My PRE8 Chronic Crashing Work-around

[Dave McElderry]

Yeah, that's what I said.

[peggig]

At first, it seeed like it was crashing less often with QuickTime 7.3.1, but now it seems to be crashing just as frequently as with QuickTime 7.6.4. The last time I closed the program, I rendered the entire timeline (by clicking Render on the Timeline menu.) Then I saved. The next time I opened the project, about half of the clips had red bars over them, even though they were all green before I saved. so I clicked Render Timeline again. After a few minutes of rendering, it crashed. No warning, no error messages, the application just suddenly disappeared.

I opened it again and decided to skip rendering the timeline. Then I spent a bunch of time selecting clips and cropping them. I forgot to save after every crop so, of course, it crashed again and I lost my work.

I've spent three and half full days on editing this project now, and I've determined it's pointless to go on. I'm just losing too much work. I suppose, if I uninstall PRE8 and install PRE7, I won't be able to use the project I created in PRE8, so all my work so far on editing this project will have been wasted. I should have given up sooner, but it's better to cut my losses now than waste any more time.

If there were any indication that Adobe were in the process of creating a patch or update that would fix the crashing problem, I'd be tempted to wait for it, but their Web site doesn't even acknowledge there's a problem.

Before I uninstall PRE8 and install PRE7, can anybody tell me if that version has the same kinds of problems, or if it's just PRE8? Would I be better off with another editor? I've always assumed Adobe was the best, because I've been a PhotoShop user for years, but I'm so frustrated with this release, I'm starting to wonder if there are better options out there. I can't believe Adobe even shipped this product.

[Chuck Engels]

I've had pretty good results with version 7 but if you are having problems it may not be the software.
The only way to tell is to install some other editing application. You can have version 7 and 8 installed at the same time, it won't hurt anything. You may have problems with version 7 also, you may have problems with Sony Vegas or any other program. It's hard to tell until you start using something else and see what happens.

Problems like this can be caused by bad audio or video drivers, not enough defragmented space on your hard drive, paging files that are too small, lots and lots of things.

Install version 7 and give it a shot. I never recommend starting a big project on a newly installed piece of software.
Pick something small and manageable and use as many of the features as possible with a nice 5 minute project. If that works then you can move up to something bigger

[peggig]

Thanks, Chuck! So I can install version 7 without uninstalling version 8? Cool. I'll try that. Previously, I used version 3.02. I had occasional problems with it, but nothing like what I'm having now. Of course, I wasn't editing HDV. I was just editing standard definition files.

I defragment my hard disk regularly, so I don't think that's the problem. My video driver is the ATI Radeon 2400 Pro. Are there known issues with any particular video drivers?

I don't really have the option of starting on a small project this time. I upgraded to version 8 because I didn't know if version 3 could handle HDV, and I got a new high definition camcorder specifically for this project. I've shot over 7 hours of tape and now I need to somehow manage to edit it.

Do you know if it's possible to open a project created in PRE8 in PRE7? Will it corrupt the project if I try? Can I use PRE7 with the PRE8 version of Organizer? I've already categorized and tagged all my clips in the Organizer, to make it easier to find what I want to use. It would be convenient if I don't have to do it all over again.

[Chuck Engels]

Probably no issue with the ATI card.

You cannot open version 8 projects in version 7 but you can open version 7 projects in version 8. Once you do you cannot open them in version 7 again unless you have saved a copy.

I don't know how you could use the organizer from version 8 with version 7, maybe someone else might have a solution.

Do you have all 7 hours in one project? That would be a good reason for the program to crash.
Work on a small segment at a time, say 30 minutes or so. The largest HDV project I have ever worked on is 1.5 hours and that was because there was no other choice. My machine can handle a lot and it was purchased specifically for editing HDV.

It is very important to do a small project first as a test. Especially in your case where you are having these problems.
Otherwise you could get 20 hours into the project and find out you can't burn a DVD or something else could go wrong.
Take the few hours you need to work on a small project and make sure everything works before getting involved in a huge project like you have.

