Is anyone happy with CS4? at DVinfo.net

David Moody · February 3rd, 2009, 01:28 PM

I have a clean install on a new dedicated system with a Core i7 940, 6gb ram, raid 0, the new Quadro CX card and Vista 64bit ultimate.

The RapiHD software that comes with the Quadro CX card crashes Premiere even though the two are sold as a package. (I have installed the latest software.)

Premiere CS4, Adobe media encoder and Encore CS4 crash all the time with multiple different files. The presets are all messed up and files encoded with the media encoder will not load in Encore.

When I check the Adobe help forums it seems that CS4 is the most unstable version yet.

Has anyone been able to use it?

Graham Hickling · February 3rd, 2009, 02:34 PM

Wow - that's disappointing. I found CS3 less stable than CS2, and so was hoping for improvement.

I suspect a lot of folks here are holding off trying CS4 until Cineform releases their CS4 update.

Roger Wilson · February 3rd, 2009, 04:41 PM

I believe that Adobe has released some software updates to address those issues.

Start Premier Pro, create an empty project, then select Updates from the help menu.

Hope this helps!

Eric Addison · February 4th, 2009, 12:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by David Moody

Has anyone been able to use it?

It's working fine for me. I've got it running on a Vista 64 machine and a Vista 32 laptop. Some people are reporting problems, but I wonder if it's some sort of hardware issue.

Have you tried re-installing it?

Alan Craven · February 4th, 2009, 01:36 AM

It is still early days for me, but no serious problems, other than those that I make for myself, so far! The only real oddity is that I have to re-boot before Premiere will open if I have been using Win DVD9, but then simply installing WinDVD9 on my MCE Vaio laptop renders it un-usable.

I am running CS4 with the Matrox RTX2 LE card. I simply removed all the previous Premiere/Encore/Audition/Photoshop 2 software, manually cleaned out any remaining foilders and files, ran Reg Mechanic and then installed Audition and Photoshop 2, followed by Premiere CS4 and the RTX2. Everything seemed to be in place from the start.

From previous experience, I would have expected to have start from scratch with the install from a formatted partition.

Colin Zhang · February 4th, 2009, 03:46 AM

Generally happy with the features except for this video problem I have (posted in separate thread). For me RAM usage is about the same and I haven't tested in the same conditions but when I had CS3 it used to crash a lot, this hasn't occurred to me. However, it does seem to have a habit of telling me it crashed and asks to file a report with Adobe whenever I close the application.

Hernan Vilchez · February 4th, 2009, 08:01 AM

Sorry but i cant get it. Here in Europe we have to pay 700€ to upgrade to Production Premium CS4 from CS3 (wow!) and what they offer in exchange is a buggier version!

What would be the reason to upgrade if they are not real 64 applications and they are inestable?

Im a Premiere/After Effects/Encore/Photoshop user + Cineform ProspectHD

Jiri Fiala · February 7th, 2009, 02:40 PM

I was not happy with CS4. In fact, I`ve given up on Premiere altogether and have switched to FCP. Photoshop and After Effects CS4 are great, though.

Brian Brown · February 8th, 2009, 12:58 AM

I downloaded my CS4 upgrade the day it came out and have used it like crazy ever since. I've had zero problems (knock on wood) running CS4 on Vista 64... I now have it on a desktop and a laptop and schlep an external SATA drive between the two to edit projects on both machines. Works great.

The Media Encoder render-queue is awesome (except for what it does to still image render-outs), Dynamic Link from PPro-AE-back to PPro makes for great workflow, and blending modes in PPro is nice.

I've read on the Adobe forums about users having problems with CS4, but I've had really, really good luck with my installs (knock on wood) and the Suite saves me HOURS in the course of any givem project over CS3.

Good luck,
Brian Brown
BrownCow Productions

Hernan Vilchez · February 8th, 2009, 07:49 AM

Brian, could you describe your system please (graphic card included). Do you work with Cineform? Which camera are you using?

Thanks

Alan Craven · February 8th, 2009, 10:56 AM

The version of Quicktime that you install seems to be critical. I happened to have 7.55 on my desktop when I installed CS4 and my new Matrox RTX2, and have had few problems that I have not created for myself.

