Is this the norm for Premiere Pro?

[Gerald Webb]

Hi guys,
I normally edit in Vegas and use After Effects for the extra stuff, and go between the 2 with Cineform.
While not ideal with all the rendering I have gotten used to it.
I just edited a 6 min project while away on holidays using a laptop with Premiere Pro.
It was all M2TS and MP4 files, prob about 100 clips in the bin.
I didnt worry about converting the clips to Cineform after reading about the virtues of the MPE.
I have to say, I'm pretty impressed.
Been working on it on and off for about 5 days, time remapping, lots of CC and not one crash!
Previews have been real time the whole way even with CC

I know its a reasonably small project, but is this level of stability normal for Premiere 5.5?

I dont want to rag on Vegas, but I dont believe it would have coped with the native files, let alone previewed them after the FX.
And going to AFX and back is so good without rendering.

[Pete Bauer]

Premiere has certainly had its low points in the past -- I was about ready to jump ship at one point -- but the last several iterations have just gotten better and better. And of course the integration across the suite just rocks. So, yeah, my experience mirrors yours, so much so that I agreed to write a couple articles for DVinfo about the Creative Suite over the past year. I guess you'll have to take me at my word, but I wouldn't do that if I wasn't genuinely pleased.

And none of that is to diss other software. I'm just really happy with CS5 and CS5.5 and don't use others...but as is always the way...looking forward to CS6 next year!
;-)

[Bruce Watson]

Originally Posted by Gerald Webb

I know its a reasonably small project, but is this level of stability normal for Premiere 5.5?

Has been for me. I bought a copy of Production Premium CS5 about a year ago, and all the programs are very stable with the single exception of Encore. I've never had Premiere Pro or After Effects crash on me. Encore doesn't seem to be at the same level as the rest of the suite however. It can and does fall over for me; I just have to remember to save often and it's not that big a deal.

[Paul Digges]

I remember a time with Premiere when it was absolutely necessary to save every 5 minutes in fear of losing your work.

Anymore these days, I've never had many problems with any ridiculous crashes. The native AVCHD editing is great, and the Dynamic Link is a huge timesaver as well.

[Corey Graham]

The whole CS5 suite has been bulletproof for me -- even Encore.

[Steve Kalle]

^DITTO^

With the exception of AE. With very large projects (50+ comps), AE randomly freezes for a couple minutes. I have one project consisting of all lower thirds for a local tv channel and Premiere tends to not like it when all of its DL'd comps from AE freeze. So, I usually wait for this to happen and get up and take a break as it tends to happen once every 4 hours. At one point, I had 300+ comps in this project and AE froze 2-3 times per hour. Since then, I rendered out the most used comps, moved comps into 3 month spans and save only the last 3 months of lower thirds aka 'keys' as those in broadcast news call it. Btw, I always have AE open when working in Premiere.

[Pete Bauer]

Steve, I'm kind of surprised to hear that because I gather from previous posting that you use fairly high end systems and it sounds from your description that it isn't really a crash per se, but perhaps that the AE code is somehow getting itself bottlenecked for a while?

I haven't experienced this on my 980X editing box. I use AE a fair amount, but then again my comps don't tend to be nearly as large and complex as what you describe so maybe I'm just not finding the same bottleneck?

[Ben Winter]

Are you all on Windows machines? Do any of you use Cineform? I use Ppro on my mac pro tower and it crashes constantly. As soon as you said "save every 5 minutes for fear of losing your work" my eyes lit up with empathy, that's currently my workflow. Make an edit, save, make an edit, save. It's sad. I can't figure out if it's Adobe or Cineform.

[Steve Kalle]

Which version of Premiere do you use and which version of Cineform?

Before you answer, I would bet that the culprit is Cineform. As good as it is, Cineform is just not rock-solid reliable, which is why I don't use it on any work computers. Having random crashes is the last thing I need while I'm working and with my luck, these crashes would happen when I'm either with clients or on a tight deadline....or is everyone's luck like mine ;)

To be honest, Premiere CS5, Photoshop CS5, AE CS5, InDesign CS5, Illustrator CS5 and AME CS5 have ALL been unbelievably reliable over the last 13 months since I installed Master Collection CS5. My stupid computer has crashed more in that time then all of my CS5 programs combined. About crashes, I have finally found the culprit for most, if not all, of my problems - an external drive case (eSata) was not working correctly and finally died. After it died, I realized the BSOD's were all related to this case and have not had a single crash since replacing it. That is what I get for buying a cheap $20 Macally eSata case. (both of my Macally cases have died in less than a year)

[Gerald Webb]

Originally Posted by Ben Winter

Are you all on Windows machines? Do any of you use Cineform? I use Ppro on my mac pro tower and it crashes constantly. As soon as you said "save every 5 minutes for fear of losing your work" my eyes lit up with empathy, that's currently my workflow. Make an edit, save, make an edit, save. It's sad. I can't figure out if it's Adobe or Cineform.

While my brief fling with Premiere has been on a Windows laptop, and has been nothing short of superb so far, I was hoping to keep going on my Mac Pro at home, would Pro res or DNxHD be better options on the mac side?
Bearing in mind that I dont see the need to convert everything straight off the way I have been with Vegas /Cineform.
Do most of you guys just edit the native camera codecs and THEN render to Cineform/DNxHD or Matrox when you mix down a sequence or deliver?
Would the MPE handle a multi cam Project in AVCHD, MP4s ,say, on a six core i7 and 12 gb ram? Maybe still better to convert for multicam stuff?
I'm just thinking aloud I guess, any thoughts please fess up.
cheers guys.

[Bart Walczak]

Ben, are you using any monitoring cards like BlackMagic or AJA? I've had a lot of unstable behavior by Premiere because I had Decklink in PCIe slot 3. After I moved it to slot 4, everything became extremely stable. I can't fathom the reason (Decklink is PCIe x1 card, so it should work in any slot) , but it is something that can be tried as well.

Also, how much RAM do you have? Premiere tends to be less stable with small amounts of RAM. After I added 8 GBs to the 4GBs that I had, I also noticed a surge in stability and performance.