Premiere CS4 in Windows 7 64 bit

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David Brown
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Premiere CS4 in Windows 7 64 bit

Post by David Brown »

Hi, I'm a new member but having looked at previous posts I haven't seen much about this.

I bought a copy of CS4 Production Premium a little while ago and installed it on my fairly new fast intel PC. All seemed to be fine although I only played around briefly with Premiere at the time. Eventually, I attempted to edit a short HDV clip from my Canon HV40. I experimented with various format settings and the program eventually crashed. Since then I have never been able to get beyond the main edit screen. The timeline says 'no sequences' and I have been unable to create one. I have tried creating new projects but nothin makes any difference. I unistalled the program and reinstalled it (twice) to no avail. I finally and reluctantly uninstalled the whole suite and, although everything else (Photoshop 64 bit, After Effects etc) works perfectly Premiere will now not run at all. I am totally baffled. Whilst I have paid for the program, I bought it second hand on e-bay so no support is available (all orginal disks etc).

Has anyone any ideas or is it just not compatible with Windows 7?

David

PS I have been using Premiere Pro 1.5 with a Matrox RTX100 card on another computer and never had any problem with it, until three weeks ago when the motherboard failed so I was hoping ( while waiting to see if it could be repaired) to use CS4!
col lamb
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Re: Premiere CS4 in Windows 7 64 bit

Post by col lamb »

David

Firstly, welcome to the IAC forum.

Can I comment on your RTX system first? It may be possible to rescue your old system as long as you have not done anything with your boot disc. Since they started in NLE hardware, Matrox has always been very and I do mean very, particular about the hardware combination it is used with. A search on Matrox user groups and also on the DVDoctor forum may get you a known compatible motherboard from which you could rebuild your system. I did just this twice with my Canopus Storm over the years.

I do wish that you had posted here before you bought CS4. I stopped upgrading Premiere at CS3 as initial user reports of CS4 was that it was problematical, on one system it was OK on another crashes galore. One of the issues Premiere CS4 had was with certain Canon camcorders, unfortunately yours is one of them.

Type in google CS4 problems Canon HV40 and you get 16000 results.

Although you uninstalled CS4 there would have been folders and files left behind which should have been removed prior to re-installing CS4.

Are you a member of the official Adobe Premiere forum? It is a good idea to join and to keep up to date with their systems and to post problems there.

Now that CS5 has been out for a while most have migrated to that as it is a much better system BUT it does require a top of the line PC with 64 bit Windows 7. Before you even consider upgrading further do check on the suitability of your PC for using CS5.

Good luck

Col
Col Lamb
Preston, Lancashire.
FCPX, Edius6.02, and Premiere CS 5.5 user.
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David Brown
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Re: Premiere CS4 in Windows 7 64 bit

Post by David Brown »

Hi Col

Thanks for responding so promptly. Regarding the Matrox system, I have all the original software including XP Pro and also a boot disk (floppy) which works with a disk image provided by Planet in Yorkshire who built the system. A local PC dealer, who is very good, is looking into motherboards for me but I will follow your advice on the forums etc.

Unfortunately, I found this copy of CS4 a few months back before I joined IAC. I am considering having a new edit station built by Planet with CS5 but it's very expensive...I gather CS5 is vastly better than its predecessors. I didn't realise that my camcorder was a problem for CS4. I bought it last autumn when I bec ame panicky about the decreasing availability of mini-DV machines below £2000 and my GS 400 (thouigh still working perfectly) is getting on a bit. The Canon seems to take excellent video however!

Many thanks for your help. I will certainly post in future before making any big decisions!
David
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billyfromConsett
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Re: Premiere CS4 in Windows 7 64 bit

Post by billyfromConsett »

I used Premiere CS4 with windows 7 64bit for about a year without many problems. I did have problems trying to export HDV projects to the Canon HV30 camcorder - it was hit and miss rather than a total failure.

Have you used it with the Matrox card in it and their software, which might be causing this incompatibility.

