Inspiring

Question

Premiere Elements 8 Initial Impressions

Forum|Forum|16 years ago
September 24, 2009
13 replies
60237 views

Premiere Elements 8 First Look: Part 1.

Photoshop Elements 8 and Premiere Elements 8 are now installed on my Windows XP SP3 with about available 1 GB RAM and 70 GB free hard drive space and the virtual memory controlled by the operating system…not great for a heavy duty project, but adequate to overview the programs.

1. Download & Installation. Both programs took about 3 ½ hours to download, using high speed DSL. Premiere Elements 8 downloaded and installed without problems. Installation went much quicker. But, Photoshop Elements 8 download did present challenges, first, it kept downloading Premiere Elements 8 instead of Photoshop Elements 8. Finally in the early hours of the morning, the download from the Adobe site was named Photoshop Elements 8. Great, except, once downloaded it would not launch. The launcher did not know what to do with the .7z file. Download and use of WinZip took care of that. My default browser Mozilla Firefox was worthless for the download of either Photoshop Elements 8 or Premiere Elements 8, but no problems with my Internet Explorer 6. I had this same problem with the Photoshop Elements 7/Premiere Elements 7 downloads last year.

2. Premiere Elements 8

a. Organizer. I would take exception to Steve Grisetti’s picture of the Organizer in “What’s new in Premiere Elements 8?”, but maybe I was overly optimistic by “The most visible change to version 8 is that the Organizer is no longer a sub-program of Premiere Elements and Photoshop Elements. It now lives as its own, separate, pretty much independent program – behaving more than ever like its professional big brother, Adobe Bridge.” He went on to say “In version 8, both programs have equal access to a single, full-featured Organizer.”

Here is my dilemma for some who want a separate video and photo catalog. If you had Photoshop Elements 7/Premiere Elements 7, you could create additional catalogs in Photoshop Elements 7. Premiere Elements 7 could use one of these catalogs, but could not create new catalogs. So then, you could have a photo catalog displaying in the Photoshop Elements 7 Organizer and a video catalog displaying when you opened Premiere Elements 7. You cannot do that anymore, and File Menu/Catalog is gone in Premiere Elements 8. You still cannot create catalogs in Premiere Elements 8, so, if you just have Premiere Elements 8, you have ONE catalog. If you have Photoshop Elements 8 and Premiere Elements 8, you can create additional catalogs in Photoshop Elements 8 that can be used in Premiere Elements 8, but these programs will display the same ONE catalog.

b. Project Presets. The “New Preset” button is gone. The categories of the presets for NTSC and PAL remain the same: AVCHD, DV, “Hard Disk, Flash Memory Camcorder”, HDV. However, two choices have been added to the “Hard Disk, Flash Memory Camcorder” categories. Now we have HD 1080i30, HD 1080i30 (60i), Standard, and Widescreen. Here I have a problem reconciling the names and the descriptions. It was my understanding, in Premiere Elements 7 for standard and widescreen in this category, this preset category reverses the Fields: from Upper Field First to Lower Field First in Premiere Elements edits. So, now with these new choices described as follows:

HD 1080i30: 1920 x 1080i; pixel aspect ratio = square pixels (1.0); camcorders like JVC GZ-HD7; 16:9 interlaced HD video at 29:97 frames per second.

HD 1080i30 (60i): HD video from 1440 x 1080i camcorders; 16:9 interlaced HD video at 29:97 frames per second HDV 1080i Anamorphic.

When thinking HD 1080i30 preset….the JVC camcorder captures to a progressive sensor, assumed at 30 frames per second, and can record to it’s built in hard drive as 1920 x 1080i with 30 frames per second each frame with 2 fields. So, what prevents us from calling this preset HD 1080i30 (30p) Square Pixel?

When thinking HD 1080i30 (60i))…the camcorder involved captures to an interlaced sensor at 60 fields per second, and can record to it media as 1440 x 1080 with 30 frames per second, using a HD Anamorphic. So, what prevents us from calling this preset HD 1080i30 (60i) Anamorphic?

When I start comparing preset choices, the only reason for using these “Hard Disk, Flash Memory Camcorder” new choices appears to be, like for standard and widescreen, to have the Fields reversed. Do you agree? Any comments on the nomenclature for these new preset choices?

3. Adobe Folder, folders and files

If you go to the default location of the Adobe Folder (My Documents\Premiere Elements\8.0), there are some differences there:

For Premiere Elements 7 and earlier versions there were:

Adobe Premiere Elements Previews Folder

Encoded Files Folder

Media Cache Folder that piled up with conformed audio files (.cfa and .pek)

Project Prel file

Styles Folder

And sometimes 2 .log files

Now in Premiere Elements 8, the Media Cache Folder is gone and we have the arrangement:

Adobe Premiere Elements Previews Folder

CA Object Track Results

Encoded Files

Layouts

Styles Folder

(You no longer see the endless conforming of DVD Menus (not even used) at the beginning of the project. But, I am still trying to figure out what they did with the conformed audio files (.cfa and .pek). More on that next time, along with Premiere Elements 8 Exports as well as Photoshop Elements 8/Premiere Elements 8 intergration.

ATR

This topic has been closed for replies.

A_T__RomanoAuthor

Inspiring

Premiere Elements 8: First Look, Using with ClipMate Software

ClipMate and Copying Timeline between Premiere Elements Projects

Summary. I have found that use of ClipMate DOES works consistently for copying Timeline (video/audio/effects/transitions) for Premiere Elements 8. In contrast, with earlier versions, such as 2, 4, and 7, the copying/pasting process will handle video/audio/effects, but NOT transitions. How to details for ClipMate 7.3 and Premiere Elements 8 are given below.

