Adobe Premiere Elements 10 (Win/Mac)

Coming from Premier 9, I didn't notice a significant visual difference between 9 and 10. The biggest differences are under the hood, like 64-bit Win 7 support. The program moves smoother and more seamlessly than previous versions. One of my biggest gripes with the previous two versions of PE was horrible performance with Nvidia laptop graphics cards. Well, I'm now running a new laptop sporting a quad-core Sandy Bridge processor, 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium and a 1GB Nvidia GPU and so far, have experienced no problems. Knock on wood, all seems to have been resolved between the two.

Installation is simple. There are five disks in the package. Disk one is for 32-bit Windows, disk two is for 64-bit Windows, disk 3 for Mac and the remaining The interface is pretty much the same although there are more options for improving color balance and exporting clips. Capturing also seems quicker and less problematic than previous versions. There are several options for capture from several camera types. Yoou can specify whether you're capturing from HDV, AVCHD, flip, video files, or other formats. The capture will configure the rest of your project to the capture type. Once footage is captured, it can be futher analyzed or you can get righ to editing. There are many different tools to help you add special effects, correct video quality, superimpose using chromakey, add transitions, pans, zooms, titles.... you name it. You can work in timeline with numerous audio & video tracks or storyboard view with clips. The tools are there to make a truly professional presentation if you have the skill and time. I'm not a film school grad or super-knowledgable about the use of effects and techniques. In fact, I find that when I apply liberal use of effects and transitions, I usually tend to make the movies too cheesy looking and distracting, so I usually only use corrective filters, a few low-key transitions and titles. If you're like me or don't have a ton of time and just want a quick movie start to finish, the magic movie option is great. It will apply themes, titles, effects, transitions, and the spit out a rendered final cut or disk in no time. For the more experienced or daring, there is very little this program can't do. There is nothing that compares in the PC realm. I haven't yet tried it on my Mac but (assuming it runs okay in Mac OSX), feature for feature, it's much better than the current iMovie and just as good as Final Cut Express 4.

Overall performance seems better, thanks to 64-bit support. Rendering times are about the same, even with increased memory and a quad-core CPU. However, I am able to multitask easier while rendering is taking place. I have also already ripped, edited, and burned a ton of high-def footage with no glitches, crashes, or problems yet. The canned DVD themes the usual cheesy styles. Although, I'm simply putting together home movies of my kids, not anything professional or commercial, I do prefer a cleaner less cheesy 70's vibe from the music and templates. I'm pretty sure you can likely find or create your own menus or themes. I haven't explored it yet but plan to do so. When your finished editing your project you can export directly to Facebook, YouTube, disk (or image), or PC files. There are a ton of export options: Flash, MPEG, AVCHD, AVI, Windows Media, Quicktime, still images and audio, with additonal export options within each specified format.

One complaint I have is the almost strong arm tactic to force you to create an Adobe ID. In this ID crazy world, I have easily over a hundred online IDs for numerous sites, trials, registrations, etc. It has gotten so annoying, I usually use a throw away emaiol for the bulk of these IDs anyhow. Well, Adobe REALLY wants you to have an Adobe ID. I tried to ignore the first dozen or so times I wwas hassled to create an ID until I wanted to try out the Inspiration browser. Well, installing the Inspiration browser was a headache in itself. First, several attempts to install it bombed, (hint, if you keep encountering an error message saying the installer is damaged, uninstall the Inspiration Browser from add/remove programs and clear the web browser cache. The try installing again). After finally getting it installed, I clicked the desktop shortcut for the Inspiration Browser. A Window opened stating the program could only be launched from within the Elements program. Great... so WHY exactly did it place a new shortcut on my desktop??? Anyway, I deletyed the useless shortcut and launched the browser from the program. Guess what? I was yet AGAIN prompted to enter an Adobe ID. At this point, I caved in and created one. Thinking I'd FINALLY get to use it, they then required me to verify my email address yet again. I did so and finally at least got past the door, but guess what? I still could not view the content. NOW, I was promted to enter a date of birth and a desired name for my personal online album. Frazzled, I entered the information thinking "this has got to be the last obstacle". Nope, I was then taken to yet another page where I was offered the option to upgrade to the Plus plane for $49.99 annually. Saying to myself, "this HAS to be the final hurdle", I selected to use the free plan. Guess what? I was taken to yet another login screen for my Adobe ID. After entering my Adobe ID credentials again, it finally opened the Inspiration browser.

