PE 8 Problems

[mlmidkiff]

I have upgraded my computer to Photoshop & PE 8. I have also upgraded to Windows 7 professional. My computer's processor in Intel Core(TM) 2 Quad CPU Q9450 @ 2.66 GHz. I have six megabytes of ram, 921 gig hard drive with 574 GB free. Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 9500 GS, Gaming Graphics 3327 MB Total available graphics memory. My computer is an HP Pavilion, 64 bit operating system and I am having these problems with PE 8:

Every time I try to render my timeline my program locks up and then crashes. I have made sure my stills are no larger than 1000 x 750 pixels. I have turned off background rendering, but that has not helped. I have not yet turned off the auto analyzer, but I will do that next. I have tried rendering just a portion of the timeline and saving the file before continuing. However whenever I close the file after it has been rendered fully, the next time I open the file none of the photos with titles above them are rendered. The file has no video, only still shots with titles. The photos without titles retain their rendering.

I went to the Adobe website and followed their recommendation to update the Nvidia driver to 195.81. However I got the message that I already have the latest driver installed and it is 195.62. I finally went to the file and manually downloaded the beta upgrade to 195.81.

Any suggestions will be appreciated. I have ordered Steve Grasetti's PE 8 book, but only today, so I do not have that to reference for several days.

Mary Lou

[Chuck Engels]

Most of us have given up on version 8 Mary Lou, it just doesn't work well.
Too many crashes and other problems, go back to your previous version

Maybe someone else can give you some tips that might help but it's a tough one to get working.

[Steve Grisetti]

As Chuck says and as I said in my private message, version 8 does seem to be a challenge on Windows 7 64-bit. That could be at the root of your problems -- although those issues are usually driver-related, and your problems seem to be rather unique.

Thank you for ordering my book! It should give you lots of information on the tools in the program and how to use them. Unfortunately, it may not help you troubleshoot some of your unique issues.

Have you tried uninstalling the software and reinstalling? Sometimes it just doesn't take the first time.

And I assume you've gone manually to Windows Update and ensured you have all of the latest updates -- even the non-critical ones -- and that you have the latest version of Quicktime. This is especially important if your computer is relatively new.

Also, make sure you've given your hard drive a good defrag. This program needs to use your hard drive space in big chunks, and a fragmented hard drive can choke some processes, like rendering and basic functionality.

Finally, have you done any modifications to the computer since you bought it (e.g., added RAM, a video card or a hard drive)? When you system is modified, it's important to ensure updates are also made to the BIOS and operating system.

[RJ Johnston]

However whenever I close the file after it has been rendered fully, the next time I open the file none of the photos with titles above them are rendered

This is a bug in the program. Sections on the timeline with titles do not retain the rendered preview files. The rendered preview files are actually on the hard drive, but PRE8 loses track of them.

Any clips with the Video Stablizer effect applied also lose their rendered preview files the next time you load the project. Again the rendered preview files still exist, but PRE8 loses track of them.

Make sure you turn off the autoanalyzer. That's very important.

I haven't given up on PRE8, but there are some bugs.

EDIT: There's a driver beta release on Dec 15, 2009, for your graphics card: http://www.nvidia.com/object/win7_winvi ... _beta.html

[Ken Jarstad]

Most of us have given up on version 8 Mary Lou, it just doesn't work well.
Too many crashes and other problems, go back to your previous version

Maybe someone else can give you some tips that might help but it's a tough one to get working.

I have 5 days left to evaluate PE8. Is this the current consensus here on PE8? Even on a 32 bit system?

[Steve Grisetti]

It definitely is a resource hog.

But on Windows 7 32-bit and my dual-core 2.6 ghz, it seems to run okay editing miniDV.

Adobe has also issued a set of new drivers for it -- though they've made little difference in my experience. They're at the end of this KB article. You apparently just copy them into your Premiere Elements 8 program files and overwrite what's there.
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/523/cpsid_52386.html

It really is a program that either works for you or doesn't. I'm certainly seeing a lot fewer complaints from people who couldn't get it to run at all -- but, if you've got a version on your machine that works now, I see few compelling reasons to upgrade to 8.

How's that trial working for you, Ken?

[Ken Jarstad]

I believe I have now tried all the recommendations made on this forum. The new DLLs cause PE8 to crash for me. Going back to the originals allows PE8 to seem stable though I haven't taxed it much. Watching Sysinternals Process Explorer I find that PE8 seems to utilize a reasonable amount of resources for a video editor. My installation releases the PE8 executable every time, so that is not a problem. My titles also need to be re-rendered every time I load the project. As I mentioned in another topic my video plays smooth only when the GPU acceleration is turned off on my brand new ATI card. So, the verdict doesn't look good for PE8 at this point.

[mlmidkiff]

I thank all of you for your input on this problem!! I am following all suggestions and will let you know how they help. I have downloaded the new drivers for Nvidia and I have also followed Steve's "10 ways to keep Premiere Elements running efficiently" suggestions. It is great to know that even though the timeline doesn't show the rendered files, they are really there. As to reverting to version 7, I gave that program to my grandson when I bought version 8. He is only 8 years old, but he is loving playing with the video editing and is learning a lot in the process. (I hope that is not illegal, but in the process Adobe might be acquiring a fan for life.) As to the reinstalling the program, I have done that three times already; all the while wondering if there is a limit to how many times we are allowed to re-install a program before it reaches its maximum. I really love this forum, everyone is so generous with their ideas. Keep them coming!!!

Mary Lou

[Steve Grisetti]

We're glad to have you aboard, Mary Lou -- and, as you can see, we're also glad to do whatever we can to help you stabilize your system.

By the way, if you can still borrow the installation discs for version 7, you can put that back on your machine. Adobe allows you to do two installations on separate computers -- as long as both computers belong to the same person (gray area) and as long as two computers aren't running the same copy at the same time.

Version 8 has definitely been a challenge to support. And, for what it's worth, there does seem to be indication that Adobe is making efforts to figure out what's going wrong. Fortunately, more and more people seem to be able to run it successfully. Unfortunately, for those that aren't able to, no fix seems to work.

There is one hack that I've been experimenting with that seems to make a difference for me, and you can try it if you'd like.

In the Organizer, go to the File menu and select the Catalog and then, from the dialog box that opens, select the option to open a new catalog. Then don't allow ANYTHING into the catalog! And then, when you open Premiere Elements 8, select any media that shows up in the Organize panel and delete it. (It will only be removed from the catalog. The files themselves will remain on your hard drive.) What this does essentially is disable to Organizer (which I rarely use anyway).

Relieving Premiere Elements 8 of the burden of having to lug around that big, bulky Organizer seems to make it perform much better and quicker.

If you do decide later you want your old catalog back, you can go back to the Organizer's File menu and select Catalog and browse to your previous catalog.

But it's worth experimenting if version 8 is ALMOST working for you.