Sony Vegas or Premiere Elements?

[Simon Silverstein]

I am about to get a current Sony laptop loaded with Sony Vegas HD Platinum 10. I currently have Premiere Elements 7, and I am considering getting PE 10 for the new laptop. I sometimes do some longer videos (up to one hour) with mixed inputs--- photos, AVCHD and DV . The new machine is 64 bit, with 8GB ram and i7 processor and 1 GB Nvidia graphics My older pc has 32 bit and 4 GB of RAM.. I found that PE 7 crashed a lot as my project got bigger and more complex. Not only were these crashes infuriating, they also wasted a lot of time.
I am willing to learn Vegas if it results in less crashes and better outputs. So I guess the question is about the relative features and the stability of Vegas 10 vs PE 10. Any experiences with these two programs would be much appreciated.

[Steve Grisetti]

Each program has its advantages and liabilities, Simon. They're both very stable and, with version 11 of Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum and version of Premiere Elements, they both run very efficiently. (Though I'm a bit concerned that you're getting crashes with Premiere Elements 7, one of the most stable versions.)

Premiere Elements 10 comes in a 64 bit version, so it will take better advantage of your 64 bit system.

Though Vegas Movie Studio HD Plat 11 works much better with mixed video formats, if you plan to combine DV and AVCHD in the same project.

The output results of the two programs is virtually identical. So that's not a good barometer.

In fact, maybe the best test is to download the free trials of each and do a test run with a mix of video that best represents your workflow. Do a little test driving and share some outputs. Premiere Elements's trial version will slap an ugly logo over any outputs -- but at least you'll get a good idea how of each performs with your video, on your computer.

[George Tyndall]

The new machine is 64 bit, with 8GB ram and i7 processor and 1 GB Nvidia graphics My older pc has 32 bit and 4 GB of RAM.. I found that PE 7 crashed a lot as my project got bigger and more complex. Not only were these crashes infuriating, they also wasted a lot of time.

I had the same problem when I ran PRE7 with XP and 4GB of RAM.

But PRE7 with Win7, 8GB RAM and an i7 processor (see my signature) runs flawlessly. All my projects are high-def, and I do all my PRE7 editing on the HDTV in my signature. The machine plays back the un-rendered PRE7 timeline flawlessly in full-screen mode on the HDTV, even when I have dropped as many as 498 high-def slides on to it.

The machine you are proposing is very similar to mine. Try PRE7 before anything else, and my guess is you will never have a second thought about switching.

I've tried all the versions from as far back as PRE4 through PRE10, and in IMO the PRE/PSE7 bundle is Adobe's best ever.

[Simon Silverstein]

Your comments about PE 7 and newer PC's sound encouraging. But, as I understand it, PE 7 is 32 bit based only, so it can recognize only up to 4 GB RAM, while version 10 has a 64 bit version that can recognize higher amounts of RAM. Wouldn't this have an effect on performance?
In any case, I guess I should first try PE 7 on the new laptop before investing in version 10. Thanks for your comments.

[George Tyndall]

Your comments about PE 7 and newer PC's sound encouraging. But, as I understand it, PE 7 is 32 bit based only, so it can recognize only up to 4 GB RAM, while version 10 has a 64 bit version that can recognize higher amounts of RAM. Wouldn't this have an effect on performance?
In any case, I guess I should first try PE 7 on the new laptop before investing in version 10. Thanks for your comments.

Bob or possibly another member is far more qualified than me to offer an opinion on technical questions like yours, but I can tell you this with certainty: Win7 and PRE7 with my particular i7 processor is a "marriange made in heaven."

[Chuck Engels]

Most of what Elements uses is CPU, not RAM. An increase of RAM will only provide minimal increase in performance of the software. If you increase your CPU significantly then the performance will also increase significantly. Going from a single core P4 or a Dual core CPU to the i7 Processor will make a huge difference in how fast the program is at rendering, exporting and loading. Premiere Elements 9 and 10 were at least 4 times faster after moving from a dual core 2.0ghz to a i7 2.x and you can expect the same thing with version 7.

[Bob]

Rendering and encryption are computationally intensive and constitute the biggest performance bottleneck. The faster your cpu the better your performance will be. RAM can have an effect on performance, expecially if you do not have enough installed to prevent swapping in the the system page file or maintain sufficient system cache. But, increasing RAM beyond what you need to do that will not appreciably improve performance.

That does not mean that memory is not important. Applications do not use RAM directly, only the operating system does that. Instead, applications use virtual memory. Virtual memory looks like RAM to the application, but it's really just a mathematical mapping that allows some memory to exist in RAM when it needs to be and reside on a hard drive when it isn't. All transparent to the application. 32 bit applications can address only 4GB of virtual memory. By convention, half of that is available to the application and the other half is reserved for the system. As you approach that 2GB limit, you will get low memory warnings and eventually get out of memory messages or even crash. One of the things that's known to cause that is excessive use of full size photos from a digital camera. That's one of the prime reasons we recommend resizing images down for use in video projects.

If you run the 32-bit Premiere Elements on a 64-bit operating system, the 2GB limit is closer to 3GB making it less likely to run out of virtual memory. The later versions of Premiere Elements are also more efficient with their memory management. But, the real benefit comes from running the 64-bit version. With the 64-bit version, you can allocate significantly more virtual memory and your projects can be very complex.