Re-evaluation Premiere Elements 8

[Steve Grisetti]

After a shaky start, I'm finally having some very good experiences with version 8. So much so, in fact, that I'm now ready to recommend it. On a clean, updated system with adequate hard drive space and RAM, it seems to run just fine. At least that's my experience.

In another thread, I mentioned that I'd set up Windows 7 32-bit on an iMac with Boot Camp and the program runs quick and flawlessly! (That's a dual-core 2.66 ghz with 2 gig of RAM.)

And, on my regular PC, I cleared off some hard drive space (giving myself at least 30 gigs free), defragged and run a registry and temp file cleaner and then boosted my RAM load up to the max 4 gigabytes. And, bingo, Premiere Elements 8 now runs just fine on my PC also! I'm confident enough in it that I've even started editing "real" projects in it -- and I can run Photoshop Elements, the Organizer and Premiere Elements at the same time (even with the Auto Analyzer and Background Rendering turned on).

And this is no spring chicken of a machine either. My PC is a 5 year old XP machine with a Pentium 4 HT running at 2.6 ghz.

I know that's no consolation for anyone out there having problems with this program. But I'm 2-for-2 at this point on two very different machines, so it certainly IS possible!

[Chuck Engels]

That certainly is refreshing news Steve.
I'm waiting until my copy of V8 arrives before making any definite recommendations either way.
But with all of the bad press out there your experiences are a nice change to hear about

One thing I would question is the "Minimum System Requirements" listed on the box.
As usual I suppose they are no where near what is actually required to run the software.

[Barb O]

Steve,
Very interesting
What video card do you have on your PC?
Did you ever try with all the other cleanup done and your previous amount of RAM (was that 2 GB)?

[Steve Grisetti]

You can see my specs right under my post, Barb.

And, yes, I was previously running 1.5 gigs of RAM on my PC. And that seemed to be adequate until late this summer -- when suddenly everything became challenging!

I assumed it was the Premiere Elements 8 betas or something (although my version 7 performance was being affected too).

I don't know if it's the new program or some new Windows update, but the days of my getting by on a gig or so of RAM are over. I definitely recommend everyone who wants to run Premiere Elements step up for 3 or 4 gigabytes of RAM! It sure worked for me!