Vista 64 + ProspectHD + Premiere CS3???

[Robert Young]

The memory management problems with CS3/XP/ProspectHD are still driving me nuts for 1920x1080 HD editing. I am using Intel Quad/ 4 GB RAM/ RAID media HD + system HD + export HDs, etc.
Is there any reason to believe that Prospect/CS3 on Vista 64 would be a more stable, competant set-up, or is CS3 simply fatally flawed for this level of editing??- or maybe it's some glitch in my system that I can't discover.
The 3GB switch does cause problems on my system, so that's not an option.
My most annoying problem is exporting timelines to CFHD.avi- I can render out only between 3-8 min of avi program before Premiere uses up all of the system resources and gives a "failure to conform" error. Sometimes the render fails on a CF 32 bit filter, next time it renders right through that point and fails later for "unknown reason".
I've thought about CS4, but I'm seeing lots of user problems on the Adobe forum-makes me think it's still short a few upgrades.
I would appreciate any ideas.

[Adam Gold]

Others will know much more about this from a technical standpoint, but I'm in the exact same situation you are in and will have my PC configured exactly as you've described (CS3/Prospect/Vista 64) in a week or so. Currently my setup is similar to your current setup (CS3/Aspect/XP 32) and I have many of the same memory problems, although I've never had a failed CFHD-AVI render. But much instability and running out of resources during preview renders and random crashes when moving clips around on the timeline, especially when the sequences get a little complex. For me CS3 is equally unstable with or without the /3GB switch, although I've probably invoked it incorrectly.

My understanding is that CS4 handles memory much differently and thus offers hope for better reliability under Vista 64 with lots of RAM -- even though it is not a 64-bit app. So I think there's hope and it may be worth the upgrade for the stability alone. They've already issued a few updates and more are forthcoming soon. There was never any official 64-bit support for CS3 but now that there is for CS4, maybe our problems will go away.

[Robert Young]

Adam
I also get the same instability as you do during the actual editing process- I've learned the hard way to auto save every 5 min, and to CTR-S constantly while working. I've used Premiere since the v. 3 days and don't ever recall having so much nusiance getting ordinary editing projects done.
I would really appreciate it if you would post your observations after switching over to Vista 64. If it works for you, I will probably take that route and hang on to CS3 for a while.
I'm thinking that the next step will be CS4 + Intel i7 + maybe Windows 7, but I don't want to make the leap until all of these products are ironed out, including CF.

[Adam Gold]

To be honest with you, I think CF is the least of our problems. Although I've never edited without it, I can't imagine doing so. (Although wouldn't it be funny if it WAS the problem? Ask Tripp to weigh in on that one. But I doubt it as I think we see the same complaints from those who edit m2t natively in PPro without Cineform.)

And the more I think about it, the less I think simply going to Vista 64 with more RAM will help CS3, as it can't take advantage of any extra memory beyond 2GB.

[Robert Young]

I agree that CF is solid- my reference was to their need to get CF CS4 out and up to speed.
Regarding Vista 64- it's not clear to me, in theory, that it would solve the problems with CS3. That's why I would love to hear from someone who is actually using it, or even better, someone who had switched from XP to Vista 64.
Who knows, maybe the Vista 64 people are having so few problems that they don't have time to browse the forums. They are too busy editing!

[Manuel Lopez]

Hello.
I dont use Cineform, but I edit long form docus in WinXP 64 with CS3, and I have very little crash.

[David Moody]

I am currently using Prospect/CS3/XP 32 bit with 3gig RAM and am having a lot of crashes on a two hour long project with Premiere saying that it is running low on memory before crashing. It does not seem to have anything to do with Prospect, unless the larger intermediate files require more memory.

This next week I am going to Vista 64bit/CS4 with Core i7, 6gig Ram and a Quadro CX card on a new Boxx workstation. I will see how stable it is.

[Robert Young]

David
We look forward to your report. thanks for taking the leap. However, this will still leave the issue of CS3 + Vista 64 unaddressed.

