Premiere Elements 7 crashes and freezes ->unusable

Report · Oct 18, 2008

Hello all

For a long time, I was looking for a programm to cut my AVCHD clips taken with a Canon HF100 camera. In the past I used for DV videos Adobe Production Studio (Premiere CS2, Encore CS2). I have tried AVCHD with AVCHDUpshift to convert the AVCHD clips to MPEG clips and cut it with Premiere CS2. The final video I have tried to burn with NERO 8. But this is very cumbersome.
I recently saw, that Adobe has released the Premiere Elements 7 with AVCHD support. Because of the many negative posts of Pinnacle Studio 12, I expected better stability and performance from Adobe Premiere Elements 7. I gave it a try.

Installation was OK.

I tried to add about 50 clips to the AVCHD project -> takes a long time but OK.

Playback quality of the clips is very bad. Video quality is bad (blurry), audio quality even worse (2 seconds you can hear sound, 2 seconds no sound, 2 seconds sound, 2 seconds no sound ....). With PowerDVD playback of the clips is fine (video and audio).

I have put 6 clips on the time line (total of 1 minute with dissolve transitions). After pressing the Enter key, it takes a long time to render. Why? No smartrendering seems possible.

I tried to add a disc menu -> crash. Tried again OK, tried to remove disc menu -> not possible, tried to drag another template to the disc menu-> crash..

Tried two times to select the blu-ray output medium -> crash. Tried it again -> OK.
Tried to export this one minute to blu-ray -> freeze after some minutes saying, not enough memory (in the taskmanager about 2.2GB of the 4 GB are used, premiere.exe used about 1GB)
Tried with different export option MPEG-2, H.264 ->freeze after some minutes, always saying to low in memory.

Tried to export H.264 to file -> OK. But then I have only the movie, and no disc menu. I don't want another program to create the menu and another program to burn it...
Export to Blu-Ray seems impossible.

I have tried to work for 4 hours. I had at least 10 crashes and freezes, then I gave up and deinstalled it.

The support recommends for example to disable Anti-Virus, running Vista in very basic mode (no glass etc.). This is not what I want and this is not the way users have to do with their computer. Not a single bad program has to define the functionality of a good running PC to the minimum.

The bottom line:
This is the worst program I have ever got from Adobe. I would like to know, if somebody had success to burn a blu-Ray disc.

My HW: New HP DC7800 Quad 2.5GHz, 4G Ram, 1x250G Raid1 C:, 1x750G Drive D: Data, OS Vista Business all latest Driver, Blu-Ray Recorder LG GGW-H20L

Report · May 13, 2009

Your Quad-core is great, and yes, you should be able to put more RAM in your computer. RAM is very cheap these days..... around $17 a GB! Put in as much as you can. And, no, you don't need to upgrade to a 64-bit OS as PE7 is a 32-bit program. However, if you want to get your computer all set for the very near future, then feel welcome to get a 64-bit OS. PE7 will run equally as well on either. But, I doubt if it will be long before most of the video editing software is available in 64-bit. That will really help out processing speeds.

Two hours of video to edit in one chunk is really a lot; even for a very good computer. Handling such a large chunk of video doesn't require as much of a Processor, as it does out of your RAM. It is simply a very huge file. If you don't have enough RAM to store that entire file, then your computer has to keep reading the information from your hard drive, which equates to lots of waiting time. It is for that reason that I gave you the hints to help you start our with a smaller video. For the average person (unless you are a spectacular videographer, you will get about 8 to 10 minutes of keepable (is that a word???) video out of 1 hour of video taping. When professional videographers, such as TV videographers, take video, they generally only keep and use 3 to 5% of their actual video! As I said previously, unless you are photographing something VERY interesting, keep your shots at 5 seconds or less. Then, when you edit and when you show your pictures, both you and your viewers (and your computer) will be much happier and enjoy the pictures much more. (When you watch TV, notice that, on average, most clips are 5 seconds or less, and the photographer seldom zooms, and never pans. (You can follow a subject, but avoid panning across a scene).

As you start knocking your 2 hour video down to a manageable size (by shortening and deleting clips), you will notice that your processing time becomes much better. If you add more memory to your computer, things will get even better.