Workaround by Peter F. Duke and user comments, posted in 2007

Using Clipmate to copy and paste between projects

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/390807

Muvipix Community thread chat, posted Aug 2009

Copying timeline between projects

http://muvipix.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=6001

I take away from online comments such as those cited above that ClipMate use for copying Timeline between Premiere Elements projects has problems in the copying of audio and transitions. In the Duke link, he suggests a workaround for the audio issue, but not one for the loss of transitions in the copying/pasting. Some may go as far to say the process works for “Premiere Elements”, but does so only sometimes and without rhyme nor reason. So, I decided to download a tryout of ClipMate 7.3 and see for myself what was going on in this matter.

http://www.thornsoft.com/download.htm

1. Open ClipMate 7.3 and leave it open.

2. Then open your saved Premiere Elements 8 project .prel whose Timeline you want to copy to another new project .prel.

3. In Premiere Elements 8, Edit Menu/Select All, Edit Menu/Copy. Minimize the Premiere Elements 8’s workspace to see the ClipMate 7.3 workspace.

4. In ClipMate 7.3, Edit Menu/Capture Special. That will bring up the Capture Special dialog.

5. In the Capture Special dialog, you should find just two options for check marks. Make sure that there is a check mark next to “Premiere Elements OSClipboard Format” as well as “Premiere Exchange”, and then click OK.

6. You should then see an entry for your copy in the ClipMate list which includes: Title, Sort Key, Date/Time, Size, Source. The source should say “ADOBE PREMIER…”, not WINDOWS. Highlight that entry.

7. Go back and Maximize Premiere Elements 8 project .prel which has the material that you copied. To create the new project .prel to paste into, go to the File Menu of this current project.prel/New/Project. (I clicked Yes to the Save message that followed, just in case…). After setting up the new project dialog for the new project .prel, I was now in the new project .prel’s workspace.

8. IMPORTANT: Using minimizing and maximizing windows, go back and make sure that the ClipMate entry for the copy is highlighted. Then with the Premiere Elements 8 again maximized, go to the Premiere Elements 8 Edit Menu and select Paste Insert. The job is done, video, audio, transitions, and effects wise.

Check it out and see if you found what I observed.

ATR

A_T__RomanoAuthor

Inspiring

Premierel Elements 8 First Look: Conclusion

Miscellaneous observations about some new Premiere Elements 8 features and locations were interesting in view of what I had read and expected and what actually is the case.

I. Audio Tools….

Let us look to the top right of the Timeline in the Timeline View (or the top right of the Filmstrip in the Sceneline View) to where it says “Audio Tools”. Under that tab, the Adobe designers have tucked away: Smart Mix, Audio Mix, Add Narration, Detect Beats, and SmartSound. The only new feature here is the Smart Mix.

Smart Mix. Did you ever have audio with dialog linked to video OR have added narration to a slideshow and needed to keyframe the volume of the background music on the Soundtrack so that you could hear the dialog OR narration better? Well, now Smart Mix attempts to set keyframes to lower the volume of the background music for you so that you can better hear the dialog OR the narration. You designate the track whose dialog or narration you want to hear better as “Foreground” and the track whose volume is to be keyframed (lowered) as “Background”. The catch here is the significance of its use with dialog and narration. It will not work if your “Foreground” track is music or some non dialog sound and your “Background” track is music. In that type of situation, you will get a message “Cannot perform Smart Mix. Missing dialog in foreground track.” But, if you had a dialog in audio 1 (you designated it “Foreground” in options) and music in the Soundtrack (you designated it “Background” in the options), it works fine. In the later example, with tracks content in place, you click on Audio Tools/SmartMix and select Apply or Options (where you would set “Foreground” and “Background”) and then click apply in that Options dialog). The job is done. This also works with narration as “Foreground” and Soundtrack as “Background”. I will leave it for you to test out its possible usefulness and limitations in your workflow.

I need to comment on use of this feature for Sceneline users with an audio 1 “Foreground” and Soundtrack audio “Background”. In the Sceneline View, the audio 1 is not seen, but its content is heard whereas the Narration track and Soundtrack are seen as well as their contents heard. But, SmartFix does work in the Sceneline View. You just do not get a good idea of what is going on if you use that view instead of the Timeline view.

All and all, it does a pretty good job. Respect its limitations and just do not get any mumblers in your video audio.

II. Smart Trim…

Features locations for this are:

Timeline Menu, Smart Trim and Smart Trim Options

and

Smart Trim scissor icon just above Timeline in Timeline View and just above Filmstrip in Sceneline View. I would have thought that Adobe could have selected another icon for Smart Trim since the Split Clip icon at the bottom right of the Edit Mode Monitor is also a scissor. (They did point the scissors in different directions for each, the Smart Trim scissor is blue!)

Typically once in the Smart Trim mode, you set the quality and “interest” criteria that you want the feature to use to point you to the lesser quality and “interest” portions of the video that it is suggesting that you weed out. I will leave it for you to check out the mechanics of it in a very well written description in the Premiere Elements 8 Help PDF. I am still not sure what they mean by “interest”. “Interest = Content”???? Any questions, please ask, and I will share with you my 2nd to 100th look at the feature and program.

Based on my first look, I do not consider this a replacement for trimming the “Preview Media View” clips with In and Out points in the Preview Window and/or making subclips by dragging the trim from the Preview Window to the Preview Media Palette. I found Smart Trim time consuming and felt that I could have gotten the job quicker “the old way”. Comments?

III.

Clip Art

I found that Clip Art as a new feature in Premiere Elements 8 interesting since earlier versions had a logos section in their program files that did contain a good amount of clip art type media.

IV.

The Effects Mask

The goal here is to place an Effect in just a portion of the video frame. You right click the video on the Timeline, select Effects Mask, then Apply. You obtain a bounding box that you can size and position. You go to Effects, apply your Effect and end up with your Effect applied only to the area within the bounding box.Further, the process calls for the program to duplicate your video on video track 1, to place the duplicate on video track 2 along with the Effect. Both the video on video 1 and the duplicate on video track 2 are grouped by the program in the process, but you can ungroup the two track contents by right click the highlighted tracks and selecting Ungroup.

My verdict is still out on this, although it does seem to have more potential that some other new “make it easier “new features.

Other

Based on the number of questions on how to apply more than one transition at a time to media already on the Timeline and how to change the still image duration of more than one still image at a time once still images already on the time, the means to do that in Premiere Elements 8 should make a lot of users happy.

Another popular request is a transition selection that would apply transitions randomly across the Timeline content. I cannot find it in this new version. If anyone can, please let me know.

