[Jiri Fiala]

Nitzan, you need to read all the way through the link Eddie gave you 🙂 We cannot help anybody without this vital information:

1. The codecs used in your source clips (use the FREE GSpot or MediaInfo to determine the codec)
2. Premiere Pro
1. Platform in use (PC or MAC)
2. Version number
3. Installation language
4. Updates applied
5. Project settings
3. Operating System
1. Name
2. Update/patch level
3. Installed language
4. CPU type and speed
5. Amount of memory (RAM)
6. Video card
1. Manufacturer
2. Model
3. Driver version
7. Number of monitors (displays) in use
8. Audio card
1. Manufacturer
2. Model
3. Driver version
9. Each hard drive’s capacity and space remaining
1. Disk setup (partitions used, raid configuration, what is where for OS/projects/media/scratch/audio)
10. Hardware capture device
1. Manufacturer
2. Model
3. Driver version number
11. Capture software
1. Name
2. Company
3. Version
12. Comprehensive list of third-party plug-ins you installed.
13. Exact text of any error messages
14. Explain clearly what you want to do, what you are doing and what the result is
15. Be sure to mention if it is something that worked before using the same procedure
16. Very importantly: Post details of troubleshooting you have already done to avoid “did that” reponses to questions people ask when trying to help.

[Jiri Fiala]

From my experience, I would answer like this:

1) no, premiere doesn`t have any built-in intermediate codec like ProRes.
2) rendering times are similar. you won`t have to render anything on Premiere if you can live with choppy playback.
3) FCP is definitely more stable and robust than PPro. You get about the same level of (in)stability with PPro on either Mac or PC (I have both with CS4) – I thought I will get more stability and responsiveness on Mac, but that is not the case. FCP seems to run on 1 GB RAM at the same speed as Premiere CS4 with 3 gigs of RAM… CS4 is an incredible memory hog, due to componentization. It`s nice that some tasks are done in background, but this detachment of core functions from Premiere itself (pproheadless.exe, importprocess.exe etc.) means higher RAM consumption and is more prone to crashes. More programs mean more problems, it`s that simple.

Hope this helps.

[Jiri Fiala]

It is either what Pentti suggests, but also know that aston is just another word for lower third.

[Jiri Fiala]

On a side note. Requiring 8 GB RAM (as Tim Kolb says) for editing app is ridiculous, and cannot be usead as an excuse for lazy code. Heck, I have edited a 20 minute episode of a biking show (admiteddly SD) on my 4 years old laptop with 1 GB RAM and Vista (!) with Avid MC3! I had another episode (same material, another edit) edited on a Premiere CS3 machine with 4 gigs of RAM, it was opening the project for 4 minutes (avid just popped open). Something similar can be said about FCP, which is not as efficient as Avid, but is really quicker than Premiere.

Nice thing about Premiere is a wide support of formats, but, as you may know, if something is featured on a product box doesn`t necessarilly mean it really works – an example would be the painful AVCHD support, unability of scene-splitting HDV (come on, 80 USD Pinnacle has that) and almost nonfunctional OMF/AAF support (very slightly better n CS4).

[Jiri Fiala]

To Matt Rickman: depends on who you call a professional.

That may be a guy that does wedding or corporate videography for a living (that would be the majority of Premiere user base).

Or your definition of a “pro” is a broadcast, TV and film editor. In this area, very few editors actually use Premiere, for a single fact – it`s unreliable with long form project and almost impossible to talk to pro audio mixing (you really can`t mix entire TV show or film in Premiere). There are very, very few exceptions of theatrical movies edited with Premiere, Dust of Glory being the example that is being repeated over and over again – but that was edited with great help of Cineform intermediate and is not excatly a narrative piece.

So, basically, not many TV/film kind of pros use Premiere.

[Jiri Fiala]

It`s simple: AVCHD is unusable in Premiere CS4. It battles with straight cuts only, any effects or CC would render it absolutely useless. AVCHD hit the market few years too early, NO ONE, especially none of the consumers who happily think they will edit footage from their 300 USD HD camcorder on their PC, has the power to tame it.

The second thing is, PPRO CS4 is a buggy mess.

[Jiri Fiala]

I had the exact same problem, solved simply by going to Preferences (Sys. Prefs of OSX, not AE, mind you!) and increasing the Double Click Speed of a mouse.

[Jiri Fiala]

No other tuning. Just make sure you have a version of Quicktime that is approved by Avid. Apple likes to automatically update QT way too often and that can cause havoc.

[Jiri Fiala]

Can you? My X700 handles MC3 under Vista just fine.

[Jiri Fiala]

Adobe has added several new layers of complexity to CS4 bundle. There are more of these processes (process syncronization, importer, headless versions of Premiere and AFX), which are supposed to make things faster via Dynamic Link and Media Encoder, but are in fact so very brittle, unstable and poorly coded that they hardly help.

My advice would be: reinstall, and when you have stable system, DON`T update any of the critical frameworks like drivers and Quicktime, regardless of what Adobe tech support might say. Avid warns not to update for update`s sake for a reason.