Best Regards,

Kent

Report · May 13, 2009

Thanks, Kent. Appreciate the advice.

bharats

Report · Jan 12, 2009

Ok will try - presume there are no issues importing into PE2 and loading into PE7? I could captur again from the minin DV straight into PE7?

Report · Jan 12, 2009

If you need something to capture with use WinDV (free) for SD video and use HDVSplit (also free) for high definition video. The are both better than Premiere Elements capture anyway and you can then import the files directly into Premiere Elements using Add Media from Files and Folders.

Report · Jan 16, 2009

MIN REAL STANDARDS - I have just bought PE7 as it seemed to be the only good program that would work with AVCHD and the canon HF10.
Looks like i now need a new computer BUT what do i need to buy??? I have well over the min specs but they are useless (Dell XPS M1210). Preview is jumpy and rendering even an avi file ends up jumpy so i cant even change it from AVCHD to AVI and then use it as the AVI file is useless.
WHAT do i need in a laptop to get this to work well? not the mon standards as this is just a lie. OR is it the compatability between the HF10 and PE7.
Summary
JUMPY SLOW VIDEOS
1. Playback (for editing) in PE7 is so jumpy its impossible to edit.
2. Rendering 20 mins to render 2 mins into SVCD and 5 hours to render it to AVI. This is unacceptable
3. A rendered file especially AVI is still jumpy. How can i then use this AVI file as a new master?
4. Rendered DVD quality file the slow motion is so jumpy that its useless.

FILE MANAGEMENT: (Also does anyone know how to STACK the vidoes files (they are greyed out in my version) of which there are thousands AND when hard drives change letters how does PE7 find them without having to redirect every file to connect manually?)

Report · Jan 16, 2009

For AVCHD you really need a quad core. I am surprised yoru converted files are jumpy... what AVI format are you converting to?.. a standard definition DV-AVI?? Are you simply doing File>Export>Movie? If so this should produce a DV-AVI that should play back smoothly. Is the converted AVI jumpy when played back on your computer after exporting?
Jumpyness on a DVD may be another issue... please calrify is a standard definition DV-AVI export is jumpy.
Not sure what you mean by Stack??? When you import the clips they should be in the Organizer. To find clips on an external hard drive point it to one and it will find the rest.

Report · Jan 16, 2009

>Not sure what you mean by Stack???

Paul and Andrew,

I understand what is meant by Stack because of my experience with the Photoshop Elements Organizer. However, I do not think that it is possible to Stack any type of video file. I believe that only Photos can be Stacked.

Andrew,
if you want to discuss stacks further, then I suggest that its discussion be on a separate thread. If you are using the Organizer from Photoshop Elements, then I would post in the Photoshop Elements Technical Issues forum
http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.3bbb4ab0/
If you only use the Organize panel in Premiere Elements, then a new thead here or post on the forums over at muvipix.com http://muvipix.com/home.php and the Community tab

Paul,
PS Elements Organizer has the ability to Stack phoots so that only one thumbnali in the Organizer area displays for the stack (group) of photos. It was designed to handle when you take a series of photos of what is basically the same shot and therefore only want one thumbnail visible in the Organizer: however you can Expand a Stack when you need to see all the photos in a Stack.

Report · Jan 16, 2009

Thanks Barb, that makes more sense.

Report · Jan 17, 2009

Hi,
I am trialing Adobe Premiere Elements as an alternative to Windows Movie Maker (which keeps crashing on me).
I am splitting recorded tv footage from my Sky+ box to DVD recorder and then imported into Adobe as VOB files.
When using WMM and after editing a project from say 12 0.99GB files the system crashed. I understand WMM does not do VOB (MPEG files) but changing the filename extension seemed to work-for a while-! I was impressed but the resultant video is still only say 40mins (from 12GB) !!?
So I tried to do the same in Premier Elements
and lo and behold at almost the same point the system crashes with a C++ error (leading me here). I will review latest drivers and system page file settings as described but feel this is a Vista issue although video editing is far from simple I am coming to realise !! I will let you know the results in due course.
PS.If my edited project is say 90mins long in total can that be done or do I have to split the project into two parts ?!
I would also comment that the preview footage does not seem as good as when played back in WMM/WMP ? Why is this ? Is it something to do with compiling the VOB. Export quality is also inferior to WMM although I haven't tried adjusting the settings.
<<Crosses fingers and walks back to PC with gritted teeth>>

Report · Jan 17, 2009

Best to start a new thread so that it gets some visibilty.