The program runs great, especially in 64-bit on Windows 7. The features and capabilities are unrivaled by any consumer level editor out there. It finally plays nice with Nvidia cards (and this is a HUGE plus in my opinion), It is now my new favorite video editor, Mac or PC.

The lone complaint... Stop harassing folks to create a 500th online ID or purchase optional features at additonal costs.

Premiere Elements, including v10 is the Soup Nazi of video editing software. If you walk the straight and narrow path, and avoid:
- memory card based video recordings
- large images
- downloaded video and audio files
- too many many edits
- long videos

... well then it may choose render a video for you. But if you want a general purpose video package that can handle different video and audio sources and render them to basic files or DVDs, you may be disappointed. If you have a youngster like me who puts together videos for school projects, well you can expect tears, frustration, and sleepless nights trying to get the program to deliver. Imagine spending hours getting your video apparently perfect in PE and then having no ability to save the video.

I've used the last 3 versions, 8.0, 8.01, 9, and now 10 and I'm throwing in the towel. I've scoured the web for help, posted in help forums, I have the latest NVIDIA card and drivers, a 4-core processor, 2 drives each with 500+ gb free, 32gb of RAM - it means nothing to this software.

I realize video processing is complex and it is unreasonable to expect a single package to handle everything out there. But PE tends to abort with the like of "Unknown Error", "Encoding Error", with absolutely no specifics. If it does not support a particular video file, it should not let you add it to your project. Or it should indicate the problem during render. It may waste an hour of your time and render to 95% and then just say "Error creating video.". No log, no indication of which clip caused the problem. To make matters worse, at times it may render a clip while at other times it will not. Sure, clear the media cache, delete the rendered files, reboot, change your render codecs and params all you like, defrag your drive, update your bios, get that latest video driver revision, check that hardware compatibility list again, etc. - but nothing helps. Or you may do as Adobe suggests - use a 3rd party video utility to convert videos to a format palatable to Premiere Elements... but doesn't that defeat the purpose?

I've used many many different software packages of all types, but never have I seen a more pitiful example of unreliable software.

I'm in the market now for a reliable alternative - I'd appreciate any non-Adobe suggestions.

Thanks!!

[review has been updated - more comments at bottom]
I've been using Premier Elements 7 (PE7) for a couple of years, and it is reliable, predictable, and efficient. I mostly record things from my TV tuner card, from which I create DVD's without having to go through any additional hoops. I do not make many home videos or do outside production work.

I've been playing with the evaluation copy of PE10 and there are some alarm bells going off. My complaints are:

1. CRITICAL - Endless looping while "conforming" .AVI files that PE7 handled without any problem at all
2. ANNOYING - Always starts up in full-screen, even with a project that was saved in non-full-screen mode. Granted, it's a few mouse clicks to shrink the window, but PE7 always opened existing projects in whatever state they were saved in.
3. ANNOYING - an updater component running in the background. Can't see the need, myself. That should be my choice, not Adobe's.
4. ANNOYING - incessant nagging to join up, sign on, back up my files online, etc. (though in fairness, PE7 also has some of this too).

I have to say that issue 1 above is just a stopper, plain and simple. Some video gearheads have suggested that using a separate app to get around the conforming error, but how fiddley do we have to be here? I want to be able to do everything once in a self-contained environment, not have to go from this app to that one, and then shift files around manually and hope for the best. But the main point is this - PE7 WORKS FINE!! Why is this a problem with PE10?

Also, it just doesn't seem like there is all that much difference in usability or functionality, even if the issue above was not present. You still go through the same process - add media, edit the clips a bit, set markers, create the DVD layout, and burn. The buttons & menus & mouse clicks are all pretty much the same as always.

So I think I am staying on PE7, but that's just me. As for others, I really suggest installing the evaluation copy and seeing if it meets your needs and deciding for yourself.

[update 11/3/2011]
Well, I have decided to go ahead and get the double Premier/Photoshop Elements upgrade from Adobe at the $119 upgrade price, and am going to install and use PE10 now, despite the issues mentioned above. It appears that PE10 will process H.264 files quite nicely, and I can use those to create good quality DVD's of TV recordings. It would be nice if the .avi's work, but I think can live with it. The other annoyances are there, but most of them are there with version 7 as well and I am coping with them.

I am going to go ahead and bump up the stars to three, which should be interpreted as meaning the software does its work as expected. Still, I do not really see enough in here that is substantially different from three versions back. I will stick with what I say - download the demo, wring it out as best you can in the manner you think you will use it, and see if it gets it done for you.

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