The rest of the features and location of features that I have not mentioned in this thread will be addressed when the need arises in individual threads which will be topic related. I had hoped to tell you of my adventures with importing and exporting of my 3g2 videos from my cell phone. Great photos, rotten videos, but I do not believe Premiere Elements 8 or earlier versions are the culprits. Did a lot of troubleshooting on that.

Tonight my tryouts come off the computer. Can I recommend generally upgrading to Premiere Elements 8? I still do not know. Do I need it to advance my photo video work? No. Do I need it to troubleshoot the problems of others. Yes. If I were a newcomer to video editing and was going to buy my first video editing program, I would buy it. Then I would not be coming with the baggage of comparison that we all are so prone to have. Sometimes we can (me included) compare something to death.

Please check out for yourself what works for you in your specific computer environment. Tryout before buying.

Thanks for following my first look at Premiere Elements 8 and related matters.

ATR

Anonymous

Great analysis Tony, thanks very much. I look after about 60 journalists using APE, mostly v7, a few v4 remaining, and i have my first user on v8. The main difficulty with this is that he is in South Africa and I am in London! We normally get them to export their finished piece using File - Export - Movie to create a DV AVI file for compression and delivery using a seperate application but this option seems to be unavailable in APE8 - is this the same for other APE8 users? Do we have to use the Share tab instead?

Thanks again

Richard

Anonymous

Tony,

I have just one question about the program. It's about this little gimmick it has, whereby you can add an image to a scene and make it follow any moving element in the scene. The tutorial has a flying bird following a little girl skateboarding.

Is it possible, do you think, to use this feature to do proper motion tracking and add an element to a shot in which nothing is actually moving as such?

What I mean is, say you have a straight left-to-right panning shot of a landscape. There's nothing actually moving on the landscape, but as far as the frame is concerned the landscape IS the moving element. So, would it be possible to stick an image, (say a building) on to one area of the landscape, and using the tracking feature, make that "building" follow that particular place in the landscape as it "moves" across the screen? In effect, the building would look like it was part of the landscape because it would remain stuck to (tracking) the bit of landscape where you first applied it.

Is that possible? I actually tried to do it in the demo, but since I'm even a newbie to PRe7, I was struggling.

Thank you,

Kurt.

A_T__RomanoAuthor

Inspiring

Kurt_777

It is just passed midnight where I am, so the first thing later today, when the morning light appears, I will give a good look at what you want to do.

If I tried right now, I might really mess it up.

ATR

the_wine_snob

Inspiring

ATR,

Sleep well, and we'll look forward to your reports in the AM.

In the meantime, I still have 3 wines to taste and report on...

Hunt

A_T__RomanoAuthor

Inspiring

Premiere Elements 8 First Look: Part 3 Exports, Share/Personal Computer/QuickTime and Image

QuickTime

The two biggest changes that caught my attention were Presets choices, addition of a 24p export, the absence of “Apple” before the names of the QuickTime video codecs listed under the Advance button/Video Codec Tab, and two relocated tenants (from previous File Menu/Export/Movie/QuickTime) in the codecs list.

QuickTime Presets…..

In Premiere Elements 7, you were faced with four Presets choices:

Cable Modem, DSL (Movie for e-mail, download over a 512 K Cable Modem/DSL connection or playback on a Mac computer)

Local Area Network (LAN) (Movie for download over a 1024 K LAN connection or playback on a Mac computer)

128 K Dual ISDN (Movie for download over a 128 K Dual ISDN connection or playback on a Mac computer)

DialUp 56 K Modem (Movie for download over a 56 K Modem connection or playback on a Mac computer)

Now in Premiere Elements 8, the “Cable Modem, DSL” and “DialUp 56 K Modem” choices are gone, and we are left with just two choices: 128 K Dual ISDN and Local Area Network (LAN), both described as in version 7. So what Preset should I select and where is my good old “Cable Modem, DSL” choice?

The answer involves Internet Connection Speed of the person receiving the file coupled with the size of the file and finding the right balance between quality, file size, and download time. The key player in the Advance setting is bitrate (also known as data rate). If you lower the bitrate, the file size decreases, quality goes down, but the download time is less. If you increase the bitrate, the file size increases, the quality is higher, and the download time is increases. I found the following link helpful in understanding Internet Speed and Data Transfer Speed (Files).

http://www.lyberty.com/encyc/articles/kb_kilobytes.html

If you set the Premiere Elements 8 QuickTime Preset on 128 K Dual ISDN, you will find included in the defaults (under Advance button):

Frame Size: 320 x 240

Frame Rate: 15

Bitrate: 90 kbps (by my conversion, this 90 kilobits per second = 11.25 kilobytes per second)

If you set the Premiere Elements 8 QuickTime Preset on Local Area Network (LAN), you will find included in the defaults (under Advance button):

Frame Size: 640 x 480

Frame Rate: 30

Bitrate: 800 kbps (by my conversion, this 800 kilobits per second = 100 kilobytes per second)

With those settings left as is, you will definitely get a much smaller file size with the 128 K Dual ISDN than with the Local Area Network (LAN). I have found that if I set the settings for the two Presets equal to one another in each’s Advance, I have gotten the same result independent of what Preset name I select in the Preset spot.

So, my answer to the question about which Preset to use would be, by example, if I had a end user with Internet Connection Speed of 1024 kilobytes per second (1 megabyte per second), I would use the LAN preset and change the bitrate of 800 kilobits per second (100 kilobytes per second) as needed to get the appropriate file size and quality. But, the higher Internet Speed involved in this example should result in a reasonable download time for a larger file.

After all is said and done, my recommendation is

a. gauge your audience Internet Connection Speed and your file size

b. check the settings in Advance under either of the two Preset choices and set the bitrate and frame size and other parameters for the file to give you satisfactory file size, quality, and file download time.

QuickTime Export Properties

The video codec offerings appear to remain the same, except:

a. “Apple” has disappeared completely from the names of those codecs whose names previously started with “Apple”. At this time I am not sure of the significance of that.

b. There is a new DV/NTSC 24p codec.

c. The Apple Component Video codec is now called “Component Video YUV 422”

d. Two other additions to the codec list include: “Uncompressed YUV 10 bit 4:2:2” and “Uncompressed YUV 8 bit 4:2:2”. These look like codecs that were dispossessed from File Menu/Export/Movie/QuickTime when File Menu/Export divested itself of everything except a Title export.

