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PP CS4 Crashes – significance of red line above time line
I’ve just noticed something that might be a clue as to what is causing the crashes.
On the timeline you will see a variety of .avi clips all from the same camera imported onto the timeline.
I noticed today that the clips that will not play in the program window DO NOT have a RED LINE above it (noted with the “B” and arrow)
The ones identified with the “A” have a red line.
Now….follow along here.
When I import these one at a time onto the timeline 99% of the time they will not have a red line above them.
If I click to choose a clip, the prgram window will be BLACK with no video. If I then click on “play”, the video clip CAN BE HEARD but you see only black in the program window.
The trick I learned is to place my cursor on the black program video area and click the mouse a few times. Once I do that, the window “comes alive” and I can see the video.
However, while the video can now be seen, it is FROZEN on one frame, but playing it I hear the audio. If I click again on the black area it will move to that frame but stop on it.
I have learned that if I click, move the frame around, click again, do some other clicks and hold the rabbit foot above my keyboard, after 5 or 10 seconds of this routine, the RED LINE suddenly appears above the TIMELINE (as seen in “A”) and like magic the video becomes normal and can be played.
You can imagine how tedious this is to get all your imported clips to work.
It is totally random, sometimes you have to do it with some of them, and other times just a few.
The big problem is, that 30% of the time, PP will crash and you need to restart it, which causes me to save every time I play with a clip to get it to come “alive”.
Since I do not know the meaning of the RED LINE, I thought this may be a clue.
I would also like to note, I have done a fresh boot and it does not matter, the same problems come up.
In addition, this is the same sort of problem on the SOURCE WINDOW, however in that one, the window simply remains GREY, and crashes 99% of the time while you try to “finese” and coax it to work.
Any ideas?
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12 Replies
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It gets FUNNIER!!!
Ok….and this is NOT a joke!!!!
I perhaps have made a major breakthrough for all my editing brothers and sisters who are tormented by Adobes bug plagued software.
Not a fix, but a workaround to keep some of your hair on your head.
Playing with the clips that do not have the red line above it, I have discovered through trial and error the following method of bringing your clips to life.
1) place on the time line.
2) for the clips that are black in the window click on them once to see the frame in the program window.
3) now that you can see it, now click on the frame in the window, and while holding down the mouse button (like to drag) take that frame and “shake” it back and forth quickly with your mouse as if you are shaking a rag doll.
Don’t ask me why this works, but it does.
While shaking it, after a few seconds you will see the RED LINE magically appear and you can stop and let go. At that point the cliop is now usable in the Program window.
Unfortunately if you are having problems with the SOURCE window, this does not help, and if you take that click and drop it in your SOURCE Window, it will likely crash it.
If I find a simialar way to get the SOURCE working I will post it.
Anyone have a theory what is going on????
Perhaps by shaking the video, the bits and bytes come lose and then fall into the window!!!
Adobe are YOU listening???????? Are you embarrased?
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Sounds like you are having some hardware incompatibility issues.
The red line can mean a few things. the sequence doesn’t match the clip, there is an effect applied to the clip, or you don;t have enough processing power to play without rendering…
What are your system / OS specs and what is the format of footage you are bringing in?
Vince Becquiot
Kaptis Studios
San Francisco – Bay Area -
Vince thanks for the response.
I can’t imagine that could be the problem, but here are my specs…let me know what you think.
First let me say that upon having this problem when I first installed the app, I reformated BOTH my systems and reinstalled new fresh copies of XP Pro on both of them, and then did clean installs of PP CS4 and yes they are legit apps.
Both systems are running fresh copies of XP Pro service pack 3. Video drivers were updated to most current NVIDEA to see if that would correct problems.
BIOS on boths systems updated to latest versions also to see if it would solve issue.
System 1:
HP XW6200 workstation
Dual Core Processor
4 gigs RAM (RAM was tested)
RAID system with 300 gig
1 Terabyte 10k SATA seperate drive that is used for application data and rendering
NVIDEA Quadro FX 1400
LG 23″ digital flat panel HD monitor hooked up on the HDMI portThis is a dedicated PC, no other apps run.
System 2:
HP XW6200 workstation
Dual Core Processor
4 gigs RAM (RAM was tested)
2 SATA drives 10k speed and 5ms both drives are 500gig
NVIDEA Quadro FX 1400
SyncMaster 205W flat panel monitor hooked up on the HDMI portPage files were adjusted to Adobe recommendations.
This PC has MS Office, Adobe Dreamweaver and Adobe Photoshop and a few other minor utility programs such as WS_FTP etc.
