On Fri, 15 Oct 1999 02:27:25 +0800, "David Winter"
>Latest Update:
>
>Got an email suggesting I collapse any audio waveforms visible. Did this.
>Got one stage of the project (a 45min component) to render stage (will add
>background music later).
>
>In the process I've found quite a few posting about Invalid Page Faults in
>Module PREMINFO.DLL. These often destabilise the rest of the system and
>Win98, taking Raptor with it. Only way out is a reboot.
>
>It seems to me that Premiere (complained about on quite a few counts) does
>have an instability in this area when rather large projects are tackled.
>
>I hope Canopus can offer a more stable editor with their product as a
>tradeover from Premiere (some might suggest MSP5, but with MSP6 certain to
>be announced at DV Exp in California on 30 Oct, I should doubt its
>validity). Maybe RapEdit for a nominal sum?
My sympathies - an unstable system is a PAIN!!!
But, lest people assume that Premiere 5.1a is unuseable,
let me point out that we have built several stable
systems using it (Spark and Raptor cards, with
300MHz Celerons OC'd to 450), and, while P-5.1a has
several miserable bugs, if one knows what they are
(and how to handle them), it is a good editing program.
BTW, we set up P-5.1a (File/Preferences/Auto-Save) with
"4" levels of undo, "4" versions of the program, and
"999" Maximum Files In Archive (the last seems to help
with longer projects...). It is NECESSARY to save
after every few things done, or the program WILL crash!
(I make it a habit to save after every 1-3 changes.)
I have put out to tape many one-hour edits - the last
couple have stressed the system, though (three-camera
edits, with color corrections on two video tracks,
sharpening on one SI track, resampling on one sound
track, and EQ's on the other two sound tracks. This
did result in some small areas of noisy sound (like
a damp condensor mic), but exporting sound-only gave
me a second overall sound track to mix with. With the
next three-camera project I will resample/EQ/sharpen
all material before importing so that the project
will be a "simple" mix... BTW, with P-5.1a I use the
preview renders as just that - a way to check edits.
Before putting the project out to tape, I go into
the preview file folder (specified on the "C"
drive - this eliminates random preview disappearances)
and manually delete all the previews. I then render
the whole project at once (it doesn't take all that
long, even with a lot of video filtering) and then
put it out to tape (two copies for safety, which I
check before deleting the project). While I often
curse the folks at Adobe, I do find P-5.1a a good
program for the kind of production work I do (and it
is good for to-the-frame control of sound and video
filtering with changes with time [I can even correct
minor focus wander with time-variable sharpening,
the occasional unwanted exposure shift, or the effects
of changing mic angle or distance - this may be
possible with other programs, but it is easy with
Premiere]).
I do conceed that our success with P-5.1a may be due
in large part to just plain dumb luck, though...! ;-)