[Andy Prada]

I’m sure you’ve done this but just check your sequence settings. I had a similar situation on a PAL sequence. For some unknown reason the sequence, when re-inserting into another project, had defaulted to NTSC so everything was out of kilter when I rendered the timeline. I de-rendered it, changed the setting to PAL D1 and everything was fine.

Non-rendered timelines (either NTSC or PAL) tend to look ok in preview. It’s only when you render that they appear mis-located.

[Andy Prada]

Try turning off all the GUI gubbins in Win 7 – those lovely little soft edges and dissolves that mean nothing to editors but almost almost hog and clog the cpu even at Core i7 level. As Vince rightly says, a better (and more compatible) graphics card will definitely help. But I found that Windows 7 smoothy technology was the real culprit so you might try this first.

[Andy Prada]

Isn’t it interesting how everything seems to have come full circle? I still work with Avid (oh yes!) having done one of the first training courses at the National Film School in UK way back in the last century.

Avid was castigated by some because it relied on expensive proprietry hardware (cards, etc) that pushed it well outside the affordability path of many corporate and non-broadcast video makers. “Too expensive!” everyone cried as they soldiered on with less than perfect functionality and wrinkles to boot with various versions of alternative software. (myself included I might add)

Now we may be on the cusp of having so called Mercury engines that are only thus because they have a couple of mega quadro thingamajigs supporting them at a cost of $XXX and need a cpu the size of the pentagon to power them.

Wistfully I do wonder if we’d all be better off with a steenbeck and a little more imagination. Or maybe perhaps I should retire.

[Andy Prada]

I must disagree with Roger over the capability of drives to play lossless footage. I use my second PC (Q6700 4Gb RAM WinXP SD Decklink) to lay back uncompressed program mixdowns all the time from a single Seagate SATA 7200 Barracuda. Granted, the files tend to be less than 20 mins – but I don’t get any problems whatsoever.

Note the emphasis here on mixdown. Where one might get problems is through Premiere in a rendered (non-mixdown) timeline. Here you are asking a lot from both cpu and memory to switch instantly between rendered shots.

It may sound old fashioned but I don’t hold with all this fancy stuff from Adobe about being able to open everything ‘live’ all the time. I finish a program, check it, check it again and then mix it down. If I need to amend it I export it again – it only takes a few minutes.

This works for me but I do recognise that this might not be to everyone’s taste.

[Andy Prada]

I’ve had this problem a few times with CS4 working in PAL. Set capture in Premiere to HDV save and exit. Reboot your system and then connect the firewire cable. Then load Premiere. You should then get what you need. I’m not altogether sure this is a Premiere problem – more an interface problem. Windows sometimes gets a little confused as to what it’s expected to see. No matter, it always works for me.

[Andy Prada]

I think a lot depends on the project being employed as to whether memory is a bugbear or simply not an issue. I use a Core i7 950 with 12Gb RAM and a Decklink card.(Win7 64bit)

I do a lot of uncompressed work with chromakey and Boris BCC6 effects – storage isn’t a problem and this is the most efficient workstream for me. On these and DV projects I sometime get memory issues but they tend to be on more complex projects where other assets are mixed on the timeline – stills, WMVs etc. (DV is, of course, highly compressed but in essence an efficient stream.)

HDV on the other hand gives me all kinds of issues. MPEG is hugely processor hungry but also memory too. Just watch how long it takes to load files at the startup. I’ve recently been working on an HDV project for a client where the amount of footage keeps growing and growing. It’s got to the stage that CS4 simply hangs for ages quite regularly even though processor and memory take seem quite within W7 64bit tolerances. Pro itself shows almost 2Gb memory taken and Importer processor nearly 1Gb. It grinds to a halt, plays erratically and eventually exports to AME if I schedule a meal break in.

Re-booting does help but not much. But why should I HAVE to re-boot? The answer was to split the project and work with a smaller input of data. Hey presto memory problems disappear.

Now what does that tell us?

Well, for a start it tells us a lot about the way CS4 handles memory which is not optimal to say the least. Having to split the core processes of CS4 into various importer functions and coordination servers – photoshop etc seems to me to be a complete mess and no one can convince me otherwise. I can appreciate that it seems, on the surface, to facilitate better the linking of Adobe’s various other applications “seemlessly”. Mmm, but not at the expense of the core product surely?

Also, the fact that CS4 is only optimised for 64bit also suggests that Adobe is filling a hole here before the introduction of CS5 – hopefully a radically new architecture. (Hopefully)

The reason I use Premiere in the first place (I also use Avid, FCP and Liquid professionally too) is because it’s got the best intuitive interface and the best potential architecture. It just feels right.

But if I had a wishlist for 5 it would simply be based on Microsoft’s recent conversion on the road to Damascus re Windows 7 – keep it simple stupid! I want Premiere to do what it says on the tin VERY WELL without compromise or the need to link elsewhere.

Oh and by the way (personal whinge here!) – RS442 capture over time-code breaks is a lot more useful for real editors than a garbled speech recognition facility that takes more time to edit than transcribing from scratch.

[Andy Prada]

I recently got jerky video syndrome with PPro4 even on a newly configured Core i7 950 with 12Gb RAM. (9600GT NVidia card)

I cured it by turning off all the little display enhancements in Windows 7 (softening, dissolves etc) and have not any had problems since.

[Andy Prada]

I’ve run into problems similar to yours, of which I’ve spoken in another related post. I have a Core i7 950 X58 deluxe asrock with 12Gb ram. Intensity Pro was recognized fleetingly but would not work correctly therafter and after re-installing failed to show up at all in new hardware. BM tell me there are compatibility issues with the X58 chipset. The new bios / chipset (2.30) issued by intel recently certainly does nothing for my system although I can’t speak for others.

The general advice seems to be go for a P55 Chipset Mobo. Personally I feel I’m now going 1 step forward and two steps back with a lot of bucks going out the door at the same time. But maybe this is what I should expect in trying to do a self-build.

[Andy Prada]

I’ve got the latest Bios update 2.3 for the board together with the latest drivers and chipset – downloaded from the asrock website.

MY PC still doesn’t recognize my Intensity hardware. Could be that the board has fried of course, but BM don’t think this is likely.

I’m going to pop it into another redundant system to see if it will recognise it.

[Andy Prada]

I have a core i7 950 cpu with an Asrock X58 deluxe mobo. I can definitely say that the Intensity pro does not work with it. I’m currently looking at other solutions.