Has your PC got 8gb of memory and is at least a quad core? The adobe forums is the way to go.
David Brown
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Re: Premiere CS4 in Windows 7 64 bit

Post by David Brown »

Hi Billy

Thanks for responding.
No, this issue is completely separate from the Matrox card which is on another PC. Yes I have a quad core machine with 8Gb!
David
col lamb
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Re: Premiere CS4 in Windows 7 64 bit

Post by col lamb »

Good luck getting the Matrox system repaired, I would still recommend you doing your own research into Motherboards for your system.

I assume that as you have been using Premiere 6.5 you have been editing for quite a while. CS5 uses the GPU to render effects instead of the CPU. As long as the CPU is a quad core and above 3GHz that should be OK as long as the GPU is nVidia GTX family or above. CS4 does not support native AVCHD files and as such if you change your camera or want to edit this media then you have to do something with the source files, namely transcode them using a product like Cineform's Neoscene but that costs $129 and rather than spend money on that product please read on.

You have already found out that a new CS5 PC is expensive, well there is an answer. Upgrade your old PC and change over to Edius Neo to edit when you get into AVCHD media. The cost of Neo is about £160 and it is far better than Premiere at editing native AVCHD files. It also requires a considerably lesser specified PC to operate.

Do be careful if you upgrade by ensuring that the RAM is fully compatible with the motherboard, check it yourself on the Corsair website by inputting your make and model of motherboard and it will give you the part numbers of memory to fit. Motherboards can require memory to be fitted 4, 8 or 16Gb or 3, 6, 12, 24Gb if the motherboard is tripple channel then you fit memory using 3 sticks which total your system memory eg 3 memory sticks, each 4Gb give 12Gb. Fitting 8Gb to a tripple channel motherboard will not work correctly.
Col Lamb
Preston, Lancashire.
FCPX, Edius6.02, and Premiere CS 5.5 user.
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David Brown
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Re: Premiere CS4 in Windows 7 64 bit

Post by David Brown »

Col, thanks very much for all your advice on the Matrox/CS issues.

I was using Premiere Pro 1.5 with the RTX 100, but you are right in saying I have been editing for a while, as I started with Premiere 5.1 and a Pinnnacle DV500 card. I moved to 6.5 and then Pro 1.5. It as at that time that Pinnacle fell out with Adobe so I moved to Matrox.

The person who is looking at my computer has already told me that the memory will need to be upgraded to DDR3 with a new motherboard. He was taking delivery of two motherboards to try out at the weekend and is hoping that he can get as far as Windows without installing any new motherboard drivers. He thinks he may be able to reload my disc image and work from there, which would obviously avoid the trauma of reinstalling the Matrox drivers and other software! He's pretty good, so I think there is at least a chance of success. I'd already looked on the Adobe forums for the CS4 problem but hadn't found much, and have now registered with DVDoctor. I've posted a message but am waiting approval for it - they're not as quick as IAC which is very impressive!

I was interested in your comment that CS4 does not support AVCHD. I think I was trying to do something with that when the program went down. It's ridiculous - why can't Premiere just say 'unable to read the file' or similar. It really shouldn't have destroyed the whole installation! After Effects runs beautifully though my ability to use it is pretty limited!

I currently have 4Gb of memory in the Pentium but your comment on triple channels explains why Planet's HP workstations only have 6Gb of memory (I have 8 on my current quad core PC). I downloaded a trial version of Edius (just the software) and was quite taken with it so it remains a possibility if I have to buy a new machine! I don't think the Matrox TRX100 will go beyond standard DV however. Planet has recommended CS5 with a Black Magic card.

It's great having someone to discuss these issues with so I am delighted so far by my experiences with IAC and wish I'd joined years ago. Thanks again.
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billyfromConsett
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Re: Premiere CS4 in Windows 7 64 bit

Post by billyfromConsett »

I moved to CS5 for use with AVCHD, but CS4 ran fine with HDV material. If you've got the original disks, and the rest of hardware is properly installed, I'm at a loss to work why your PC is having trouble showing the timeline. Does it work for standard def? Have you got a reliable 600w+ power supply?
col lamb
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Re: Premiere CS4 in Windows 7 64 bit

Post by col lamb »

David
Getting Matrox dirvers to work correctly was/is a total pain. When they are working the systems are very, very good. It was similar with the Storm, there was never one driver that did it all but a host of different ones that had to be installed in a specific order.

