Premiere Elements 8 Question

[APK]

I am currently running Premiere Elements 2 on a Windows XP SP3, 2GHz RAM, AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3200+, RADEON x700 Series video card.

With release 2, rendering and exporting are extremely slow, takes forever and can't not export video out as MP4.

Is release 8 faster/better performance when rendering and exporting?
Does release 8 export as MP4?

Thanks for your replies in advance.

[ATR]

APK

The problems that you are encountering with Premiere Elements 2 are probably computer related and with a little assist from the nature of the video on the Timeline. So, I do not believe that later versions of Premiere Elements will turn that situation around in the same computer environment.

Premiere Elements 4, 7, and 8 are setup up with a Share section which includes a category named Personal Computer. One of the export types listed under this category is QuickTime. Under the Advance Button for your QuickTime preset, you can change the Video Codec to "Apple MPEG4 Compressor" (named that in version 7) or "MPEG-4 Video" (named that in version 8). Both of these exports will have .mov file extension.

Premiere Elements 2 is a great program if you do not have the need to edit high definition movies. However, you can download a free 30 day tryout of Premiere Elements 8 from Adobe and see how it performs in your specific computer environment. Keep in mind that Premiere Elements 8 is going to take up a lot more hard drive space, compare size in Control Panel/Add and Remove Programs:
Adobe Premiere Elements 8 = 10700.00 MB
plus
Adobe Premiere Elements 8 = 5658.00 MB
with what I recall was less than total 5000 MB for the Premiere Elements 2.

You may also have to experiment with bitrates for the mpeg4 movie to determine if you can achieve the quality that you expect. If you go the tryout route, you do not have to uninstall Premiere Elements 2. Just do not use Premiere Elements 2 and 8 at the same time.

Please keep us updated on your progress. If any questions about the above, please do not hesitate to ask for more information and/or clarification on anything already written.

ATR

[APK]

What computer improvements would you suggest to relieve the slowness during rendering and export?

[Chuck Engels]

Rendering uses the CPU more than anything. Premiere Elements works best and fastest with a dual core CPU or faster.

Export uses both RAM and CPU, 2GB is usually ok but going to 4GB will add some additional speed to the process. Still, a faster CPU will give you the most noticeable and biggest bang for your buck.

Additionally, a video card with 512mb of dedicated video RAM will also be of some benefit.

Keeping your computer free of junk is a big help, clean out the temp files often, defragment the hard drives often. Use a good spyware cleaner and antivirus. Regular maintenance will give you the most out of what you already have but there isn't much you can do to make it a lot faster without a more powerful CPU.

I went from a P4 3.0 ghz machine with 2gb of RAM to machine with two dual core 3.0 CPUs.
Creating a 1 hour DVD with the old machine took about 2.5 hours. The new machine takes about 20 minutes (standard definition video). The rendering times are now about 20 % of what they used to be, 80% faster

[ATR]

APK

I would like you to focus first on what you can do with what you have. I suspect that you will see significant improvement in computer performance in doing so. I have limited computer resources with a single processor and keep it moving along at a nice pace by constant maintenance, such as defragmentation, disc clearing, disc check and repair, freeing up the C: Local Drive drive by moving what I can to an external hard drive (formatted NTFS, not FAT32), doing virus scans daily, letting Windows XP operating system handle the virtual memory, clearing out old Premiere Elements project .prel and its associated files in the Adobe Master Folder, etc.

I would prefer other, but recently I had to move my Premiere Elements 2 to my broken down Sony Vaio laptop (Windows XP Home Edition, SP3, installed RAM = 512 MB, and about 30 GB free hard drive space. It has a single core processor. I have that performing at a good pace for at least medium size projects.

This is what I would like you to do:
1. First spell out for me (a) how much installed and available RAM your computer has (b) how much free C: local hard drive space your computer has (c) are you using an external hard drive and how is it formatted? (c) the length of your typical Timeline content (d) the speed of your DVD burner.

2. Go to the master Adobe Folder (presumed still in its default location, My Documents/Adobe/Premiere Elements 2) and clear out the old project .prel files and their associated contents in the Adobe Folders, such as Auto-Save, Previews, Encoded, Media Cache. If you have an external hard drive, direct these "scratch files'" away from the internal hard drive to the external hard drive (See Edit Menu/Preference/Scratch Disks)

3. Do a clean up with ccleaner
http://www.ccleaner.com/

4. Do a Disk Cleanup. Do a virus scan. Consider also using a program such as Spywareblaster http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html

5. Defragment your computer.

6. Do not multitask when you are working with Premiere Elements.

7. Consider disabling all the start up programs, except Microsoft Services.

Let us start here and see if we can make an advances in your computer performance.