When I installed Premiere CS4 on my laptop it was very unstable, and Media Encoder would not work at all, crashing every time I tried to use it. I eventually solved this by upgrading Quicktime from v7.45 (which Adobe recommend), to v7.55, and all is now well.

Just out of interest, why do PC users have to have Quicktime installed at all? The only time that I ever recall using it was around twelve years ago, for two language learning programs and a Britannica CD. The Britannica also used Netscape!

Jiri Fiala · February 8th, 2009, 12:03 PM

QT is needed for interoperability. Unless you have some kind of intermediate codec (Cineform), you need something to make your way between all the apps (editor, motion graphics, FX...) and QT is usually the simplest and most straightforward way. There`s NO alternative for this by default on Windows PCs - you wouldn`t like to work with uncompressed AVIs or crap Cinepak files.

Jeff Anselmo · February 8th, 2009, 12:50 PM

Hi Brian,

I'm also interested in your system specs; and like Hernan asked, do you run any other plug ins like Cineform and Magic Bullet?

I've recently updated my PC to an i7 system (32bit XP Pro), but with a geForce 9800 GT card. Had problems installing Adobe CS2, Cineform, and the Magic Bullet Suite initially. Somewhat successful installing Adobe CS2 and Cineform, but still can't install MB Looks.

Best,

Brian Brown · February 9th, 2009, 12:45 AM

Hey Folks:

I built my desktop system in Sept. '07. I used an Intel board and a Q6600 quad-core CPU, 8GB Crucial RAM, GeForce 8600GT card, a Raptor 10k rpm system drive with various flavors of older PATA and newer SATA drives for projects and media. I loaded CS3 on it at the time (and it's still there), and went with the CS4 upgrade in October.

My laptop (new in Dec. '08) is an HP HDX18, P8400 dual-core with 4GB RAM and twin 250GB HDDs. Vista-64 bit on both systems.

I tried the Cineform trial (12 months ago, maybe) and had nothing but trouble with it. After Effects wouldn't even load. Transcoding to the intermediate was a painful step. No thanks. If I did a lot of CC work or multiple HD streams, maybe I'd want to suffer through to get it working, but native-HDV works just fine for me for most tasks. If I need an intermediate (and seldom do with two-way Dynamic Link), I encode to Lagarith lossless. Big files.. but hard drives are cheap.

I shoot with a Canon XH-A1, and try to do most of my coloring with presets as I capture. Most of my work is corporate and non-profit talking-heads stuff, some training, some motion graphics, and lately a lot of chroma'd transparent video straight-to-web. I do about four events a year where I project 720p video (output as HD WMVs, with down-converted DVDs to give away after the event), and the 1080p footage gives me a little leeway to recompose (pan and zoom) in post.

As for QT, I just don't use it anymore. My desktop has it on it... I bought QT Pro many moons ago, but I haven't loaded it on my laptop and the Suite just seems snappier on the laptop (could be other "OS creep" issues, too).

I don't use Magic Bullet products (would someday like to...), but bought quite a few After Effects plug-ins from Trapcode and Andrew Kramer (Video CoPilot). All seem to work great on both systems.

Some recent projects:
Broomfield Chamber S.O.S. Videos
Westec_20th (pure motion graphics - no video)
Crystal Jewelry - Candori Crystal Jewelry by Amy Cannon Cooper
YWCA - 2008 Videos

HTH,
Brian Brown
Brown Cow Productions
BrownCow Productions - Affordable Full-Service Video Production

David Moody · February 9th, 2009, 06:19 PM

Encore CS4 is working for me now and seems better than the CS3 version for Blu-ray. It is reliably burning BD-RE's that play every time, which didn't always happen with CS3 Encore.

With Premiere CS4, for me it seems like there are more issues with longer projects 2 hours+ with multiple color corrections.

If others are finding it rock solid with long complicated high def projects, then hopefully I can solve the current issues. Uninstalling and reinstalling did solve some of them.