PE7 can work with MPEG files but can give some issues especially on large projects. Your best bet would be to convert them to DV-AVI. For example you could export them from WMM as DV-AVI and bring them into PE7.

Report · Jan 18, 2009

Paul LS,

Thanks for the reply. I have managed to achieve my goals by a bit of trial and error and research on these forums.

Using DVD Decrpter I rip a single VOB to my hard drive from the DVD. Then using MPEG Streamclip (what a nice piece of software!)...split the VOB at the desired points and convert to mpeg for import into WMM or Adobe.

All my clips are now much smaller in size to be joiuned together so hopefully no crashing when I go to *make* the project.

Playback in Adobe is still a bit choppy for my liking compared to WMM although published file is OK to play in VLC..?! I am currently experimenting with what Adobe likes best...mpeg, dv etc ?

The choppy issue is a bit annoying which is likely to make me stick with the free solution meantime.

Thanks.

1050rat

Report · Jan 18, 2009

I can rarely get a Blu-Ray disc to burn. It usually hangs at the end of the encoding phase. Seems to be running out of memory.

The longest Blu-Ray that I have been able to burn is about 20 minutes. When I try to build a longer one, the encoding fails.

Kind of depressing. I even upgraded from PE4 to PE7 in the hopes that they would have improved HDV encoding. No such luck.

Dell 9100, 3GB RAM, lots of hard disk space. No other apps running.

Report · Jan 19, 2009

Adobe Premier Elements 7 gave me loads of memory errors, but i have fixed it and can now effortlessly edit 1.5 hours of 1080 50/25i HD and burn Blu Ray just fine. If you run Vista, just type in the text below, reboot and thats it.

In Vista, Click the Windows "Start" Button, bottom left,
Click "Run",
Now type in "BCDEDIT /set increaseuserva 3072"

This allowed Pre to access my full 3Gb of Ram. If you have 4Gb, then use 4096 instead of 3072. If you have 2Gb Ram, then 2048.
Vista only allocates 2Gb per application max - usually a lot lower than 2Gb, hence the crashing, etc.

Pre7 works perfectly using windows 7 as is.

Report · Jan 19, 2009

That's a great tweak if it's true, Adam!

Would you recommend I post it to our FAQs? I'll of course credit you for the find.

Report · Jan 20, 2009

http://www.prophotowiki.com/w/index.php/IncreaseUserVa

Report · Jan 20, 2009

Be careful.... I tried the /3GB switch while booting XP Pro (I have 4GB RAM) and the system would not boot successfully. I had neglected doing the dual boot thing (seemed like such a harmless change) so I had no way of undoing the /3GB boot switch because the OS wouldn't boot far enough to edit anything. I finally managed to boot into BartPE and manually edit the boot file to remove the /3GB switch.

Not sure if Vista handles things more gracefully or not.

That said, in my experience, many errors I have received seem to be resource / RAM issues so making >2GB RAM available should make things run a lot better.

Paul

Report · Jul 22, 2009

hi everyone -

I too am trying to run PE 7 on 32 bit OS, Win XP Pro 5.1 SP3. But just typing that implies I know way more than I really do. I was a PE 2 user and very happy - PE 7 is another story. Crash, freeze, unusable - crashing every 5-10 minutes describes my experience. I am trying to do simple editing of mini-DV tape video recorded on a Sony camcorder and am probably asking for only about a tenth of the true capability of PE. My computer also has a 64 bit option that I have never used. Would PE perform better using that OS? will I have to re-download the SW? and, would the RAM memory access-increaser fix that you described work with XP? I am not ultra experienced with computers but the crashes do have the "feel" to me of memory issues. I have 4GB and the control panel says that only slightly over 1GB is ever being used - over 2GB is available but PE is not getting to it. One other odd thing that may be worth mentioning - I finally after countelss crashes, pulled together a rough edit of a 45 minute video and wanted to burn it to DVD to take a look at it on the TV. I started the burn and was prepared to wait the 5-6 hours this used to take in PE 2. The DVD popped back out in about 5 minutes and the video was on it, and played fine. This is the only good thing I can say about PE7! thanks for any help you may be able to give me.

