I think some perspective is getting lost in all of this. Yes, it is frustrating that small issues persist for a long period of time. I've had an issue with the way Premiere imports Panasonic P2 media from day 1. Used User voice, these forums, every outlet possible and almost 5 years later the problem still exists. I found a workaround to the problem, so it isn't life-altering, but still, it would be nice if Adobe would address the issue.
But I'm also a realist. Any non-linear-editor software out there has issues. Avid? Yup, cut on it for 12 years, we would bang our head on a desk almost daily. Final Cut? Yup, I know people who cut on it who are ready to try out for the US Olympic MacBook tossing for distance team. NLE's are incredibly complex pieces of software, not to mention they are trying to service what is becoming a nightmare of video standards. I've been a television news photographer for 27 years. When I started in the business there were maybe 3-5 professional formats being shot on... 3/4 inch tape if you had old equipment. Betacam, pretty much the standard for a solid decade, DVCPro crept in after Panasonic's miserable MII format. But no matter what the tape format was, the base engineering in America was the same, NTSC, 4x3 480 television, 29.97 frames per second that we all just rounded up to 30. That's all the engineers had to worry about the final image being. It was PAL if you were over in Europe, but beyond those two formats that was it for video.The Hollywood people shot fancy film at 24 frames per second, so you'd see 24 frame projects and wonder what that was all about. Now, it goes from 480 all the way up to 8K, 24 frame? 30 frame? 60 frame? Not to mention aspect ratios are all across the board from 1x1 for Instagram to 16x9 to just about any other combo you can dream up. Someone has to write all the code for that, and try to keep up with all the changes. Not to mention digital media means the software has to be able to read from thousands of camera formats directly, vs the old days of plugging analog decks into a bridge, and the software just had to know the one bridge. You hope they can swing a good bat, but no one bats a thousand. Ever.
Part of the responsibility for smooth operation falls on the end-user too. All these changes mean more computing power is necessary. The broadcaster I work for puts my HP Z book laptop on a 3-year replacement schedule. If you've ever priced those notebooks you'll know that isn't a cheap schedule to follow. They do that because they understand that our hardware needs to stay current to ensure reliability in the field. We used to cut on Avid Newscutter. Sure we had the software for 4 or 5 years between major upgrades, but the number of features we were losing out on was enormous that way. With Adobe we are staying right on the cutting edge of innovation (if we choose to upgrade to the latest version) From CC 2018 to CC 2020 you've started in on your third major release of a piece of software, chances are you're due to evaluate your hardware. PC towers are much easier as you can add or upgrade RAM much easier, swap out an old 7200 drive for an SSD drive and get legs out of your hardware investment. Eventually your processor will become outdated, as will your graphics card. This is some of the most intense software developed for the creative artist out there, you have to make sure as you upgrade that your machine is up to the task as well.
We are asking engineers to try to get every combination of camera, resolution, and aspect ratio right every single time. Again, no one bats a thousand. Ever. But I'll take Adobe's at-bat percentage most days. If you can't live with it, the door to exit is marked "Cancel my account"
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