ATR

[APK]

Thanks for your replies:

1.
(a) how much installed (2046 mb) and available (1382 mb) RAM
(b) how much free C: local hard drive space 255.59 GB
I: work hard drive space 111.71 gb
(c) are you using an external hard drive and how is it formatted?
C: Fixed - NTFS
I: Fixed - NTFS
(c) the length of your typical Timeline content
The other day it was working with elements 2.0 on a one minute
MP4 video. It took 18-20 minutes to render and 18-20 to export
as a .mov
(d) the speed of your DVD burner.
CD / DVD Drives: D: SONY DVD RW DW-G120A


Misc:
Windows: Windows XP5.1 (Build 2600) Service Pack 3
Internet Explorer: 7.0.5730.11
Memory (RAM): 2047 MB
CPU Info: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3200+
CPU Speed: 1998.2 MHz
Sound card: Realtek AC97 Audio
Display Adapters: RADEON X700 Series | RADEON X700 Series Secondary | NetMeeting driver | RDPDD Chained DD |
Screen Resolution: 1024 X 768
Network Adapters: Marvell Yukon 88E8053 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller - Packet Scheduler Miniport |
CD / DVD Drives: D: SONY DVD RW DW-G120A |
Hard Disks: C: 298.1GB | I: 111.8GB | J: 698.6GB |
Hard Disks - Free: C: 255.6GB | I: 111.7GB | J: 456.5GB |
USB Controllers: Detected: 5 host controllers.
BIOS Info: AT/AT COMPATIBLE | 11/29/05 | K8T890 - 42302e31 | |
Motherboard: ASUSTek Computer INC. A8V-E SE



2. Go to the master Adobe Folder (presumed still in its default location, My Documents/Adobe/Premiere Elements 2) and clear out the old project .prel files and their associated contents in the Adobe Folders, such as Auto-Save, Previews, Encoded, Media Cache. If you have an external hard drive, direct these "scratch files'" away from the internal hard drive to the external hard drive (See Edit Menu/Preference/Scratch Disks)


I did upgraded to Premeire Elements 8 since my digital video camera records in .mp4
I hope to find time on Wednesday work with it.

I there a way to use my I: drive to speed up the processing instead of the C: drive?


3. Do a clean up with ccleaner
http://www.ccleaner.com/
Action Pending

4. Do a Disk Cleanup. Do a virus scan. Consider also using a program such as Spywareblaster http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html

5. Defragment your computer.
Action Pending.

6. Do not multitask when you are working with Premiere Elements.
I don't run anything except essential system applications

7. Consider disabling all the start up programs, except Microsoft Services.
I do shutdown all non-essential system applications.

[ATR]

3. Do a clean up with ccleaner
http://www.ccleaner.com/
Action Pending

4. Do a Disk Cleanup. Do a virus scan. Consider also using a program such as Spywareblaster http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html

5. Defragment your computer.
Action Pending.

Those actions pending may prove a big help, especially the defragmentation of the computer.

I would suggest increasing the available RAM. Apparently the 2 GB installed RAM is giving you only a little over 1 GB. Can you install total 4 GB RAM? But, for a 1 minute clip, you should be able to process a 1 minute clip, BUT it depends on the nature of that 1 minute MPEG4 clip and what you have done in editing (titles, effects, transitions, etc).

I did look up your Sony Burner. It appears to be a 16X type. What brand and type of DVD disc are you using when you burn to disc....DVD-R (write time = 16X), DVD-RW (write time = 6X), or other?

Today is Wednesday, so I am hoping that you will have good news about your installed Premiere Elements 8 (that is going to take up some much more space on your hard drive than Premiere Elements 2...take a look at size in programs lists in Control Panel/Add and Remove Programs).

We will probably have a lot more to talk about with regard to Premiere Elements 8. Hope the overall report is good.

I will be watching for your progress.

ATR

[APK]

Ok, I am back.

As I stated before, I upgraded to Premiere Elements 8. Now I have defragged my C: Hard drive. I also added 1gb of RAM. I found out that Windows XP can only manage 3.5gb of RAM including what is on the video card. So I did not go with the max for this motherboard of 4gb since the operating system would not use it.

I launched Premiere Elements 8 and did "Get Media" of my two short MP4 clips. But all of the cells in the timeline, task panel and playback monitor were red. No video images would display. Any Ideas?

[ATR]

APK

Sorry for the delay. Typically, before shutting down the computer for the day I look down the list to see if I have responded to everyone's questions. Because of the lateness of the hour, your APK got masked by my ATR when I scanned the list, and I thought that I had answers all.

Now for the Premiere Elements 8 issue...first thing to try, if you have not already, is to go into the Edit Menu/Preferences/General and disable "Enable GPU playback". While you are there, also disable "Background Rendering". (Disable by removing check marks next to each.)

If that does not turn around the situation, then take a look at the Adobe TechNote "Troubleshoot digital video playback (Adobe Premiere Elements 8)"
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/515/cpsid_51526.html

Let us see how that goes, and we will take it from there.

ATR

[APK]

ATR

I made the two changes that you suggested and it did not correct the issue. I still see "red" in the playback monitor, all cells in the timeline and the sceneline windows in the taske window are red.

I did a "Get Media" for a ".wmv" ".avi" and ".mov" file and they worked fine.

I found thing issue in a forum which is simular to mine. It appears that Premiere Elements 8 has a problem with MP4 as an input file.

http://forums.adobe.com/message/2335287