[Rick Connolly]

Thanks,

I’ve got some calls back from my pals in the biz finally and they gave me some info too….seems that they charge by the second or frames.

One last question….any source you can point me to for wording of conditions ie. “may be used for……not resold…..” etc

Thanks again!

[Rick Connolly]

Absolutely….it is 100% our production with no distribution restrictions.

[Rick Connolly]

Joseph,

Thank you so much for the explanation, that was exactly the info I needed.

Rick

[Rick Connolly]

Well finally EVERYTHING is resolved…..it is as if I have a brand new application on my PC.

ALL the crash problems, video import problems etc. were a result of the NVIDIA Quadro FX 1400 cards.

I purchased an NVIDIA Quadro FX 3400 and a Quadro FX 3500 for my other workstation and installed them.

This cleared up 90 percent of the issues immediately.

There was still some video refresh issues, but the crashes were completely gone.

Went to the NVIDIA site, checked to see what the latest drivers were. There is a section for partner support, cliked that and it brings you to a driver section specifically for Adobe Premiere CS4.

Once those drivers were updated, everything was cleared up….now I am a happy Adobe user.

No problems any longer with M2T files, nor with the .VOB files import which would never work before.

[Rick Connolly]

Shane,

Well, interesting indeed….after reading your post I updated the drivers on video cards.

I was however a bit confused when I said I had an ATI card…I had removed that long ago. I actually am using the NVIDIA Quadra FX1300 which came with the system.

Indeed there has been a recent driver release, and I updated it.

Immediately after rebooting and starting CS4, like you I noticed a huge improvement in the video playback. There was no more choppy video in the program window….it was real time!

Now emboldened but slightly hesitant….I tried adding video into the Source window.

The good news is……I can NO LONGER make it crash! No matter what I did, I could not get the application to crash!

The bad news is….the video still will not appear in the source window.

However, I learned a buch of new things, the Source window now opens all clips that are NON .M2T format. They open immediately without problems and in fact now that I can finally use that window, I am discovering all the features it has.

But the HD M2T files will not open…the screen remains grey and dislays parts of pull down menus that were used to try using the window. At least it does not crash. If I want to close it, I just click on the “x” and reopen the window again fresh.

It is obvious now that the problem lies with the video card. It seems that NVIDIA has resolved the problems with other formats, but still not with .M2T

Hope this helps others strugling with CS4.

Going to order the NVIDIA card you recommended and see if that clears everything up.

Have you tried using an .M2T file with that card in the Source window? Would like to know before I order the card….we work mainly with .M2T files.

Thanks

[Rick Connolly]

That is interesting

I’m going to look for a simialar card and pull mine and see what happens.

I will let ya’ll know!

[Rick Connolly]

Check my posts…..we have simialar problems. I eliminated one of my monitors and am down to one large one now. That did not work….the next thing I plan on doing is replacing the video card. It might be coincidence, but I too have a ATI Catalyst in both computers.

If anyone can recommend a video card I will give it a shot.

Things are getting busy again and I cannot afford to fight with CS4 any longer.

[Rick Connolly]

Despite a year of using CS4 on two over specd HP Workstations, I have been unable to find the cause of my constant crashes (application crashes and up pops Adobe’s useless crash error reporting screen…is there anyone REALLY looking at these??)

We shoot entirely HD on our 2 Sony Z7U cams, directly to a 45MBs CF card, producing MT2 files.

Our projects are not large…usually under 15 min. No matter what I do, I cannot find the problem to the CONSTANT crashes!

In order to keep things moving forward, I continually save my project every few changes on the timeline.

90 percent the crashes seem to be related to using the Source monitor. Whenever I need to seperate video from Audio, and you need to drag a clip to the Source monitor in order to drag out just audio, I know I have about 5 seconds to do this, and then save my project before it crashes.

Another oddity is when I import the M2T files onto the timeline, they will not show up in the Program Monitor until I click on that window. Once I do a click or two, the screen suddenly comes alive, but you still cannot see running video,,,only sound. To correct this I have found,,,and YES this sounds rediculous..but it WORKS…you hold the left button down on the mouse while you move the video back and forth once or twice in the Program window, and then suddenly you see a red line appear on the timeline above that clip. Once this happens, you can use that clip.

Of course…god forbid I need to work with that clip in the Source monitor, because once I move it there KABOOM!!!!

This is 90 percent of our crashes. The other 10 come randomly and usually end with “Your application encountered a serious error…yada yada yada”

If you can offer any advice, I would appreciate it.

Rick

[Rick Connolly]

Vince,

The crash occurs even when shooting with non HD. As for the memory, XP pro cannot access more than 3 gig, so putting in more memory is on no use.

I am going to wait a few months for the bugs to get ironed out of Windows 7, then I will upgrade and add more memory and see if that has any affect.

Also going to try a different video card when I have a chance.

The more I work with it, the more I am thinking it is related to video, since the crashes all seem to center around video issues.

Also just to clarify, you commented about a bug in the footage…these crashes occur on nearly every project I work on, from normal to high resolution. I’m on my 9th project thus far and it is all the same issues. All footage is shot on a Sony HVRZ7U using tape amd the digital backpack. The same footage has been edited by an associate on their Final Cut without these issues, so it seems clear it is something to do with CS4 and video (card?)

Richard

[Rick Connolly]

I’ve been thinking of swapping out the vid card in one of the units for something else.

Here is my config.

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 port

This 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 port

As you can see both systems are very robust and dedicated to the job.

So I guess the answer is that I am using Nvidea Quadro.

As I mentioned in the other posts, the problem have been reduced now that I am using the correct template, but it still rears its ugly head.

Despite my good friends critique of my “shaking” the mouse, it WORKS to fix it. It may be a “stupid” thing to do, but can anyone explain WHY THIS WORKS? It is an obvious problem with the code…and the movement of the video back and forth invokes god knows what line in their code to then correct the problem.

It is entirely random. I just imported an M2T clip shot on the same camera, the same time, same settings, same everything.

For some explicable reason when I dragged it to the timeline I noticed that after it finished conforming the “red line” was not there. Even knowing the obvious, I attempted to drag it to the SOURCE window….and as soon as I did, 5 secods later CS4 crashed!

I rebooted, restarted CS4, reimported the same clip….and again the red line was not above the clip.

So I “grabed” the clip in the PROGRAM window, and “shook” it back and forth and as soon as I saw the red line appear I stopped and then dragged the clip to the SOURCE window and no problem all is good.

So if anyone can explain to me why this works like this (without calling me names) I would love to hear an explanation, because I sure as hell cannot find the answer in the manuals and Adobe has been no help.

But what I can tell, from my scanning the web, there are thousands of people having the same problem.

I do agree however, that it is probably video related, and it could very well be there is some coding bug that affects some video cards and not others.

If you have a recommended video card for me, then please let me know, and I will install and report back the results.

And again, in my experience…and believe me I have a LOT of experience in technology….”stupid” suggestions are NEVER stupid, and I have personally witnessed some of the most complex technical problems brainstorming and trying what seemed at first as a “stupid” theory or solution. As a project manager who worked on global projects with CISCO….I have seen it all, and the one thing I never tolerated was team members calling someones idea stupid. Problems are solved by brainstorming not telling someone to “read the f(U&&& manual.”

Thank you for allowing me to digress.

Thanks