I would like feedback on that DV/NTSC 24p codec choice and editing and exporting native 24p. There is at least one Panasonic miniDVcamcorder that shoots NTSC 480p24. But, when you capture firewire that into Premiere Elements, the DV capture results in interlaced video, even though you recorded progressive. In addition, a pulldown is applied to change 24 progressive frames per second into 30 interlaced frames per second. There was no feature for removing the pulldown in Premiere Elements. So, I am wondering

a. in Premiere Elements 8, does exporting such a Timeline via QuickTime/”DV/NTSC 24p” remove the pulldown in such as way that you get “true” 24p” and, if so, would you start with 24p or 24 p Advanced? In chat that I have seen at Premiere Pro Forum, there was talk of 24p versus 24 p Advanced (24p, not really intended for removal of pulldown and 24p Advanced, intended for removal of pulldown).

and/or

b. if you could instead copy 480p24 to your computer hard drive, import it into Premiere Elements Timeline, could you then say you have a Premiere Elements route for editing and exporting native 480p24? .

There are a large number of audio codec choices, but none for Dolby Digital 5.1 channel sound (AC-3). There is an “AAC” codec and an “Uncompressed” codec which do offer Mono, Stereo, and 5.1 channel. The “Linear PCM” appears to be missing from the choices in this version. Choices for sample rates, mono or stereo, frequency, payload encoding can be found among the codec details.

Images

This is a new category in Share/Personal Computer. Gone is File Menu/Export/Frame. But the Freeze Frame icon still remains at the bottom right of the Edit Mode Monitor. As in Premiere Elements 7, use of that icon gives you a freeze frame at the location where the Timeline Indicator (CTI) is placed on the Timeline. The Export Frame dialog that appears gives you choices for duration and further edits in Photoshop Elements. The default file type is Windows Bitmap (.bmp). Unlike Premiere Elements 7, the Export dialog in this Freeze Frame icon route does not have a settings tab for changing to GIF, JPEG, TARGA, or TIFF. The pixel dimensions of the freeze frame are the frame size of the project preset (new project dialog). So, if your project preset is NTSC DV Standard, the freeze frame would have the pixel dimensions of 720 x 480.

Now in Premiere Elements 8 Share/Personal Computer/Images, there are presets for Animated GIF, JPEG, TARGA, and TIFF. Each offers different size options, such as HD 1440 x 1080, HD1920 x 1080, 720 x 480, and 720 x 576. Each has an Advanced buttons with settings that can be changed. When checked, the “Share WorkArea Bar Only” option is only functional for the Animated GIF category. More on that later, if necessary. For JPEG, TARGA, and TIFF, your export from this area depends on where you have the Timeline Indicator placed on the Timeline and is not impacted if you have “Share WorkArea Bar Only” checked or unchecked.

The export for JPEG, TARGA, and TIFF is immediate even at the larger frame sizes. The Animated GIF (video) takes longer to export (especially the HD sizes), and I find takes what seems like a long time for the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer to generate a Preview afterwards.

I hope that the first looks at the remaining exports under Share, namely, "Mobile Phones and Players" and "Tape" will be quicker to look at. I got hung up with QuickTime, especially its Presets

Your comments and observations are welcomed.

ATR

ruzun

Known Participant

GPU Playback - Will this allow one to edit AVCHD files more efficiently on non quad core systems? One problem with PE7 is that you need a fast quad core to edit AVCHD files since the playback is a slideshow in the project while you are working on it. It renders fine but its just unwieldy to preview anything in the sceneline or timeline as it just stutters and skips frames.

I'm hoping with PE8 and a decent NVidia video card that supports CUDA you could now edit AVCHD files on PCs that were too slow using PE7.

Have you been able to see what GPU playback does for AVCHD source material?

Anonymous

Here - on a quad core with a CUDA enabled card - I can't see any difference with the "Enable GPU playback" on or off. It's not impressive in terms of CPU use either way (by which I mean, I've seen other apps using less CPU for AVCHD playback). And as far as I'm concerned anyway, there seems to be something amiss with PE8 AVCHD timeline replay full stop (compared with PE7), concerning which I await a response from Adobe.

In previous tests I've found no material end-quality difference between 'native' AVCHD editing on various NLE's compared to using high bitrate mpeg2 transcoded files, evaluating the results on a 42" Bravia LCD TV. "MediaShow Espresso" can create those quickly as it's CUDA enabled. Google would tell you where you can buy it. Or for free, there's "Free AVCHD Converter" - and many others.

But something still makes me want to edit native AVCHD just as a matter of principle!

ruzun

Known Participant

I wonder if a dual core machine using GPU playback and a decent NVidia card might show a difference though, perhaps it would play smoother than non gpu playback.

What is the problem with PE8's AVCHD playback vs PE7's? Are results using AVCHD camcorders worse in PE8 than PE7 somehow, or is editing buggier than it was with PE7 when using AVCHD files?

Anonymous

"New Project

Then a Window opens with a menu bar across its top and everything else in the Window gray."

So is this normal? I can't reproduce it myself, but customer asked about this, if there is some error. He has reinstalled it, and same issue.

He can only select New project/Open project from the File.He uses 64bit Vista.

My application also takes usually very long time to open or it doesn't open at all, I can see the process in task manager consuming 50% CPU, but nothing actually happens. I use Win XP SP2.

I will post more info later when I got it.

Thanks,

Jugemon

A_T__RomanoAuthor

Inspiring

Jugemon76

I have been doing my evaluation of Premiere Elements 8 from the tryout version downloaded from Adobe. My computer operation system is Windows XP Professional SP3 (32 bit).

Except for DVD Templates and items like that, it has been my experience (versions 2, 6, and 7) that what you get in the tryout is what you will also get in the purchased version in the retail store or by making the purchase online.

As I stated earlier, the appearance in the opening sequence of that window with just the menu bar and everything else gray was a scary moment. I waited and waited, thinking that it would dissolve into something else. It did not. That is when necessity forced me to try File Menu where the New/Project allowed for continued progress in opening the program (new project dialog, followed by workspace).

