CAA: Christian Anime Alliance

I've been using premiere elements on my new Acer Aspire Athlon 3500 with 1GB ram and All in wonder card on Windows XP Media edition with norton anti-virus (newest one) on autoprotect mode and, I guess, Catalyst (ATI's control panel) running in the background...

Several Problems:

1. files that work fine in media player don't import correctly... Even files that were captured using the same methods (such as those in a series of captures) will work for most of them, and not for others... Then, the same files that worked on one project show up green on another project... Even with MPEG-2 files, which should be standard since i'm going to be burning DVDs, they sometimes work, sometimes don't...

2. Files that seem to show up end up being uneditable... I can't find individual frames, because the preview window carries the same image over several minutes worth of frames when I search by hand... When I play it, it is very jerky (this should not be with my all in wonder, my 1GB of ram, and my 2.2 Ghz (supposedly comparable to 3.4 intel)... Really) and I can't stop on any specific frame...

3. Putting clips on the timeline, with it supposedly snapping to the end of the last file, occasionally cuts my clips (when i haven't used the razor tool) and places the new file in the middle of the clips, leaving small trails at the end... I never used the razor tool, I never cut the stupid things up... i don't get it...

This is not related to premiere, but on my library tool from ATI, sometimes the right click menu on the movie files will include a feature to "Export" (which is very usefull, so I can convert stuff to MPEG - 2 on there, instead of in premiere) Also, it worked once, but after that it didn't, then it did again... Something's up, and i don't think it's a virus or spyware because I've only had my comp for 2 days!

Hmm.

First off, 1 GB of RAM isn't all that much, but you should be having performance problems, not glitches.

Make sure you've got the latest WMP updates, and check the codec on the import/encode program. Make sure there's nothing fancy in there.

Also, check your HD very thoroughly (a good disk checker) as you might have some read/write errors that could give you spotty errors like this.

It might also be bad RAM. If just the right byte is bad, the whole darn thing can get messy. Be sure to check that as well.

HIH

On the other hand, I've heard of pros complaining about the full Premiere

Adobe and Video Editing... ugh. You need about $5 Grand in Adobe Software to do everything. I prefer Sony Vegas myself. Even the home version has uses

Mithrandir wrote:Hmm.

First off, 1 GB of RAM isn't all that much, but you should be having performance problems, not glitches.

Make sure you've got the latest WMP updates, and check the codec on the import/encode program. Make sure there's nothing fancy in there.

Also, check your HD very thoroughly (a good disk checker) as you might have some read/write errors that could give you spotty errors like this.

It might also be bad RAM. If just the right byte is bad, the whole darn thing can get messy. Be sure to check that as well.

HIH

Ok... How do I check the ram, for one?

Then, the codecs... how do I check them, and why would premiere use a different process than media player, if the codecs are shared in all the movie players (I can watch the same files in realplayer, quicktime, media player, jet Audio, and winamp on my other machine...)

I'll do the HD check, but should there really be problems like this after only 2 days of owning the thing??

adobe wrote: * Intel® Pentium® 4, M, D, or Extreme Edition or AMD Opteron or Athlon 64 (SSE2 support required)
* Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional, Home Edition, or Media Center Edition with Service Pack 2
* 256MB of RAM
* 4GB of available hard-disk space
* DVD-ROM drive (compatible DVD burner required to burn DVDs)
* 1,024x768 16-bit XGA display
* Microsoft DirectX 9 compatible sound and display drivers
* DV/i.LINK/FireWire/IEEE 1394 interface to connect a Digital 8 or DV camcorder, or a USB2 interface to connect a DV-via-USB-compatible DV camcorder (other video devices supported via the Media Downloader)

I fit the basic requirements here. It says I only need 256, I have 1024 (though the system thing says it's just 980, I dont' know what happened to the other 24 megabytes) plus the Video card has it's own dedicated memory, not shared with the ram... 256 MB. Also, Videomaker and PC world both game premiere the big thumbs up according to that reviews site... I should find some negative reviews and see what they have to say about it, I guess...

edit: I misread what he was asking. Ignore this

Is this version 2? If so, I'm surprise they haven't addressed some of these issues.

1. YES!! Premiere Elements is picky about the file formats. I find this very frustrating too. But I haven't heard it rejecting some files and accepting others, all made with the same method and format....
I've found that usually this works:
A. Open up Windows Movie Maker and try opening it there. If so, put it in the timeline and output the video as a DV AVI.
B. Otherwise, try opening it in VirtualDub (try the latest version, even if it's beta - I think it had sound problems in earlier ones). Change the video and audio processing settings to Direct Copy and save it as a new file.

With either way, try these with a small portion of the video (like a minute) and try opening it in Premiere Elements and see if that works.

Yes, you need double the disk space to do it, and yes it takes time, but for some files it is the only way I know of...

Not sure about the other ones though... The glitchy problems have nothing to do with incapable hardware, because yours does sound very capable..