobe Title Designer offers free-form vector tools for creating shapes or motion paths for your text.

Premiere 6.5 also gets serious with audio, adding--but only in the Windows version--three new audio plug-ins that provide reverberation, compression, and equalizer controls for all Premiere audio tracks.

Bundled DVD authoring
Catching up with every other video product on the market, the Windows version of Premiere 6.5 will now create DVDs from within the program by fully integrating Sonic DVDit LE for authoring capability. For Mac users, Premiere 6.5 does not bundle authoring tools but will work with either or .

Adobe hasn't offered a firm time frame for version 6.5's final release, promising only that it will be in the third quarter of 2002, but you can currently preorder the product online. Premiere is available for Windows and Mac for $549, and upgrade prices start at $149. Check back for our final review as soon as the new version hits.