Report · Jul 23, 2009

Welcome to the forum.

The first thing that I would do is to start your own thread. This one is almost a year old and has had so many posters with different problems, that anyone replying to you, might well be confused by all of the discussions that have gone before.

When you do that, I'd suggest that you first read this ARTICLE, as it will give you some background on the types of info that will be useful to anyone helping you with your issues.

Now, as for some of the questions raised in your post, PE7 is a 32-bit application, that can run on a 64-bit OS, but basically in the OS's 32-bit emulation mode. As a 32-bit program, it cannot take full advantage of the 64-bit OS and what it has to offer. Maybe the next version of PE.

PE should run on XP as well (maybe even better?), than Vista-64, or Win7.

I'd guess that your particular issues can be addressed, after you have provided the info requested in the linked article. Most computers have too much "stuff," that is running, to allow an editing program to function well. With some tweaks and changes, things will likely get much better.

Good luck, and I'll look for your separate post,

Hunt

Report · Jul 23, 2009

hello Hunt -

thanks for your quick answer. I have looked at that thread and I really am

not able to answer those questions - they are too technical for me and (this

is important) I don't WANT to have to learn this stuff. This is sort of

like talking to a bunch of car buffs who think you should adjust the

carburetor every time you drive when all I want to do is get in and drive

the car. I really think most users are like me, and only a small fraction

are even posting to the forum. Most people will just find out that the

program does not work for them and move on - in my case, I will just go back

to PE 2. I had tried some free ware and inexpensive programs before, they

did not do even the minimal things I wanted (that I remembered from editing

real film in the 1970's) and so I got PE 2. WAY more than I needed but at

least it did the stuff I wanted like transitions and titling. my husband is

a former techie and he already halted everything that was running in the

background on my computer (which by the way is new, bought specifically for

video editing) - it made no difference at all. I re-downloaded and

re-installed the program, restarted the computer, and PE threw a low memory

error within about 90 seconds of startup. so this is sunk cost, I am not

going to spend dozens of hours trying to de-bug. after all, "I just wanna

edit."

as long as I am rambling (and you can just stop reading when you want to)

let me say that in real life, I work for the military and manage a big

software program - 2 million SLOC. We have extensive regression and

compatibility testing every time we do a release, and every one of the posts

that complains about this SW would be considered a PRI 1 DR in my program.

We would not be meeting our MTBF and our testers would be screaming -

actually we would never have taken delivery because it would not be passing

even the pre-delivery testing, so we would not be close to the govt

integration and test side. Of course our users would not be screaming

because we would never release this product until the crash and freeze

issues were fixed. Unfortunately, commercial users have no one to go back

to - we are not all hardware/software experts, we are essentially users.

getting Adobe help is not personalized enough, all they do is send you to

this or that write up that gets you back in the "too techie" realm. I

cherish my tech team. I am NOT a techie, but I work really well with

engineers and developers because I am realistic about schedule, risk, and

performance. I think Adobe is rushing to market - I can't believe there is

not a patch to fix what look to me like memory deployment issues, or maybe

memory leak issues. So I will do one more thing - I will post this to

Adobe's gripe line. I wish I had read reviews before I got into this

version, would never have bought it!

thanks for listening, and if my husband wants to take this on you may hear

more from us - otherwise I am going to try to finish the one project that I

have started and then never go back.

Josephine

Report · Jul 23, 2009

Josephine,

I saw your post regarding crashing and freezing of PE7. Let me start by saying, "You're not the only one." Now, here's why you aren't the only one: As video recording formats emerge and become complex, the software has to be equally as complex to process. In fact, everything involved has to be rather complex, including the computer you are using. There lies the problem. PE7 will run fine on your XP computer with 4 MB of RAM. However, you are at the lowest end of it's requirements. When you process and edit video, you are literally editing and reorganizing thousands or millions of high quality still pictures all at once. That's a significant demand for even the best of computers and software. PE7 is a 32-bit program. However, it runs equally as well in a 64-bit environment. The reason that many/most people have better luck with it on a 64-bit O.S. is because most 64-bit computers have significantly more memory, as well as faster processors. There are also new video camera recording formats such as AVCHD that put even more demand on a computer and your editing software. It doesn't matter if you have a MAC or a PC. What does matter is that you have a well-equipped and well-running computer. There are many posts on the Adobe forum which give excellent hints on how you can maximize the performance of your computer. In fact, you may be shocked to find out just how much unnecessary 'garbage' is running on your computer even when you don't have a single program opened. On the Adobe forum, search for 'Optimize Performance'. I thought I was all set with a Vista computer, dual-core processor, and 4MB of memory. I was wrong. I was processing AVCHD video and the demands of that format of video kept crashing my computer and software. I bit the bullet and upgraded to a Quad-core, 8MB of RAM, Fast Gaming Video card, and now I can process video like a dream.

