CS3 and Prospect hd low system memory then premier has encountered...

[Terry Lyons]

Hi all, I have a quad core, 4 gigs ram, terabite raid drive, newest drivers, cs3 and prospect hd, hdv footage and when scrubbing the timeline it says low system memory save project and proceed with caution. Then if I save and proceed with caution it says premier has encountered a problem and must close, and it does. I have read adobe's support site, cineforms support site, done what was offered. I can make a premier hdv project and import footage into it and render and works fine other than all the time it takes to render. When making a prospect 23.976 project the footage comes in fine and I dont have to render but it keeps throwing those messages when scrubbing. Any thoughts? The hdv footage looks awesome and I am guessing it is prospect that makes it able to manipulate exposure and contrast without degrading. It feels more like film than the dv footage Im used to editing. Cant wait to get this fixed.

[Frederic Leclair]

I had that too, I've been editing for 2 years on Premiere circumventing that bug with different tricks, some of them used and suggested to users by cies...

Nothing you can realy do about it but chop your project into smaller parts and enable the /3GB and /PAE switch in you boot.ini. I use a small free program to help clear memory (a bit like in After Effects); "freeram xp pro" it helps.

Videoguys' WinXP Tweaks for Non-Linear Video Editing
Videoguys Advanced WinXP Tweaks for Non-Linear Video Editing

Or better upgrade to CS4 and to windows 64-bit with at least 4 GB more RAM, cause CS3 uses only 2 GB max of RAM and the 32 interface uses a maximum of 3 GB if you enable switch mentioned above... In 64 interface you avoid all that because the ram is caped way above this, also CS4 break it process into 5 different one to better maximize the 64 interface (I suggest Windows XP 64 or Vista business 64):

CS4 and 64-bit Systems, Part 1
CS4 and 64-bit Systems, Part 2

[Terry Lyons]

thank you Frederic, I will try that. Do you think this is how they edit hd. Is premier and cineform bottom of the barrel? How do others edit with out these problems. All Im doing is hdv. Im confused, what do you think? Also I didnt think cineform supported cs4, do they?

[Robert Young]

It's not a Cineform problem. Premiere CS3/Win 32 bit is notorious for poor memory management, and it is particularly in your face with CF projects. I seldom had this with CF/PPro 1.5 or 2.0.
The flaw seems to be that as you move media around the project/timeline, scrub clips, etc., the amount of RAM that CS3 hogs gets progressively larger and larger. Even if you are doing nothing, it won't release the RAM it has accumulated, and if you do anything, it adds more RAM usage. Pretty quickly it has your system RAM maxed out and you get the warning, or get the message that there's a problem and Premiere is closing.
My tricks:
1) I leave Windows Task Manager open to "processes" so I can monitor Premiere's RAM status. On my system, Premiere will close when it gets up around 1.5 GB RAM.
2) Auto Save set for every 5 min
3) I try to remember to Ctrl-S (save) very frequently
4) Using the poster frame header display for Bin clips and timeline clips really drives the RAM usage up. I turn them off.
5) Any time I get the low memory warning, or see that my RAM is getting maxed in Task Manager, I just save and close Premiere. RAM usage instantly drops to baseline & you can reopen Premiere and push ahead again. It is annoying to do this, but is actually the fastest way to make progress.
6) If I have a long form project I break it into 10-15 min "reels"- each a seperate project, render each finished reel to avi movie and do final assembly of the complete movie in a seperate "final movie" project. Sounds like a lot of trouble, but once you get your thinking organized around the idea it's actually more efficient than having a single 60 min timeline, and also makes it easier to make corrections and changes without inadvertently screwing something up.
I can make this work well, so I'm O.K. with it for now, but CS3 + Win 32 bit is definitely at it's limits with full raster CFHD.
I thinking maybe the final solution will be Intel i7+ Win 7 64bit+ Premiere CS5.
Or not.

[Terry Lyons]

Thank you Robert, I was just getting ready to ask if any one is making cs3 and prospect hd work. Do you think every one is having to go through this type of workflow? I did notice in the task manager that your right the ram is up there. I noticed you mentioned cs5, do you think cs 4 isnt worth it? I really appreciate the help, thanks for your time. Im not sure what poster frame header display for Bin clips and timeline clips means, can you clarify how to change that. Also I read to use scene detection because it is easier on the system, is that how you do it? When I tried not using scene detect the audio went wacko, any thoughts? You and Frederic have given me some things to try this evening. Thanks again.