Both these systems were used by me prior to PP as intense Stock Trading platforms and graphics work, and I had zero problems. It is only Adobe PP CS4 that has given me issues.
Also. the only time I have problems is with Adobe PP. I do not have any issues when using Photoshop, Dreamweaver or Office apps.
Given the issue is on 2 seperate systems that have slightly different configs, I have to point the finger at Adobe. Inparticular the number of crash issues that is evident across the internet with people using Adobe PP, I have to think that there are some serious issues remaining in this rollout.
What video card are you using? I might want to try installing a new video card in one system to see what happens.
My files imported are as follows:
File Path: X:Raw DataPaulHVR0_0003_2009-08-19_010651.AVI
Type: AVI Movie
File Size: 3.4 GB
Image Size: 720 x 480
Pixel Depth: 32
Frame Rate: 29.97
Source Audio Format: 48000 Hz – 16 bit – Stereo
Project Audio Format: 48000 Hz – 32 bit floating point – Stereo
Total Duration: 00;16;47;29
Average Data Rate: 3.4 MB / second
Pixel Aspect Ratio: 1.2121AVI File details:
Contains 1 video track(s) and 0 audio track(s).Video track 1:
Size is 3.37G bytes (average frame = 117.18K bytes)
There are 30209 keyframes.
Frame rate is 29.97 fps
Frame size is 720 x 480
Depth is 24 bits.It is shot on a Sony HVR-Z7U directly to digital card, which is then transfered from the CP Flash to the PC.
Shot HDV 1080i
Also, the clip only works once that RED line appears above the clip on the Timeline. If there is no red line, you cannot see the video.
Finally let me add that these are FRESH imports, and have not yet been changed in any way. In other words they just came off the CF Card on the cam, to the Hardrive of the PC and were imported into a new project onto the timeline. It is at that point that I am unable to see the clips without going through the scenerio at the top.
Thanks, look forward to your response.
Rick
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Vince,
You did give me an idea by your questioning. I might have been using the wrong project template, so I opened a new project and carefully selected the matching template for the video that was shot…ie. 1080i 29.97 FPS etc, and then openind it and started importing the clips.
Like magic everything worked! No more vid problems and my crashes in the Project window are a thing of the past!
If this is the real problem, then Adobe needs to fix this, so that novices like me who open the wrong template with the video, should be warned that we are not using a compatible setup instead of simply crashing the system.
I hope at least this helps others who might be having simialar issues.
Any other revelations you might have, I would like to hear, but it looks like this might have been solved, with your help of course!
Rick
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We use ASUS 4870 on 2 our systems, and a Quadro FX card on one other system to work with an AJA card.
If you have the exact same issue on 2 systems, then it is most likely linked to the footage, or as you say a particular bug.
Concerning the crash issues, I have to say that we just don’t see them. Memory is probably the biggest factor.
For HD, I wouldn’t work with less than 6 Gigs.
We do build our own systems, but I have a tech do the BIOS setup as I would need to seat down and read for an entire month trying to keep up with the latest configurations, and I suppose it could be linked to many problem as well.
I can’t comment on your particular footage, maybe others using HDV can chime in.
Vince Becquiot
Kaptis Studios
San Francisco – Bay Area -
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Not sure sure these kind of replies are any more helpful.
Well, I’ll give you that, at least it was short.
Vince Becquiot
Kaptis Studios
San Francisco – Bay Area -
you’re always helpful and generous with your time here vince, a good example to us all. and you’re right it’s probably never useful or good manners to state the obvious. if offended, my apologies to senor rick. i just lost it after such a detailed, lengthy and wild goose chase to the end solution of what that mysterious red line might mean. i was excited by the mouse shaking discovery, and up until the very end i was sure it was all adobe’s fault with all that embarrassing bad software they write. (i didn’t want to spoil the surprise ending solution by typing in “red line” in premier help.) anyway, the mystery kind of had a trick ending that threw me. again, my apologies.
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Vince it only cut down the crashes dramatically, it has NOT solved the crashes fully. I still experience them, and despite phone calls to Adobe I have no solution to preventing them.
Thanks for your help
RC
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Hi Rick. Let’s cool down a little. Are you using a matrox card? This could cause problems. The graphics cards you are using may not run the best with latest drivers. The redraw issues where u can’t see the image in the source or program monitor hints that the Gfx card drivers might not be happy. I think there might be known issues with hdv disk recorded files that ppro ain’t always happy with. Take a look at cineform to concrt the files into avi files. U can get a trial and if it solves problems the cost isn’t that much.
good luck – Jon BarrieJon Barrie
aJBprods
http://www.jonbarrie.net
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