Are you saying that, if you wait long enough, your window with the menu bar/gray will dissolve and progress into the next stage of opening automatically??

I suspect that the Premiere Elements 8 Welcome Screen may be a new concept for the Adobe designers. This default tracking of information from the Welcome Screen business may be generating more than it is worth. But these thoughts are just speculation at this point. So any further observations relating to the program opening would be very helpful.

ATR

Anonymous

No, I am not saying that it will dissolve itself, and actually I didn't wait for long. I downloaded the trial in my home computer but didn't have time to test it yet. I will do so during the weekend, and then report my experiences, if something worth.

What happened is, when I opened PRE 8 on the other machine, the gray window appeared only on first time. After that it has been working ok. If these occasions emerge more, and we report them, maybe it will be fixed in future updates. But yes, it might be the New Welcome Screen related. We'll see.

Jugemon

A_T__RomanoAuthor

Inspiring

Premiere Elements 8: First Look
IMPORTANT ADD ON .... DISABLE TRACKING OF INFORMATION

Soon after I installed Premiere Elements 8 and started working with it in the studies that I have been reporting on, I started to hear computer noises of a few seconds duration about every 1/2 to 3/4 of an hour. When I heard the noise, I noticed that the light lit for my A: drive (3 1/2" Floppy Drive) and disappeared with the disappearance of the noise.

I did not associate this with Premiere Elements 8, so I did virus checks, disc error checks, drive cleanups, which did not resolve the issue. So, I decided to continue with my Premiere Elements 8 first look and "ignore" the noise. When looking up something else online, I think I ran across the answer in the Adobe Premiere Elements Help PDF, namely "Disable tracking of information". When I disabled "the tracking of information" in the Registry as described in the PDF, the problem went away and has not returned for several hours now.

So you may need the following information if this is happening to you. I think it important enough to quote the entire PDF writeup below:

"Disable tracking of information

The Welcome screen by default records and relays some usage information to Adobe to assist in the improvements of the Welcome screen experience. The Welcome screen usage data is anonymous and does not link the information to your personal data or your Adobe ID account information. Usage information from the Photoshop Elements Editor, Adobe Premiere Elements Editor or Adobe Premiere Elements is not tracked. To disable the tracking of information in the Welcome screen:

1. In Windows XP, click start > Run (or in Windows Vista click the Start button and select Run) and type regedit.exe and click OK.

The Windows Registry Editor opens. Using the tree navigator on the left navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Adobe\Elements Organizer\8.0\Organizer.

2. Right click anywhere on right panel and select New > DWORD Value.

A new DWORD Value with the name New Value #1 is created.

3. Rename New Value #1 to DisableTracking.

4. Double-click DisableTracking.

The Edit DWORD Value dialog opens.

5. Enter 1 in the Value Data field, click OK, and close the Registry Editor."

The above can be found in the Premiere Elements 8 Help PDF under

Adobe Premiere Elements Workspace

About the workspace

Welcome screen

Since this procedure involves the Registry, please double check instructions that I have given against those in the PDF. They should be one and the same.

Please let me know if you ran into this issue.

ATR

A_T__RomanoAuthor

Inspiring

Premiere Elements 8 First Look: Exports Part 3.

Edit Mode: File Menu/Export

Saving a Titler created Title as a .prtl file for future use in another project .prel is the same as in Premiere Elements 7. You highlight the Title file in the Project Media view, click on and use the File Menu/Export/Title route. In addition, you will have the original Title embedded in the project .prel in which was created.

But now exporting/saving Title is the only option under File Menu/Export; gone are the options for Movie, Frame, Audio, and Export to Tape. These appear to have been consolidated in the Share section. (Details to follow.)

Share:

Categories:

Disc (Burn DV and Blu-ray discs)

Online (Upload to video sharing)

Personal Computer (Export files for viewing on Computer)

Mobile Phones and Players (Export files for viewing on mobile phones and other devices)

Tape (Record to DV or HDV tape)

______________________________

Disc

Same as Premiere Elements 7, in that

1. Share/Disc/Disc offers burn to DVD disc or burn to folder (4.7 GB or 8.5GB setting). The audio of the export remains Dolby Digital Stereo (2 channel), even if your Timeline video imported with Dolby Digital 5.1 channel sound (also called AC-3).

2. Share/Disc/Blu-ray offers burn to a Blu-ray disc with no option for burn to folder. For an innovative workaround for that aspect, see Robert Johnston work on Phantom Burner

http://muvipix.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=3896

_______________________________

Online

Categories:

Photoshop.com (Upload video to Photoshop.com)

YouTube (Upload video to YouTube)

Podbean (Podcast Hosting)

Photoshop.com

This appears to have non changeable preset components.

YouTube

This also appears to have non changeable preset components. But it now has two preset choices:

Flash Video for YouTube

Flash Video for YouTube Widescreen

Podbean

This also appears to have non changeable preset components. But it does offer four different

presets of various quality levels.

_________________________________

Personal Computer

Categories:

Adobe Flash Video (Use for posting on web pages)

MPEG (Use for Playback on this PC or burning to DVD)

AVI (Use for editing Adobe Premiere Elements)

Windows Media Player (Use for email and playback on Windows PC)

QuickTime (Use for email and playback on Mac)

Image (Use for exporting still image)

Audio (Use for exporting audio)

Adobe Flash Video

The interesting thing here is that in Premiere Elements 7 I could import .swf files, but not .flv and .f4v files. Now in Premiere Elements 8, I can import .f4v as well as .swf files into the Timeline, but not .flv.

Also of note, in Premiere Elements 7 Share/Personal Computer/Adobe Flash Video, if you wanted to maintain a transparency in the video, you used the Video On2VP6 with “Encode Alpha Channel” checked (or at least you tried to) with FLV choice selected. The end result was often an error message saying “Invalid Argument”. Most of the time, you had to go with the export with the “Encode Alpha Channel” unchecked to avoid the error message. If you tried to do this with F4V checked, there was no option available for “Encode Alpha Channel”. Now in Premiere Elements 8, the “Encode Alpha Channel” option is gone altogether (FLV or F4V).

