Finally Bringing Some stability to PRE 8

[rjones]

OK, I've been ranting about all the problems I've been having with PRE 8 running on my 64-bit Win 7 machine. But I have been able to stabilize it so it hasn't crashed in three days. I did two things. Whether one of them will work by itself, I haven't experimented. I would try No. 1 first and see if it makes a difference, then go for the more involved reinstall. To recap, I have had numerous crashes and the program reached a point where it would load but there was no workspace on the screen even though task manager and Windows said the program was running. It brought me to a complete standstill and cost me many hours of frustration. This on a quad-core AMD machine with 8 gigabytes of RAM.

1. Thanks to a post I saw on the Adobe forum I was able to by-pass the Welcome Screen, which has long been a suspicious character in creating havoc, in my book. Go into C:Program Files (PRE 8 will be in a separate x86 Program Files folder for those on 64-bit machines) and find the Adobe/Adobe Premiere 8.0 folder. Open the folder and scroll down. You will see two .exe files with Adobe Premiere Elements. The first one, with 8.0 in its title, will load the welcome screen and is the default loader. Right click on the second one labeled Adobe Premiere Elements.exe - no 8.0 - and do a "send to" to the desktop, which will create a shortcut. Start up PRE 8 using this one. You will notice the program will load much faster and you'll get a workspace that is blank. Simply use the standard menus to load in a project or create a new one.

2. Flush the PRE 8 on your system and do a complete reinstall. I uninstalled and went through the laborious process of reinstalling, including all the content files.

After doing this I've been able to hammer the program pretty hard with effects, renders, etc., and other than a couple of hiccups and stalls, which I waited out, the program has not crashed. I have not tried to capture any new video yet. I'm not even expecting to be able to capture hi-def from my Sony camcorder with this 64-bit version, but if I can just get it to handle my AVI files without disaster I'll be happy for now. My suspicions are that the Welcome Screen, which was introduced on PRE 7 I think, is stomping on some code or messing with regedit in a way that's tripping up the program and making it very shaky. Maybe it's overwriting a memory register somewhere. I'm no techy, but I know something about how software gets developed and sold I would bet this screen was forced into the program by the people marketing Adobe's online storage services and it has been a step-child for the development team ever since. It could have even been developed independently and merged into the main program in a slapdash fashion. So without scientific proof I'm just venturing the Welcome Screen is a culprit for now.

[Steve Grisetti]

It's always great to hear good news about version 8.

I continue to waver in my support of it. One day I think I have it licked -- the next it fudges everything I open. And even when it does work, I can't imagine how it justifies the amount of resources it demands! (What happened between version 7 and 8?)

So let's see how things go if you bypass the Welcome Screen. If you're right about it screwing up some coding, that could be the solution to making it lean and mean like its predecessors.

[rjones]

It's always great to hear good news about version 8.

I continue to waver in my support of it. One day I think I have it licked -- the next it fudges everything I open. And even when it does work, I can't imagine how it justifies the amount of resources it demands! (What happened between version 7 and 8?)

So let's see how things go if you bypass the Welcome Screen. If you're right about it screwing up some coding, that could be the solution to making it lean and mean like its predecessors.

Steve,
I hope so. By the way, I have your book on PRE 7 and it is excellent. Finally, in one place, someone explains the alphabet soup of codecs, formats, fps, etc., etc., in a way that makes sense and in a way that allows you to intelligently make decisions about how you produce digital video. Your advice on using AVI files in PRE is priceless. Adobe certainly doesn't explain it anywhere in a comprehensive, clear way and I searched for months trying to get answers on forums and articles until I got your book. Thanks.

[Steve Grisetti]

Thank you very much, rj. I'm deeply flattered and deeply touched.

The books, like Muvipix itself, has always been a labor of love for Chuck, Ron, me and all of the wonderful friends who make this such a great place. There's no greater compliment than hearing we're doing it right!

Glad to have you aboard.

[RJ Johnston]

I haven't had any crashes in days. Seems that since I upgraded from an onboard grapics controller to a separate NVIDIA grapics card, things turned around as far as really chronic crashing is concerned. Then I had performance issues which I have gradually overcome.

As for the welcome screen, if the welcome screen is displayed, one might be tempted to click on the Organizer button, which opens the organizer and sets into motion the auto analyzer. Then from that moment on, that stupid analyzer always auto starts when you restart Windows. I believe that that is probably all that the Welcome Screen contributes to crashes and performace problems.

But you're not done with the obstacle course yet. There are other bugs that don't cause crashes but are a nuisance, such as rendering a preview of a clip that has the Video Stabilizer effect applied to it and finding out later the rendered preview file is not recognized the next time you start the project -- there's a red line over the clip. Same sort of bug for rendered preview files of Instant Movies and Themes. The rendered preview files actually exist, however.

Can't complain too much for $29.95, my cost for PRE8. Besides, I can copy and paste between projects using Clipmate. Transitions and audio are also copied correctly it seems, unlike in PRE7 and earlier versions.