As I said above, it doesn't matter whether you are running a Mac or a PC. Likewise, it really doesn't matter what video editing software you are running. Bottom line is that your computer can handle the video as well as the software that you've given to it.

Depending on the camera, and the recording format of your camera (Is it an HD camera?), if your camera was made in the last year or two, then it is very unlikely that PE2 will process it's newer video formats. To process the newest video formats, you need the latest in software (such as PE7) and you need a VERY capable computer for all of it. Sorry to say, one thing leads to another, and your nice camera means you need nice software, and your nice software needs a nice computer, and if you want a nice final product, then you should burn your finali on a Blu-ray disk and then show it on a HiDef screen. It's a big investment.

Start by optimizing the performance of your computer. If that doesn't work, upgrade to a newer, faster, and better computer.

Kent

Report · Jul 23, 2009

hi Kent -

thanks for your reply. I used to run PE 2 and that is what I am going back

to. It is the same camera, mini DV, bought in 2005 (Sony DCR HC96) and PE 2

did an adequate job on my old computer, just was a little jerky on screen.

but it never crashed. Computer already has a quad processor, and if you

need 8 GB of RAM, why does the Adobe website say you can get by with

512MB??? this is a new computer bought specifically for video editing. my

husband already stopped all the garbage programs of which there were very

few anyhow. I don't even know if I can add more RAM. solution for me: go

back to PE2 - after all, I "just wanna edit." I am not into doing all this

stuff to optimize a machine that was already supposed to be far more than

PE7 says it needs....

thanks, I know you are trying to help,

Josephine

Report · Jul 23, 2009

Josephine, Sounds like you have a good computer. I believe that Adobe says 512MB because that is the absolute minimum. However, I think that they recommend more (I could be wrong). As I mentioned, Adobe, and all the other video editing manufacturers have had to make their software much more intensive and powerful to handle the new video formats that are out. If PE2 or 3 will edit your software, then, by all means, use it. It should also work very well on your new computer. I wonder if your husband optimized your computer on his own, or from the suggestions on the Adobe forum?? There are a lot of little things hidden in Windows that one would never know about unless someone (such as on the forum) told you. I've also found that Vista runs the newer Adobe Premier programs much more efficiently and smoothly. Vista also make much better use and allocation of the memory that you have. If you have 4 GB of memory with XP, then you are only able to use 2GB with your programs! However, with Vista, your computer and the operating system allocates memory MUCH more efficiently. I've heard that the new Windows 7 is even better with memory than Vista, so you should take a good look at it when it is avaliable.

Best Regards,

Kent

Report · Jul 24, 2009

Josephine,

Unfortunately, none of us is sitting at your computer, and none of us can look inside of it. We're all elsewhere, so things take on a different light, as we do not know what is going on. In the case of remote troubleshooting, the user has to be our "eyes."

From an earlier post, it seems that your computer has the power to run PE7. It is most likely a problem with the setup of Windows, that is getting in the way.

Steve Grisetti has done several FAQ entries on things to look for in the setup, to optimize the OS (Operating System), so that it can better run an NLE (Non Linear Editor, like PE). There are few applications that are as stressful on both the software and the hardware, as is work with an NLE.

Certain Video formats, such as AVCHD, will stress a machine even more.

If the techies, who do reviews of computer hardware, wanted to really test a machine, they'd load up an NLE program, and edit AVCHD material. Instead, they run a few benchmark programs, that are seldom real-world situations, and make their comments based on those tests alone.

For problems with the System, i.e. crashes and hangs, my first suggestion would be to read each of the articles in the FAQ sub-forum. If one follows the advice contained therein, they will be on the road to a positive editing experience.