When you get to the large project be sure to cut it up into mini projects, that will save you lots of trouble.

[Clayton]

Aaaaaarrrrrrggggghhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!

I thought maybe reverting to the older version of QuickTime had solved the crashing problem, and maybe it did for the crashes during rendering or editing. But it still hangs periodically when scrolling through the Edit options. And, of course, when it hangs, it never recovers, and I have to shut it down and restart and lose all the work I've done since the last time I saved.

Has anybody else experienced this problem? Is there any known solution or workaround? This is extremely frustrating.

Thanks in advance for any advice you can give me.

I have tried to duplicate this but so far no freezes or crashes.

[Barb O]

I don't know how you could use the organizer from version 8 with version 7, maybe someone else might have a solution.

Basically, you can not take all your v8 Organizer info (that resides in an v8 Organizer catalog which has a .pse8db file type) and move it back to v7 PSE Organizer. You can Upgrade an Organizer catalog to a newer version, but you can not go backwards.

Now there is one partial exception - but it may not help for your HD video files. The Organizer does have a "Write Keyword Tag and Properties Info to Photos" that can transfer the Elements (PSE) Tagging info to the media file itself. That makes the Tags assigned to a specific photo file independent of the Elements Organizer and usable by other software (including are earlier version of PS Elements). I have used this command in various versions of PSE for JPEG photos. However, I am skeptical and suspect that it will not work for your HD video files.

Barb

[peggig]

Do you have all 7 hours in one project? That would be a good reason for the program to crash.

No, that's actually why I'm using the organizer. I split up the video files with HDVSplit, and then labeled, categorized, and keyworded all the individual clips (about 600) in the Organizer. I've only imported about 15 minutes of clips into the project so far.

When you get to the large project be sure to cut it up into mini projects, that will save you lots of trouble.

If you cut it up into mine projects, how do you put them together at the end to get one continuous video? Is there a way to import one project into another?

[Chuck Engels]

If you cut it up into mine projects, how do you put them together at the end to get one continuous video? Is there a way to import one project into another?

You export each one and import all of the pieces into a Master Project that you will create.
Works very well and it is the only way that many of us work on projects.

[peggig]

Do you export them as .AVI files? I think that's the only format that's lossless (or close to it).

Do you know if HDVSplit will work on .AVI files? -- If so, that might solve my problem of getting all the work I've done so far in PRE8 into a PRE7 project.

[Chuck Engels]

Are you working with a HDV project or is it standard definition?
If the project is HDV then you would probably export as High Def MPEG.
You could export as AVI but will probably need to change the export dimensions to HDV, not sure if that would be 1440 x 1080 or 1920 x 1080.

If you are working with Standard definition then there is a tool called WinDV that is much like HDVSplit only for SD video.

[peggig]

Are you working with a HDV project or is it standard definition?

I'm working in HDV.

If the project is HDV then you would probably export as High Def MPEG.

Isn't MPEG lossy? I did a test export in both MPEG and AVI, and the AVI file was 5.4 times larger than the MPEG.

You could export as AVI but will probably need to change the export dimensions to HDV, not sure if that would be 1440 x 1080 or 1920 x 1080.

HDV is 1440x1080. (AVCHD is 1920x1080.) However, I just tried HDVSplit on the AVI file, and it didn't work. I think it only works on MPEGs.

[Chuck Engels]

If you are working with Standard definition then there is a tool called WinDV that is much like HDVSplit only for SD video.

HDVSplit will only work with HDV format with is High Def MPEG.

One export of a HDV MPEG file will not hurt anything, works great for Blu Ray.
I export these from Premiere Pro for use in Encore all the time and the quality is still excellent.

[peggig]

Which preset should I use to retain the highest quality? The relevant options seem to be

NTSC DVD Widescreeen
H.264 1440x1080i 30
MPEG2 1440x1080i 30
MPEG2 multimedia compatible

[Chuck Engels]

Option #3, MPEG 1440 x 1080i 30
You can start there and see how it looks, should be fine.
It will probably take awhile, maybe two - three times the length of the project.