A usually successful alternative to exporting video and maintaining the transparency was via File Menu/Export/Movie/Microsoft AVI with compression “None” and “Color Depth at “Millions + of colors”. This route is no longer available in Premiere Elements 8 now that all AVI export is now consolidated in Share/Personal Computer/AVI (what used to be Share/Personal Computer/DV AVI in version 7). That Microsoft AVI in the new location in Premiere Elements 8 does not have a Color Depth option. So, defining the procedure for maintaining transparency in a Premiere Elements 8 export needs to be done (work in progress).

MPEG

Everything remains the same in this category. Depending on the Presets selected, the Video codec is either MainConcept H.264 Video or MainConcept MPEG Video. For those using H.264 HD 1080i30 or MPEG2 1080i30 or their PAL counterparts, the file extension of the export is typically .m2t. In “MPEG” category, there can be found options for Dolby Digital (AC-2) Stereo audio, but none for Dolby Digital (AC-3) 5.1 channel audio or any other 5.1 channel audio with any other type of compression.

AVI (consolidated category to include more than just DV AVI as in Premiere Elements 7 with its File Menu/Export/Movie and AVI choices plus Share/Personal Computer DV AVI)

This is a new consolidated category as mentioned previously and contains subcategories for:

DV NTSC Standard, DV NTSC Widescreen, DV PAL Standard, DV PAL Widescreen, Microsoft AVI, and Uncompressed Microsoft AVI.

Further study is needed in what appears to be a loss of way to export video and maintain the video’s transparency areas. Video and audio codec for this Preset will be supplied on request.

There is no Dolby Digital (AC-3) 5.1 channel audio in this AVI preset.

Windows Media

This category contains video codec for HD1080i30, HD 1080i25, HD 720p25, HD 720p30, and four other categories that I will not go into. The audio offerings for this category merit looking into. Accompanying those HD video codecs are audio codecs:

Windows Media Audio 10 Professional

Windows Media Audio 9.2

Windows Media Audio 9.2 Lossless

Windows Media Audio Voice 9

ACEP.net

In Premiere Elements 7 only "2 channel choices" could be found depending on your audio codec choice. Now in Premiere Elements 8, you can find:

Windows Media Audio 10 Professional…choices with varied bitrate, kHz, and 2, 5.1, or 7.1 channel, etc.

Windows Media Audio 9.2 Lossless…choices with varied bitrate, kHz, and 2 or 5.1 channel, etc.

But here is the interesting point for me. Forgive me, audio engineers, for my limited working knowledge of audio. When Dolby Digital, the audio compressor type, exists with 5.1 channel, that is typically referred to as AC-3. So, since the Windows Media export is using the audio compressor type Windows Media Audio 10 Professional as the audio compressor (codec) with the audio format which includes 5.1 channel, it follows that Premiere Elements 8 is not offering Dolby Digital 5.1 channel (AC-3) in these options, but rather Windows Media Audio 10 Professional 5.1 channel. In the comparison of the two, I am not sure at this point which ends up on top. I did a quick search to see if I could find opinions. Here is one, maybe not the greatest, but it will give you an idea.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070913112058AAlJVxl

Audio

This also is an interesting new consolidated category in this location of the program. It offers Presets for ACC, AIFF, MP3, and Windows Waveform. Under the Advance button for each Preset are numerous options for audio format, codec, and output channels. And, yes, output channels = 5.1 channel can be found here, but we are not talking about AC-3. For example, for the Preset ACC (Advanced Audio Codec), one option is for audio format = AAC, Codec = AAC, and Output Channels = 5.1 channels.

.At this point, I think that I can safely conclude that Premiere Elements 8 is now offering some audio formats including 5.1 channel audio with some of its exports, but definitely not Dolby Digital 5.1 channel (AC-3).

I will conclude this section tomorrow with QuickTime and Image categories.

ATR

Anonymous

An excellent account of your impressions!

From your description it looks like there's still no AVCHD DVD output option, which is remarkable when all the competitive applications have had that feature for one or two development cycles. If so, I guess the workarounds using 3rd party tools will still work, but it's a bit blinkered of Adobe to not incorporate AVCHD DVD within the product.

the_wine_snob

Inspiring

Ozpeter,

Totally off-topic, but I bumped into some of your fans on another Adobe forum. I think that they know you from Audition, and they spoke so very highly of you. Were you not a MOD on the Audition forum? Are you still in that role?

Regardless, you have some fans, and they all wished you the best.

Hunt

A_T__RomanoAuthor

Inspiring

Important Add On Regarding 5.1 Channel Sound Support Premiere Elements 8

In an earlier addition to this thread, I wrote the following:

2. 5.1 Channel Sound vs Stereo (2 Channel)

In Premiere Elements 7, if you had AVCHD or MPEG2 with 5.1 channel sound, your video could go to Video Track 4/Audio Track 4 with a tiny “5.1” to the left of the audio track. That situation generated a lot of Sceneline users complaints in this regard. In the case of AVCHD with 5.1 channel, using the correct project preset could correct the situation. In the case of MPEG2 with 5.1 channel, you worked in the Timeline with your video and audio on those upper tracks. Now, right or wrong project preset (new project dialog), you can drag video with 5.1 channel sound to any track on the Timeline. However, the program continues to support the export of Dolby Digital Stereo (2 channel sound), not 5.1 channel sound.

That last statement which I have placed in bold type needs to elaborated on.

Further inspection of the program indicates that there are some 5.1 channel export routes available in this new version in a new export with the path Share/Personal Computer/Audio and Share/Personal Computer/Windows Media. My comprehensive overview of Premiere Elements 8 Exports should be ready for posting here later today and will define where 5.1 channel sound is available for export and where it continues not to be available.

But, I thought this an important enough point to post this add on now for those reading the above before I get a chance to post my Exports Report.

ATR

the_wine_snob

Inspiring

later today and will define where 5.1 channel sound is available for export and where it continues not to be available.