[William Middleton]

I experience the same thing--and have very similar settings that Robert listed. I'm working on a 90 min project and have it broken down into 10-15 min segments/projects. After an hour or so of working I find myself needing to restart Premiere. Must save frequently too. I've gotten the same 'Adobe is running low on memory' errors. Restarting the app is the fix. Every few hours I'll reboot the machine to completely 'clean house'. It all sounds rather high maintenance, but it's really not. Overall Premiere and Cineform are stable products.

[Robert Young]

RE "poster frame" I am referring to the display of a thumbnail image at the head of each clip on the timeline, and thumbnail images displayed in the bins instead of just the clip name. Can turn off in the Bin Settings, and for Timeline, the setting is at the far left side column of the timeline for each video track.
Not sure what you are referring to re Scene detect. That is a capture setting, not an editing setting. It allows you to capture each scene (from HDV or DV tape) as a seperate file.
As far as I know, Premiere CS4 is still a 32 bit app. I'm just guessing that CS5 will be 64 bit.
So, I'm thinking that a 64 bit app with a clean 64 bit OS (Win 7 64- not VISTA), lots of RAM, and the new Intel chip (i7), should produce a system that will handle 100+ mbs video streams no sweat. That's the theory anyway.
The bottom line on CF/ Premiere CS3 is that it works, but since Premiere manages memory very poorly, it's a task that you have to do yourself.

[Robert Young]

One more trick:
In Windows Task Manager, under "processes", if you right click on Premiere, on the drop down menu select "priority" and select "high". That will give Premiere a higher claim on RAM than the other apps that are running. That will keep you going a little longer before needing to close/restart Premiere. This setting defaults back to normal when you close Premiere, so you need to reset it to "high" each time you open Premiere.
Once you get the hang of all of this babysitting, it's not too bad. At least it takes the unpredictability out of the situation- so you are not having it crash after an hour of inspired editing that you forgot to save.

[Terry Lyons]

Thanks guys for the info. I am starting to get hope back. The scene detect is in hd link where I capture. It said to use scene detect because it made less impact on the system. Also I am having trouble capturing in Premier, thats why I use hd link. Also when I dont use scene detect the audio goes wild. Any way Im happy to have more avenues to try. Thanks again and if you have any more info please send. I just watched slumdog millionare which was awesome and they used cineform files, I wonder how they edit and what they use, and if they have the same problems. You guys have made my day, again thanks for the help.

[Terry Lyons]

Frederic, Robert and William, thank you very much. I now am able to move ahead for a while before I hit the 1.47gb ram plateau. It would be great if we didnt have to shut down to reset the ram. My next move is to do the 3gb switch. Just shutting off the thumb nails in the timeline worked wonders. Thank you guys so much for the help.

[Terry Lyons]

I just loaded free ram xp pro and it looks like it will dump the memory at intervals. Your right, its funky but not to hard to do. Again I thank you all for the help. Without your help I would be uninformed confused and disheartened. Now I am finially back to editing. Its been weeks, maby months. Thank you

[Nigel Eaton-Gray]

With thanks for all the info that people have posted so far.

I have been using Premiere for several years now using SD dv without problem. I have just bought my first HDV camera and am trying to edit 9hrs of wildlife video down to one hour. Following advice above have now got my 1 hour of material but all in 10 minute chunks.

I have tried to bring each small project into the final composite project by cutting and pasting timeline from small to final composite project. Works fine for the first paste and for the second, although some of the rendering seems to get lost on second paste. Third paste goes in ok, now sound disappears from paste two. Still shows sound clips in the time line but there is no longer any "Wave" showing in the clip ikon on time line and certainly no sound on playback. Clips still show in Project panel and can be played from there.

Subsequent copy and paste actions result in none but the first clip retaining its sound, and some of the video clips now being shown as "offline" and rendering has been lost from most. 5 copy and paste actions result in most clips being shown as offline in the new project, very few sound clips in the timeline will play and the whole project now needs to be re-rendered - but this is not possible because after about 10 timeline mins, the program crashes with an "unknown error".

