[Andy Prada]

Couple of things you might try before ending it all!!

Switch off your PC completely – including the back mains plug for 30 secs (do not simply restart) Then switch on again. Load the project as normal. Let the media import. Sometimes, with lots of differing file types, this can take a while so don’t be tempted to try and click on boxes to do anything in the meantime. Now try to access your work.

If this doesn’t work you may have a corruption somewhere.

Create a new project similar to the one you already have. Import your problem project but only one sequence at a time. After each successful sequence import save and exit. There will be a point where a corrupted sequence (IMHO) will foul up the project. You can deduce this by process of elimination.

Failing all this you may have to work with your AE project – albeit having to re-do your titles.

My experience of CS4 is that one has to constantly think ahead of the game. It crashes frequently and unexpectantly despite me having a pretty hi spec PC (W7/64b Core i7 950 12Gb RAM)

This may be because I am using BCC6 with some pretty hefty filtering along timelines of up to 30 mins so memory is always stretched. (Very often Premiere is up to nearly 3Gb RAM in system manager.)

Hope this helps

andy

[Andy Prada]

Thanks for the heads up Steve.

A couple of questions for you: How does the Mercury Engine work without your optimum NVidia assets in place – i.e. how does it perform CPU wise as opposed to GPU? Is there still a considerable performance hike or will one be required to upgrade hardware?

Also: In terms of 64 bit performance, does the whole Adobe Premiere Pro kernal itself now utilise the +4Gb RAM benefit? (CS4 had to split the operation into separate processes)

best

andy

[Andy Prada]

Other posts on the forum point to the NVidia Quadro CX as a kind of best option for CS4 – although it’s quite pricey. Certainly the Quadro series of cards gets high ratings amongst users in general.

I have a 9600GT playing through a Core i7 950 64bit PC which works ok but is a fair bit cheaper. A lot depends on what you want to pay – bang for bucks as they say! As I use a decklink card for final output, I’m less bothered about a less than perfect lcd video display.

Have you tried an alternative card from ATI – maybe an Nvidia? It might be worth it before you go platinum card shopping.

[Andy Prada]

I have an interesting if limited workaround for playback of HDV which was forced upon me recently. Problem: My new X58 deluxe AsRock Mobo won’t make friends with my Intesity Pro card. In fact they don’t even talk!

I need to monitor HDV…but not exclusively. I bought a cheapish 512mb ATI graphics card with HDMI out and installed it alongside my NVidia 9600GT (dual dvi out). IN CS4 I went to Playback settings and chose Monitor 3 (1920×1080)as my preferred external output device. Hey presto the Video output pops up on the LCD through the standard HDMI port.

Now this workaround isn’t 100% or even 90%. For a start the refresh is limited to the speed of the output card and the cpu’s ability to keep up (btw I have a core i7 950) So movment isn’t always as smooth as I would like. But it’s quite acceptable and is better than nothing. I will manage for the moment because I input and output most of my work through a second decklink card that does perform (albeit with XPSP3).

The big snag is that I can’t import direct from the i7 PC. I’m still waiting for a bios update that might sort the problem.

[Andy Prada]

There seems to be an incompatibility between Intensity Pro and some chipsets – notably the X58 based motherboards. I say seems because other forum posts suggest that the card wotks with some X58 boards but not others. I am one of the others and my x58 AsRock deluxe doesn’t work with the intensity card. Windows 7 saw it briefly then froze on firmware update 3.6 and then stopped recognising it completely. I could be wrong but I think the feeling out there is that the P55 motherboards work better with the cards.

[Andy Prada]

Thanks for intervening here John. Normally an oversized image will simply blow out on a timeline i.e. will need to be shrunk (or blown) using the size adjustment. The indication here is that the sequence is oversized rather than the image. I can’t re-create this. The offset is odd too as normally the oversize image will be central to the screen, rather than offset, would it not?

The reason I mention the PAL-NTSC discrepancy is that I’ve had direct experience of it. In non-renedered mode it looks ok but, when rendered, looks offset.

[Andy Prada]

Mmmm! an NTSC DV widescreen sequence should be rectangular pixels @ 720 x 480 not as you have it.

Indulge me!

Create a new DV NTSC sequence – File..New..DV NTSC Widescreen 48kz etc
Copy your made up sequence into it and render
Feed back to me

[Andy Prada]

Are you working in NTSC or PAL? Tell me exactly what your sequence setting says.

[Andy Prada]

Good point Roger. But I had calculated that he had HDV files because of the aspect ratio and hence my comment. I agree that one would be waiting for Godot before a pukka HD file would play on a single 7200 drive.

[Andy Prada]

As I work from UK and use PAL, I merely used my situation as an example of a setting that was different to what I had thought it to be casusing similar problems to your own.

If you work in NTSC then ideally everything should be set to that format unless or until you wish to export. Then you can make whatever format you need as a deliverable.

Quick question. When you view the timeline un-previewed, does everything look normal? If you render does it then look abnormal? Forget Export for the moment.