ATR,

This will be interesting, and I will be looking forward to your research. Even PrPro, through CS4, requires the SurCode DD 5.1 SS to encode to AC3. Now, one can Export their 5.1 Audio, as WMA, and use a program, like Audition to Export to some other formats, but to encode to full DD 5.1 SS AC3 (for use in BD, or DVD-Video), they still need an encoder of some sort. SurCode does offer a stand-alone DD 5.1 SS encoder, and also a plug-in for PrPro. They also offer a DTS encoder, but DTS is an "optional" Audio encoding scheme, so it can ONLY be used on an "optional" Audio Track on the BD, or DVD-Video. It's that encoding that is an important step.

I have not heard of any changes in the upcoming CS4.2, or CS5, so do not know if, for instance, the ~US$250 SurCode encoder will be included.

Thanks for your reporting, and I await to hear of DD 5.1 SS handling on Export, as it is very important to many users, who'd love to use this format in their finished product.

Good luck,

Hunt

A_T__RomanoAuthor

Inspiring

Hunt,

I am about to post my "almost" complete observations on Premiere Elements 8 Exports. But, before I do I want to address a fundational issue with regard to the way we (I) have been tossing around the concept of 5.1 channel sound. There are a lot of words to follow in my post on the Premiere Elements 8 exports, but I want to focus in on the fact that 5.1 channel sound comes with different compression types, for example, Dolby Digital, Windows Media Audio 10 Professional, and AAC to name three. Dolby Digital with the 5.1 channel is the one referred to as AC-3. Which is better? That is for another thread. But, it appears that Premiere Elements 8, like Premiere Elements 7, can import Dolby Digital 5.1 channel (AC-3), but does not export Dolby Digital 5.1 channel (AC-3). In the case of Premiere Elements 8, it now is exporting 5.1 channel with compression types such as Windows Media Audio 10 Professional and AAC.

Looking forward to your comments on the following.

ATR

the_wine_snob

Inspiring

ATR,

I do not want to sidetrack you from this very informative project, that you are sharing with us all, but have a question on PrE 8.

The OP in this THREAD, seems to indicate that the New Project mechanics have changed. You touched on a change with New Project, but I did not see comments on this, and would expect that you would have mentioned it.

If I read correctly, in that referenced thread, the OP is indicating that when one chooses New Project, fills in the dialog screen with Presets and other info (per normal), that PrE 8 opens with no Project. The user must then navigate to where that New Project was created to actually Open it. Can you confirm this behavior? I would find this a rather odd departure from how things have always been done and are still done on the PrPro side of things.

Thanks and sorry for the interruption,

Hunt

A_T__RomanoAuthor

Inspiring

Hunt

I cannot confirm the details that you presented. I am not sure if there is some confusion on the part of the user between an early seen tab that says New Project and the New Project dialog itself. Because, once you have the New Project “dialog” itself as you want it and click OK to it, it is a one way street to the opening of the Premiere Elements 8 workspace.

Let me go over the step by step details to see if we can determine what is happening or not happening in the case of the user. I am working from the tryout, so the routine should be the same, maybe plus or minus some tryout associated dialogs.

1. Click on the Premiere Elements 8 icon on the Desktop.

2. The Premiere Elements 8 Welcome Screen opens with promotional stuff to the right. On the left is our functional area: Organizer Tab, New Project Tab, and Open Project Tab. Up at the top right corner of the Welcome Screen (near the close X button) is an icon. When you click on that, you get 3 options for how you prefer the Welcome Screen to open after you hit that Premiere Elements 8 icon on the Desktop:

a. Just show the Welcome Screen

b. Always Launch Elements Organizer behind Welcome Screen

c. Always Launch Elements Editor behind Welcome Screen

Whichever choice you make, you are going to get that Welcome Screen coming up after hitting the Desktop icon. If you had picked “b”, the Organizer Tab would automatically have a stream like icon running, indicating that the Organizer was loading. So it saved you the time clicking on the Organizer Tab. And, if you had picked “c”, the New Project Tab would automatically have a stream like icon running, indicating that the Elements Editor was loading. So it saved you the time clicking on the New Project Tab. I prefer to leave it with “Just show the Welcome Screen” and then click either the Organizer, New Project, or Open Project tab. (I have not found a way to liquidate the Welcome Screen entirely.)

3. Onward. In my case with tryout, I next get an “Install Full Content” dialog to which I click OK. Then comes the typical Tryout Setup (27 days left…) dialog to which I click Next.

4. Then you get that window that I described in a previous thread, the one with the menu bar across the top (File/Edit/Clip/Timeline/Disc/Title/Window/Help) and everything else in the Window completely a light gray color. Keep in mind that so far we have not seen the New Project dialog itself. So what you do now is go to the File Menu in this light gray window and click New/Project. That brings up the New Project dialog itself. After you have that set as you want and click OK, the Premiere Elements workspace opens in the new project that you have designated in the New Project dialog (the one and only).

The above is the longer version of what I wrote previously.

I will go back and re-read the thread that you cited to determine if I have any further thoughts on this. That Part 3 write-up, mainly dealing the Premiere Elements 8 exports is taking forever. I hope to have it done soon. I believe there was a significant amount of change in the video audio exports that was not cited by others yet.

ATR

the_wine_snob

Inspiring

ATR,

Thank you for the info and clarifications. Sorry to interrupt your project. Keep up the great work.

Hunt

A_T__RomanoAuthor

Inspiring

Special Add On....Bug or Other

Photoshop Elements 8 Slideshow Editor slideshow Output option (Edit with Premiere Elements) to Premiere Elements 8

In an earlier accessment of the above, I said that the process was essentially the same as what occurs in Photoshop Elements 7 and Premiere Elements 7. Further looks at the process in the new versions have suggested otherwise with the process rather than the end result.

In Photoshop Elements 7/Premiere Elements 7, after you outputted the slideshow with what is called Send To Premiere Elements in the 7 version, the slideshow would automatically be sent to Premiere Elements where you would find:

a. In Media Panel: a folder with the slideshow's assets and a file representing the slideshow in a video format

and in addition

b. Your slideshow in a video format on the Timeline

c. If desired for additional edits, you can use the Premiere Elements 7 Break Apart Adobe Photoshop Elements Slideshow command to do that with the Timeline content.