February 3rd, 2009, 01:28 PM	#1
David Moody Regular Crew Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 86	Is anyone happy with CS4? I have a clean install on a new dedicated system with a Core i7 940, 6gb ram, raid 0, the new Quadro CX card and Vista 64bit ultimate. The RapiHD software that comes with the Quadro CX card crashes Premiere even though the two are sold as a package. (I have installed the latest software.) Premiere CS4, Adobe media encoder and Encore CS4 crash all the time with multiple different files. The presets are all messed up and files encoded with the media encoder will not load in Encore. When I check the Adobe help forums it seems that CS4 is the most unstable version yet. Has anyone been able to use it?

February 4th, 2009, 08:01 AM	#7
Hernan Vilchez Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Munich, Germany Posts: 135	Sorry but i cant get it. Here in Europe we have to pay 700€ to upgrade to Production Premium CS4 from CS3 (wow!) and what they offer in exchange is a buggier version! What would be the reason to upgrade if they are not real 64 applications and they are inestable? Im a Premiere/After Effects/Encore/Photoshop user + Cineform ProspectHD __________________ Hernan Vilchez kabopro.com myspace.com/kabopro

February 8th, 2009, 07:49 AM	#10
Hernan Vilchez Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Munich, Germany Posts: 135	Brian, could you describe your system please (graphic card included). Do you work with Cineform? Which camera are you using? Thanks __________________ Hernan Vilchez kabopro.com myspace.com/kabopro

February 8th, 2009, 12:50 PM	#13
Jeff Anselmo Major Player Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: New Mexico Posts: 566	Hi Brian, I'm also interested in your system specs; and like Hernan asked, do you run any other plug ins like Cineform and Magic Bullet? I've recently updated my PC to an i7 system (32bit XP Pro), but with a geForce 9800 GT card. Had problems installing Adobe CS2, Cineform, and the Magic Bullet Suite initially. Somewhat successful installing Adobe CS2 and Cineform, but still can't install MB Looks. Best, __________________ --JA

February 3rd, 2009, 02:34 PM	#2
Graham Hickling Trustee Join Date: May 2004 Location: Knoxville, Tennessee Posts: 1,669	Wow - that's disappointing. I found CS3 less stable than CS2, and so was hoping for improvement. I suspect a lot of folks here are holding off trying CS4 until Cineform releases their CS4 update.

February 3rd, 2009, 04:41 PM	#3
Roger Wilson Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Denver, CO, USA Posts: 85	I believe that Adobe has released some software updates to address those issues. Start Premier Pro, create an empty project, then select Updates from the help menu. Hope this helps!

February 4th, 2009, 01:36 AM	#5
Alan Craven Major Player Join Date: May 2003 Location: York, England Posts: 518	It is still early days for me, but no serious problems, other than those that I make for myself, so far! The only real oddity is that I have to re-boot before Premiere will open if I have been using Win DVD9, but then simply installing WinDVD9 on my MCE Vaio laptop renders it un-usable. I am running CS4 with the Matrox RTX2 LE card. I simply removed all the previous Premiere/Encore/Audition/Photoshop 2 software, manually cleaned out any remaining foilders and files, ran Reg Mechanic and then installed Audition and Photoshop 2, followed by Premiere CS4 and the RTX2. Everything seemed to be in place from the start. From previous experience, I would have expected to have start from scratch with the install from a formatted partition.

February 4th, 2009, 03:46 AM	#6
Colin Zhang Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: beijing/mississauga Posts: 123	Generally happy with the features except for this video problem I have (posted in separate thread). For me RAM usage is about the same and I haven't tested in the same conditions but when I had CS3 it used to crash a lot, this hasn't occurred to me. However, it does seem to have a habit of telling me it crashed and asks to file a report with Adobe whenever I close the application.

February 7th, 2009, 02:40 PM	#8
Jiri Fiala Major Player Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Brno Czech Republic Posts: 453	I was not happy with CS4. In fact, I`ve given up on Premiere altogether and have switched to FCP. Photoshop and After Effects CS4 are great, though.