If you do go the route of a new PC please do some research on the Sandy Bridge CPU as there are issues with motherboard chips, i7 9xx CPU's are great with AVCHD files.

CS4 will handle AVCHD but I believe that they have to be transcoded first, that is converted into AVI's which take up a colossal amount of storage, this is where Cineform's Neoscene come in as it transcodes the AVCHD files into AVI's but it costs. As I am not a CS4 user this needs to be verified that I am correct about transcoding into CS4.

CS5 will handle native format AVCHD but as I posted previously the PC needs to be up to the job.

Now the important bit, you do not necessarily need the Black Magic card no matter what Planet say. These cards are used for capture of a multitude of formats via component, HDMI etc, they can also have an HDMI output for a monitor. They do nothing to enhance the playback of the timeline like your Matrox does with SD material. A lot of people buy these and the Canopus Storm HD card and all they get is the ability to capture, so they have spent hundreds of pounds when a £15 pci firewire card (if the motherboards does not have one) and a £10 card reader is all that is required to capture SD/HDV and AVCHD media.

Also I am please that you have enjoyed your IAC experience so far, we are all here to help and learn, we also have an e-mail newsgroup that you may wish to join as not all those on the e-mail group come on this forum.

I know that Tom Hardwick and Myself are regular contributors on the DVDoctor website and so I am sure others experiences will help you.
Col Lamb
Preston, Lancashire.
FCPX, Edius6.02, and Premiere CS 5.5 user.
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ned c
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Re: Premiere CS4 in Windows 7 64 bit

Post by ned c »

Just a quick comment on the Black Magic Intensity board; it is considerably more than a Firewire connection. My main use is its ability to play out HD (both 1440x1080 and 1920x1080) off the timeline in real time via HDMI to an HD monitor so that I can see a reasonably sized image (I use a 27 inch 1080 HD TV). It can also import most formats including uncompressed HD. Can't help you beyond that as I use FCP 7 on a Mac as my main edit suite.

ned c
David Brown
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Re: Premiere CS4 in Windows 7 64 bit

Post by David Brown »

Thanks again for all your contributions. Does anyone know which modern motherboards and processors would work with the Matrox RTX100? The local repairer is having a lot of trouble sorting the motherboard problem (may be processor as well!) and it would be very helpful if anyone had experience of modern hardware with this card. Obviously the recommended boards are long gone!
David
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billyfromConsett
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Re: Premiere CS4 in Windows 7 64 bit

Post by billyfromConsett »

I'd think if you went with Intel processor and board, you'd give yourself the best chance of getting the edit card working - but there must be a Matrox forum with members with your edit card who could do better than guess. It's more about the Matrox software I'd think.
David Brown
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Re: Premiere CS4 in Windows 7 64 bit

Post by David Brown »

Thanks Billy. I'm sure you're right and I have posted a request on the Matrox RTX100 forum but the previous post on there was in 2007 so I'm not holding my breath!
David.
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billyfromConsett
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Re: Premiere CS4 in Windows 7 64 bit

Post by billyfromConsett »

I edited my first proper movie (5mins) over the weekend that was shot with an AVCHD TM700 Panasonic cam in 1920x1080, and exported with H264 as a Blu-ray disk, via Premiere CS5. It encoded and exported fine, and burned a disk via Encore - taking about 5 mins for the encoding and 2 mins to burn the disk.

It didn't win the competition but did play and look alright via our HD projector. Maybe I'm of the lucky ones but CS4 and CS5 have been fine on my rig.
col lamb
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Re: Premiere CS4 in Windows 7 64 bit

Post by col lamb »

David

Unless you use the Matrox for its effects then you do not really need it.

A PC that will easily edits SD, HDV and AVCHD can be made with components costing no more than £600/650.

Scan are selling a motherboard/RAM/CPU /Fan bundle for £480 + c£75 for a new GPU + c£80 for a power supply + fitting to you old case and there you are a new PC that will play the timeline in realtime. The bundle is base on the Gigabyte X58 MOBO which is very popular in edit PC's as is my own MOBO.
Col Lamb
Preston, Lancashire.
FCPX, Edius6.02, and Premiere CS 5.5 user.
Find me on Facebook, Colin Lamb
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