Good luck,

Hunt

Report · Jul 24, 2009

Josephine,

I (Kent) agree with Hunt. While your husband may have cleaned up and optimized your computer, I really wonder if he followed the suggestions offered by Steve Gresetti in this forum? I run PE7 on my new Dell Quad Core computer and it runs flawlessly. However, like you, I had problems in the past. But, once I optimized my computer, PE7 not only runs flawlessly, but everything else runs super-well as well. Rather than give up on PE7, you might consider it as a challenge to optimize your computer as a whole.

One thing that Steve Gresetti recommends is that you go into MSCONFIG, and do a major clean-up in your Services and Start-up tabs. To get there, click on Start. Then, in the Start Search field, type msconfig. 90% of the stuff that is listed in the Services tab can be removed. Likewise, a ton of stuff can be turned off in the StartUp tab and the only difference that you'll notice is that your computer will run BETTER and faster. Nevertheless, Please DO look for Steve's suggestions for Optimizing your computer before you, or your husband take on the task.

Best Regards,

Kent

Report · Jul 24, 2009

One of the nice things about being in a US Govt. program, is that the hardware is pretty standardized. There are IT people to see that things are kept clean and lean. Out in the private sector, that is not the case. People take delivery of a computer from HP, Dell, or others, and assume that it's ready to go. For checking e-mail, and some Web browsing, that is usually true. If all they do is a bit of work in Word, or Excel, no problem.

It's when they do something that looks so mundane as editing video, that the weaknesses in that computer are revealed. Even the little editor, Windows Movie Maker (WMM), which is included with Windows, is a resource hog, and it has maybe 10% of the power as PE does. Even on my workstation, which is built specifically to edit video, it will just crash in a heartbeat.

Now, this same computer can run Pr Pro (PE's bigger brother), with eight hour long Projects, containing many thousands of Video Clips and stills, with 300+ Titles, and hours of music, all set up for DD 5.1 SS, so each Sequence (imagine mini PE Projects) has many Audio Tracks. I have Effects added to almost every Clip and probably 12 Video Tracks in this Project. In maybe five years, I have had one crash, and that was OE (Operator Error) on my part.

I've completed many hundred Projects from little half-hour DVD's to one 17 DVD set. I've successfully burned a couple thousand DVD's, many DVD-9's (DL). Still, WMM will crash on my workstation.

I do not run PE all that much. Most of it is for testing for this forum. I only have PE4, and have had one crash, since I got that program, and it was on my laptop, while I had PE, Photoshop, Illustrator, WordPerfect and Adobe Encore (their authoring application for creating DVD's) going at the same time. On the workstation, that would be less of a strain, but I just taxed the laptop too much, and PE closed on me.

I am not editing HD material, of any kind - only SD in NTSC DV 720x480, though my source files do come from all sorts of places. Clients hand me the darndest files and want them edited. I just convert everything, MPEG, AVI, MOV, MP3, you name it, to DV-AVI Type II files, outside of my NLE and then edit smoothly and effectively. I'm "old-school," since I started in film, back before there was video, other than direct feed in a TV station. During that time, 2" video tape came about, but I did not see much use for that stuff, and stayed clear of video for some decades. For me, there was only one way to edit (film) and one workflow. That is what I decided on, with video in the last several years - create one workflow that was bullet-proof, and stick with it. Boring to many, but it gets jobs done with little waste of time and done correctly. I do not try and force my NLE to take material that it was never designed for, regardless of how avant garde some might think that material is.

I also work very diligently to keep my machines updated, and trimmed of "fat." I do a regular Registry cleaning, removal of TMP files, and defrag after almost every editing session.

Since I do not specifically have PE7, I cannot address any short-comings that it might have. OTOH, I do not see that much difference between it, and PE4 (my version). The biggest difference that I do see, is with the material that folk are attempting to edit natively. Each year brings a half-dozen, or so, new formats, and most are not well thoughtout, nor are they well implemented. Every "hot new" format will create problems, and few people ever want to address how best to handle them. They expect that a program, like PE, or PrPro, can just do it, and feel that it should, with no intervention from the user.

I wish you luck, and hope that you can find a way to get into editing.

Hunt