[Ray Parkes]

I have been using XP 64 with Prospect on HP8400's designed specifically for editing. It has been excellent very stable and reliable. I upgraded one of my work stations to Vista about two months ago in order to gain the advantages in CS4 particularly with Photoshop. That works very well but I still haven’t got the system stable enough to do any serious editing. There appears to be a lot of problems with Vista. The NVIDIA Quadro driver for Vista is particularly bad and no longer even has an overlay function. I am still looking for better version of the driver. I may end up buying a new video card. CS3 and Premier still work well for editing but I have lost the capture function. Capture in Premier using CF causes BSOD in Vista. I can capture using HDLink but that is a tedious process. CF have been sympathetic but haven’t yet come up with a solution. Hopefully Prospect CS4 will solve the problem. Premier CS4 does work with CF files but is very slow. After Effect CS4 is excellent and has some great features but obviously I can’t yet render out the files in CF directly. I convert them in HDLink. It’s not a good solution and slows down the creative process. I usually wait a couple of years for Microsoft to get their latest OS stable but if I had known just how bad Vista was I would have stuck with my original XP x64 CS3 setup. I may wait for 7 before upgrading any of my other machines.

[Adam Gold]

That's a very interesting, if depressing, report. Can you detail a little more about your HW and workflow?

BTW, the problems with the nVidia drivers and overlay have been pretty well discussed here and there still isn't a resolution forthcoming, from either Cineform or nVidia. A search will reveal the many threads, one of which has the response I received from nVidia, which basically says don't ever count on overlay again, and especially not with Vista. Another includes a response from Cineform sayng they basically have higher priorities, especially becasue overlay still works fine with ATI cards, even though ATI cards apparently don't handle color properly.

I've downloaded a bunch of older 64-bit nVidia drivers I'll be playing with, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

[Ray Parkes]

We are working on an indi film which will be released straight to Blue Ray. It’s partly animated and we are about two years into post with about another 18 months to go. Most of the background footage is HDV shot on Sony V1's in progressive scan. We boost the files from 1440 to 1920 when ingesting them with Prospect. The HP 8400's are dual twin or quad Xeon's with Quadro FX1500's. All have at least 8 gig RAM. We use big drives (1.5TB) but not RAID. Using Prospect capture is very reliable and although the 8400 has a RAID controller it has not been necessary to use it, at least not in XP. I replace the drives as they wear out (two so far). The animation is created mainly in 3DS Max which is then composited in After Effects. There are also plenty of blue screen and straight effects shots. We work at the highest bit rate possible when compositing. We upgraded from Aspect to Prospect about a year ago and the difference is absolutely stunning. The network becomes a small render farm when we finally fall asleep.

[Adam Gold]

So can you talk a little more about the instabilities you're seeing with Vista 64 and CS4? What types of crashes/hangs, under what circumstances? Your input is very valuable for those of us who may be treading fearfully in your footsteps.

Thanks.

[Ray Parkes]

Premier CS3 and CF is less stable under Vista, XP never crashed but it works quite well. Premier CS4 even the latest update doesn't work reliably at all in Vista x64, at least not on my system. It did work but obviously not with CF under XP x64. The crashes I have had are numerous and random. A lot of the errors appear to be memory issues although the Quadro video driver also causes occasional Open GL errors. Turning open GL off doesn't help. The Vista garbage in the interface causes major headaches. You have to close the sidebar and turn off Aero. I have reverted to Windows Standard appearance and that seemed to help. If you turn off DEP After Effects CS4 then works fairly reliably although it still sometimes crashes the multiple versions of itself it opens for multi processor rendering. Photoshop x64 is brilliant but even that has occasional Open GL errors. There is no one thing I can pin down. My systems are very minimalist and I only put them online for updates. I certainly wouldn't recommend using Vista x64. I am in dialogue with Adobe but they have not been any help so far. For all that Adobe say it no longer supports XP 64 it has never given me any trouble even using CS4.

[Adam Gold]

Wow. Very sobering. Thanks for the input.

[Robert Young]

Yes- that is definitely some food for thought.
I would have never gussed that XP64 might be a solution.
RE video cards: I used nVidea Quadro 1500 for a couple of years, and I could always get it working O.K. with HD overlay etc., but it always seemed "fussy". I finaly just now switched to ATI Radeon (4870??) and it seems to work great. I like their software interface better as well. I haven't noticed anything unusual re the color reproduction so far. I did discover that, on my system anyway, I need to check "force yuv playback" for proper preview.
I think I will stick with the devil I know for a while- maybe wait for CS5 + Win 7 + Intel i7 with lots of RAM.
I can actually get the job done with what I'm using, I just need to resist the impulse the get the whole thing working "perfectly". It's just not going to happen.