February 8th, 2009, 12:58 AM	#9
Brian Brown Major Player Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Estes Park, CO USA Posts: 426	I downloaded my CS4 upgrade the day it came out and have used it like crazy ever since. I've had zero problems (knock on wood) running CS4 on Vista 64... I now have it on a desktop and a laptop and schlep an external SATA drive between the two to edit projects on both machines. Works great. The Media Encoder render-queue is awesome (except for what it does to still image render-outs), Dynamic Link from PPro-AE-back to PPro makes for great workflow, and blending modes in PPro is nice. I've read on the Adobe forums about users having problems with CS4, but I've had really, really good luck with my installs (knock on wood) and the Suite saves me HOURS in the course of any givem project over CS3. Good luck, Brian Brown BrownCow Productions

February 8th, 2009, 10:56 AM	#11
Alan Craven Major Player Join Date: May 2003 Location: York, England Posts: 518	The version of Quicktime that you install seems to be critical. I happened to have 7.55 on my desktop when I installed CS4 and my new Matrox RTX2, and have had few problems that I have not created for myself. When I installed Premiere CS4 on my laptop it was very unstable, and Media Encoder would not work at all, crashing every time I tried to use it. I eventually solved this by upgrading Quicktime from v7.45 (which Adobe recommend), to v7.55, and all is now well. Just out of interest, why do PC users have to have Quicktime installed at all? The only time that I ever recall using it was around twelve years ago, for two language learning programs and a Britannica CD. The Britannica also used Netscape!

February 8th, 2009, 12:03 PM	#12
Jiri Fiala Major Player Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Brno Czech Republic Posts: 453	QT is needed for interoperability. Unless you have some kind of intermediate codec (Cineform), you need something to make your way between all the apps (editor, motion graphics, FX...) and QT is usually the simplest and most straightforward way. There`s NO alternative for this by default on Windows PCs - you wouldn`t like to work with uncompressed AVIs or crap Cinepak files.

February 9th, 2009, 12:45 AM	#14
Brian Brown Major Player Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Estes Park, CO USA Posts: 426	Hey Folks: I built my desktop system in Sept. '07. I used an Intel board and a Q6600 quad-core CPU, 8GB Crucial RAM, GeForce 8600GT card, a Raptor 10k rpm system drive with various flavors of older PATA and newer SATA drives for projects and media. I loaded CS3 on it at the time (and it's still there), and went with the CS4 upgrade in October. My laptop (new in Dec. '08) is an HP HDX18, P8400 dual-core with 4GB RAM and twin 250GB HDDs. Vista-64 bit on both systems. I tried the Cineform trial (12 months ago, maybe) and had nothing but trouble with it. After Effects wouldn't even load. Transcoding to the intermediate was a painful step. No thanks. If I did a lot of CC work or multiple HD streams, maybe I'd want to suffer through to get it working, but native-HDV works just fine for me for most tasks. If I need an intermediate (and seldom do with two-way Dynamic Link), I encode to Lagarith lossless. Big files.. but hard drives are cheap. I shoot with a Canon XH-A1, and try to do most of my coloring with presets as I capture. Most of my work is corporate and non-profit talking-heads stuff, some training, some motion graphics, and lately a lot of chroma'd transparent video straight-to-web. I do about four events a year where I project 720p video (output as HD WMVs, with down-converted DVDs to give away after the event), and the 1080p footage gives me a little leeway to recompose (pan and zoom) in post. As for QT, I just don't use it anymore. My desktop has it on it... I bought QT Pro many moons ago, but I haven't loaded it on my laptop and the Suite just seems snappier on the laptop (could be other "OS creep" issues, too). I don't use Magic Bullet products (would someday like to...), but bought quite a few After Effects plug-ins from Trapcode and Andrew Kramer (Video CoPilot). All seem to work great on both systems. Some recent projects: Broomfield Chamber S.O.S. Videos Westec_20th (pure motion graphics - no video) Crystal Jewelry - Candori Crystal Jewelry by Amy Cannon Cooper YWCA - 2008 Videos HTH, Brian Brown Brown Cow Productions BrownCow Productions - Affordable Full-Service Video Production

February 9th, 2009, 06:19 PM	#15
David Moody Regular Crew Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 86	Encore CS4 is working for me now and seems better than the CS3 version for Blu-ray. It is reliably burning BD-RE's that play every time, which didn't always happen with CS3 Encore. With Premiere CS4, for me it seems like there are more issues with longer projects 2 hours+ with multiple color corrections. If others are finding it rock solid with long complicated high def projects, then hopefully I can solve the current issues. Uninstalling and reinstalling did solve some of them.