Am I the only one with this problem or are there others out there suffering too? I assume this is also part of the memory problem.

fast core 2 duo, 2x2GB ram, 2x500 GB SATA drives, windows xp home. (Waiting for
Win 7)

Nigel

[John Gerard]

Hi,
Frederic Ledair has most of my suggestions already. I used to get all these errors when I started using CS3. I started by doing this....
Put the /3gb switch in windows INI file
Cut my projects into smaller parts I think this helped a lot
Don't run any programs at the same time as premiere.
I went into control panel/administrative/services and shut off all services that I did not need running. I think somewhere on adobe's site there is help on this or search the Web.
I went to, I forgot the name for it off the top of my head, but it allows you to selectively start or not start startup programs. So programs that startup automatically as with you Dvd recording software etc, I disabled.
Don't install antivirus software and don't use this computer to access the Web. Resist the urge. This was hard for me. Use another computer if you need to download files or use the Web to research something.
Don't install any programs you don't use. It not only takes up HDD space but loads stuff in the registry and sometimes adds startup programs. So just uninstall them.
Keep you HDDs at 50% full or less. That includes project RAID drive, media cache drive. And system drive. HDDs start slowing down if the drive is over 50% full.
I have one system/ program drive, one media cache drive, and the premiere pro Avi captured files main RAID 0 drive.
Windows in general does not function well when it is running low on system resources. That's memory and hdd space.
I also had a problem where the audio stopped working. The original file worked fine. I found out that I needed to render my time line. I recently read here that I needed to reinterpret footage for the original file in my timeline. That seemed to do it. Even though it looks like premiere is interpreting the footage correctly. All this took a long and waisted time to figure out. But if you can perform the above then I think you will be much happier. Also I have just learned how to deal around the limitations/bugs. So it just works better for me. Right now I have only had low memory errors and such from the Titler. When I click on one of the fancy color scripts. I still always save my project often maybe once ever 2-5 minutes just to be safe. Also clear out the media cache from time to time.

I hope this helps,

John Gerard

Originally Posted by Terry Lyons

Hi all, I have a quad core, 4 gigs ram, terabite raid drive, newest drivers, cs3 and prospect hd, hdv footage and when scrubbing the timeline it says low system memory save project and proceed with caution. Then if I save and proceed with caution it says premier has encountered a problem and must close, and it does. I have read adobe's support site, cineforms support site, done what was offered. I can make a premier hdv project and import footage into it and render and works fine other than all the time it takes to render. When making a prospect 23.976 project the footage comes in fine and I dont have to render but it keeps throwing those messages when scrubbing. Any thoughts? The hdv footage looks awesome and I am guessing it is prospect that makes it able to manipulate exposure and contrast without degrading. It feels more like film than the dv footage Im used to editing. Cant wait to get this fixed.

[John Gerard]

Hi,
I just forgot look up what drivers are certified for Premiere pro CS3 by Adobe. This isn't always the latest version.

John Gerard

Originally Posted by Terry Lyons

Hi all, I have a quad core, 4 gigs ram, terabite raid drive, newest drivers, cs3 and prospect hd, hdv footage and when scrubbing the timeline it says low system memory save project and proceed with caution. Then if I save and proceed with caution it says premier has encountered a problem and must close, and it does. I have read adobe's support site, cineforms support site, done what was offered. I can make a premier hdv project and import footage into it and render and works fine other than all the time it takes to render. When making a prospect 23.976 project the footage comes in fine and I dont have to render but it keeps throwing those messages when scrubbing. Any thoughts? The hdv footage looks awesome and I am guessing it is prospect that makes it able to manipulate exposure and contrast without degrading. It feels more like film than the dv footage Im used to editing. Cant wait to get this fixed.

[Stephen Armour]

Originally Posted by Terry Lyons

Thank you Robert, I was just getting ready to ask if any one is making cs3 and prospect hd work. Do you think every one is having to go through this type of workflow? I did notice in the task manager that your right the ram is up there. I noticed you mentioned cs5, do you think cs 4 isnt worth it? I really appreciate the help, thanks for your time. Im not sure what poster frame header display for Bin clips and timeline clips means, can you clarify how to change that. Also I read to use scene detection because it is easier on the system, is that how you do it? When I tried not using scene detect the audio went wacko, any thoughts? You and Frederic have given me some things to try this evening. Thanks again.

Terry, we still have CS3 and NEO 4K on two older quad machines, but their moves to Win7 x64 pretty much took care of any probs with memory. I didn't see what OS you were using currently?

We still break up any larger projects, try not to open other heavy programs from the CS3 suite, and close everything down every few hours and even reboot at times. For the most part, just the Win7 x64 change alone was well worth all the re-install hassles and stretched the usefulness and stability of those machines to much longer. That will be true for a good while to come, thanks to Cineform and NEO HD (or 4K).

Our CS5 on another ws (quad too, more memory, x64) is definitely nice, especially for AE and Encore (which is still somewhat nasty but much more stable), but don't be fooled by all the "upgrade talk", CS3 with Cineform and Win7 on a machine like yours is still a VERY powerful and productive platform for most general editing use.

Hope that helps some.