I cannot get that to happen as described above in Photoshop Elements 8/Premiere Elements 8. The only way I get to the Media Panel/Timeline end result is with Premiere Elements 8 opened when the functional Edit with Premiere Elements command is hit in the "Elements Organizer". At first I thought that it was related to the settings on the Welcome Screen when you commanded Premiere Elements to open. If you go to the Premiere Elements 8 Welcome Screen top right, next to the close X, there is an icon to set what you get when you start Premiere Elements:

a. Just show the Welcome Screen

b. Always Launch Elements Organizer behind the Welcome Screen

c. Always Launch Premiere Elements Editor behind the Welcome Screen

That was not the answer.

This is what I ended up having to do:

a. Created Slideshow in Photoshop Elements 8 Slideshow Editor

b. Click on Output, selected "Edit with Premiere Elements"....that did launch Premiere Elements 8.

c. In my trial version, clicked OK to Install Full Content dialog, and clicked Continue for the Trial Version dialog

d. I was now facing the window with the menu bar running across the top and everything else gray.

e. Now I clicked on the Elements Organizer panel in the Task Bar to bring that into view in the Window

f. Selected again Output, Edit with Premiere Elements

g At this point, I clicked on the Premiere Elements panel in the Task Bar which was flashing orange. This action brought up the Premiere Elements New Project dialog which I set accordingly. When I clicked OK to the New Project dialog, an Add Media dialog flashed across the screen as the Edit workspace opened with the Media/Timeline representing the Photoshop Elements 8 Slideshow Editor slideshow. And, yes, I could successfully use the Premiere Elements 8 Break Apart Adobe Photoshop Elements Slideshow command.

If this is not a bug and not an operator misdirection, then this process does seem a downstep in the version evolutions.

Anyone else run into this?

ATR

A_T__RomanoAuthor

Inspiring

I have not gotten to Part 3 yet. This is an add on to the last add on.

I tried to find the Premiere Elements 8 Read Me file since those Read Me files usually contain "Known Bug Messages". I could not find that Adobe had put it online, but I did dig it out of the try out download folder. Here is the excerpt on Premiere Elements 8 known bugs/issues:

Adobe Premiere Elements 8.0 Known Issues

Importing Adobe Premiere Elements 3.0 and 4.0 Projects

• Effect keyframes in Premiere elements 3.0 projects may not import correctly

Capturing and Importing Video
DV Device control will be disabled and capture will not proceed normally if sound card is not present or offline.

· If capture is interrupted by a system event such as switching users, locking the system, or the screensaver, the duration of the captured file will be much shorter than expected. It is recommended to disable the screensaver before starting capture, and to avoid any actions that may interfere with the capture.

· For live capture from DV camcorders, you must first disable scene detect.

· When importing some Flash files a “Macromedia Flash Player security" message reading “Flash player has stopped potentially unsafe operation" may appear. Click “OK”, and the file will import normally.

· When capturing form HDV camcorders you may see interlace lines in the preview window, The interlace lines do not appear in the captured video

· Divx files may not be imported properly and sometimes import only audio or video part of it

· After completing time-lapse capture, it may take some time for the organizer to update and display the thumbnails for the captured files. Still images captured using Stop Motion are not added to the organizer.

· Importing media from some devices requires that the drivers provided with devices are installed

· Stop Motion capture is not supported for HDV camcorders.

Organizer

• When reconnecting missing media, each grouped scene must be reconnected individually

Edit

· If issues are seen with color in preview, switch to CPU playback mode by un-checking “Enable GPU Playback” checkbox in Edit>preferences>General and restart application after saving your project.

· Generation of thumbnails for DVD scene menus may take longer than expected when using HDV content.

· Organizer may exhibit performance issues with large catalogs (5000-10,000 files )

· With some GPU cards enabling “Accelerated GPU Effects” may cause the preview to be zoomed in.

· Voice over narration may not be recorded using a mono USB microphone

· When previewing audio mixes, pops may be heard as the CTI passes form one clip to the next. These pops will not appear in your exported movie

Audio mixer sliders may become “sticky” when mixing clips that have been time stretched

· [Japanese & Chinese Simplified SPECIFIC] When application is installed to path that contains double byte characters path, GPU effects/transition will not function.

· [Japanese SPECIFIC] Inputting ¥ symbol in Menu templates produces a backslash ( \ )

Photoshop Elements Integration

• In Photoshop Elements, choosing “Edit in Adobe Premiere Elements” may not bring the Adobe Premiere Elements window to the foreground.

• If a Photoshop Elements slideshow is sent to Adobe Premiere Elements, further edits in Photoshop Elements will not be reflected in Adobe Premiere Elements.

• Images saved in Photoshop Elements in BMP mode using the Advanced Settings cannot be imported into Adobe Premiere Elements. This includes images created using Adobe Premiere Elements Freeze Frame function and sent to Photoshop Elements for editing. If the image is saved using Photoshop Elements Advanced Settings, it cannot be returned to Adobe Premiere Elements, and as result, the original, unedited Freeze Frame image will be used.

• Send to Premiere Elements 8.0 will not work from older versions of Photoshop Elements

Exporting Movies

• Export of movies to the root directory of any drive (e.g. D:\) may fail.

• When exporting movies over one hour to MPEG2 format, the render dialog may continue to be displayed for a period of time after the render progress bar appears to have completed. Rendering is still occurring until the render dialog boxes closes. Clicking Cancel before the render dialog box closes will interrupt this process, and your export file will not be created

• For play back on a PSP, movies must include both audio and video. Movies exported with video only or audio only will not play back on the PSP.

• Archival of projects with Type 1 DV-AVI files is not supported.

• If standard definition menu templates are used when burning to Bluray, menu images s will appear of low quality

• When attempting to burn a Bluray disc to a previously burned disc, you will see an error message indicating that the disc is incompatible, instead of an error message indicating the disc is full.

• Movies exported in H.264 format may have a few white frames added to the end

• Movies exported in MPEG2 format may be a few frames shorter than the original movie

This seems to answer my question about Photoshop Elements 8/Premiere Element 8 integration regarding slideshows, but may be of more widespread interest to others for the other "known bugs" cited by Adobe.

ATR

Show more replies

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded