thumbnails in Elements 8 common Organizer

[Barb O]

Multiple people have been posting problems with not having thumbnails for their video files in the Elements 8 common Organizer (the Organizer workspace in v8). AVCHD and various MPEG formats are the most common complaints. Some (if not all) of the people reporting such a problem have Premiere Elements 8 installed: that is probably key because it seems that the codec needed to create the thumbnail in the Elements 8 Organizer is installed and activated thru Premiere Elements 8.

I understand the complaints of these people because looking at an entire screen of "empty" icon thumbnails and then playing each video until you find the correct one is ridiculous! Windows Explorer provides thumbnails function.

references:
http://forums.adobe.com/message/2393488#2393488
http://forums.adobe.com/message/2300459#2300459

My questions are:
Does ANYONE have thumbnail images for AVCHD files in the Elements 8 Organizer separate workspace?
If yes, can you identify any specific workflow or factor that made the first frame images appear within the thumbnail of the v8 Organizer workspace?

[Paul LS]

Hi Barb, yes I have thumbnails for my AVCHD clips in the the seperate Elements 8 organizer. And note I do not have any specific codec or program installed to play AVCHD clips... other than PE8.

Edit... I can playthe AVCHD clips in Windows Media Player... if I associate the clips with Media Player. Can the folks who have no thumbnails play the clips outside of the Organizer?

[Barb O]

Hi Barb, yes I have thumbnails for my AVCHD clips in the the seperate Elements 8 organizer. And note I do not have any specific codec or program installed to play AVCHD clips... other than PE8. For example I can not play the clips on my computer.

thanks Paul
You say you can not play the clips. What happens if you right click on a thumbnail for an AVCHD video in the separate Elements 8 Organizer and choose the Play Video option on that right click menu? Does the AVCHD clip play that way?

What operating system are you running? And what is the windows file type of your AVCHD video? (I don't know much about the AVCHD format so I don't know if there are multiple possibilities for file type)

[Paul LS]

Please see that I edited my post. Running Windows XP and the file extension is .m2ts so standard AVCHD.

[Paul LS]

I used GSpot to analyze the AVCHD clips and it says it is using the Mainconcept (Adobe2) AVC/H.264 codec to play them... so that is probably what Windows Media Player is using to play them.

[Paul LS]

Yes, if I disable the Mainconcept AVCHD codecs I no longer have the thumbnails. The codecs are: ad2avcvd.ax and ad2h264ve.ax and can be found in the C:\ Program Files\Adobe\Elements Organizer 8.0\CAHeadless folder. Do they have these two files. Note they may be hidden and so may need to alter the Folder Options to be able to see them.

[andrew27]

Greetings, So.................the long & the short of this is that it never worked right anyway. I more or less gave up on this now after reading about it on a few forms. I had Adobe on the phone many times last year & NOBODY there had a clue what I was talking about. Any better software out there better that Adobe ? I had bought a new computer just to run the software, after I bought a new Sony HD camera. Best Regards, Andrew Kempees

[Steve Grisetti]

"Better" is a relative term, when it comes to software, Andrew.

What is it you'd like to do, and what are your priorities?

Is your priority to have a media file management system, like the Elements Organizer, that displays your video files as thumbnails? Or are there aspects of a video or photo editing system that you consider dealbreakers?

[andrew27]

Greetings, Real easy, I want something that works as stated on the box, not that half works. I am using a Sony HDR-XR350V camera. The most I ever got was a 30 second film clip, & it would not play that right at all, it would skip over sections, stop, & in full screen it all looked like mud. Funny however in other simple programs that came with the HP the image is GREAT, even with the disk program that came with the camera, PMB from Sony. Best Regards, Andrew Kempees

[Steve Grisetti]

"I want something that works as stated on the box, not that half works."

Well, that doesn't really give us much to work on, as far as making recommendations, Andrew. There are a number of programs that work exactly as stated on the box. Microsoft Word, for instance. Photoshop Elements also does virtually everything it claims to do. And, at the upper end, so do After Effects and Premiere Pro, on a well-tuned system. And, because of the limited number of configurations and the control of both hardware and software, Macs also tend to be more predictable than PCs.

Have you thought about a Mac Pro running After Effects and Adobe Bridge? I'd be very surprised to hear if you had any problems with them?

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

That camera records in AVCHD so unless you have a very powerful computer - quad core - then playback and editing is always going to be problematic. Have a look at these threads:-

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1640

viewtopic.php?f=89&t=9121

[andrew27]

Well, it is a quad core, a HP ModelP6510Y, brand new, bought the same day I bought the Adobe premiere Elements at the same place. When I bought all this, I bought the Camera first, next the software, then the computer. I had asked that question, what do I need to buy to use this camera ? This is what they put in front of me. I went in with all the system Requirements up front., I will say one thing however, this form is very helpfull & I seem to be getting much closer to solving this problem then ever before, way better then dealing with Adobe. Best Regards, Andrew Kempees

[Steve Grisetti]

A side note. I installed Picasa (a free Google download), a media file management system that has a lot in common with Bridge and the Elements Organizer.

AVCHD files show up clear as day on my Windows 7 machine! Might be worth checking out.

[George Tyndall]

I used GSpot to analyze the AVCHD clips and it says it is using the Mainconcept (Adobe2) AVC/H.264 codec to play them... so that is probably what Windows Media Player is using to play them.

With DVD Architect Studio 5.0 it's also files that have been written with the AVC/H.264 codec that appear to be the most preferred.

viewtopic.php?f=92&t=9381&p=82971#p82971

Are we to assume from this that, when outputting an HD Timeline to Personal Computer, we should generally be choosing to create files that will be written with the H.264 codec?

[Steve Grisetti]

It depends on what you plan to use them for.