June 26th, 2000

[1:00 PM] Macs Not Included In Adobe Sponsored "DV Tour" by Kyle D'Addario Adobe Systems has teamed up with Compaq and Matrox to sponsor a tour demonstrating how easy it is to use Adobe Premier to do real-time digital video capture and editing. The tour is scheduled to hit 10 cities across North America. Mac users, however, are apparently not invited. The tour is sponsored in part by two PC only companies: Matrox, the maker of high-end video cards, and PC powerhouse manufacturer Compaq. Although there was talk within the last year about a Mac specific card from Matrox, nothing has yet to materialize. Curious about the lack of Mac representation, The Mac Observer contacted Adobe. An Adobe representative said the DV Tour, "...is an educational tour talking about the benefit of real-time capture boards." In other words, a card from Matrox. The Adobe rep went on to say, "There is no comparable Mac product, so we are not doing this with Macs. If there was something similar on the Mac side, I am sure we would do the same thing with them." We inquired whether Adobe sought Compaq and Matrox as sponsors, or whether the tour was initiated by one of those two companies and were told, "...companies frequently work together on programs like this." One of the most interesting aspects of the DV Tour, and lack of Mac support, is laid out on the DV Tour page of the Adobe Web site: Discover how Adobe software is an essential part of your complete DV solution. Attend the FREE Adobe DV Seminar and master the art of digital video in just a few hours. Learn about the hardware and software components that make up an affordable desktop DV System. Understand the language of DV. Master the art of optimizing digital video for Web Publishing. It is our guess that Adobe is not going to recommend an iMac DV or G4 during this tour, although Apple has been pushing those systems as "Home Theaters" since their launch 9 months ago. The iMac DV, especially, with built-in FireWire and bundled iMovie has been wildly successful. You can find more information about the Adobe DV Tour at the Adobe web site. The Mac Observer Spin: Adobe has been a huge supporter of the Mac, through both good and bad times. That is why we found it so odd to have a tour such as this, really talking about one of Apple's current strengths (digital video) not include Macs. It became clear while speaking with Adobe that the Tour is sponsored in large part by Compaq and Matrox, which explains the lack of Mac representation. However, one must also wonder if Adobe is pushing Wintel products for DV related services in response to Apple's introduction of iMove and Final Cut Pro. Adobe's Premier had been the dominant product for consumer level digital video editing, but iMovie offers Mac users many of the same features in a free package. Either way, Adobe has been a prominent supporter of Apple and the Mac and we hope they continue. Adobe