Digital Home Thoughts: Adobe Releases Premiere Elements 9: Hopefully it Crashes Less

"SAN JOSE, Calif. - Sept. 21, 2010 - Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced Adobe(r) Premiere(r) Elements 9 software for both Windows(r) and Mac. Available for the first time on the Mac platform, Adobe's No. 1 selling consumer video-editing software* enables users to turn raw video footage into professional-looking movies in minutes and share virtually anywhere with friends and family."

I have a real love-hate relationship with Premiere Elements. On the love side, it's incredibly easy to use and generates excellent quality output. It's flexible in terms of output formats - I can create MPEG4 h.264 files at 1080p with two-pass VBR encoding at whatever bit rate I want...many consumer-level apps can't do that - and does basically everything I need it do. I find the user interface easy to figure out, the text tools are nice, and I have a nice, fast work-flow when using the program.

On the hate side, it crashes...a lot. I've never seen an application crash as often as Premiere Elements does. It crashes when editing a video, rendering a video, editing text, even exiting the application. I haven't seen an application crash this often since the days of Windows 95. It's been like this for years - check out this post of mine from 2008. Premiere Elements crashes so much that in version 8, Adobe introduced an error reporting wizard that asks you what you were doing when the application crashed, asks you for your email address, and presumably sends them crash information. I say "presumably" because in all of the crash reports I've submitted - and I'd estimate I've submitted at least 50 of them in the past year - I've never heard back from Adobe tech support. Worse, Adobe as a rule doesn't release patches or updates for their Elements software - if it has a glaring bug, it will not get fixed. Adobe simply expects the user to buy the next version of the software that has the fix. Appalling, isn't it?

And speaking of glaring bugs, version 8 of Premiere Elements had a doozy: when you're editing a video, even if you specify that the file should be de-interlaced upon output, it won't be. Identical settings in v7 produce interlaced video in v8. I confirmed with Adobe that this was a bug they knew about, and in the year that v8 was on the market, they never addressed the problem. Interlaced video looks horrible if there's any movement in the video - here are some examples of what it looks like. The only way to fix the problem was to right-click on every video clip in your project and set the field options to de-interlace; and more than once I'd have a multi-hour project render only to discover that I forgot to do that process on one or more video clips and I'd have to re-render the entire thing. I was so ticked off about this problem that I didn't review v8 of Premiere Elements - I kept waiting, and hoping, that Adobe would release a patch to fix the problem, but they didn't...they just released a new version.

Oh, and v8 was slow. There's no GPU acceleration, so compared to applications such as Corel VideoStudio Pro X2 or Cyberlink PowerDirector, it takes forever to render video. The end quality is great, but it's 100% CPU based, so you'd better have a really fast processor if you want to have your video render in any reasonable time frame. Playback of HD content is also quite brutal; there's no GPU-assisted decoding, so jerky playback of HD video is the norm. Other than the constant crashing, horrible performance, and infuriating interlacing bug, I quite like Premiere Elements. ;-)

v9 brings a few new things to the table, though looking at the press release, I'm a bit concerned that none of them seem like significant features. The Organizer auto-analyzes video clips and rates them - but I'd never trust software to tell me what's a memorable video clip and what isn't. There's the mention of being able to easily fix audio problems, automatically trim bad footage, and a few other things...but it's a bit nebulous. "Optimized performance" is mentioned for both editing and playback, but there's no mention of GPU-assisted support. If it had full-blown CUDA or ATI Stream support, I'm sure the press release would have mentioned it.

Like an abused spouse, I keep going back to Premiere Elements - hoping that, this time, things will be different. I'm sure I'll end up getting v9, and when I start to use it, I'll blindly hope that it doesn't treat me as badly as v8 has.

Adobe hasn't updated their product Web site yet, and I didn't get any images to go along with the press release, so for now you'll have to use your imagination. The remainder of the press release is below.

"With video-capturing devices on the rise, people are looking for a complete video organizing, editing and sharing tool that is easy to learn and use," said Kevin Connor, vice president of product management for Digital Imaging at Adobe. "We are very excited that our latest version of award-winning Premiere Elements software will enable both Mac and Windows users to create high-impact movies quickly and effortlessly. Taking advantage of intelligent features and boosted performance, the software allows users to get creative and make fun movies without a steep learning curve."

Smart Organization for all Video Clips

Premiere Elements users can take advantage of an easy-to-use Organizer, which acts as a media management hub, where both video clips and still photos can be accessed in one convenient location. The software easily imports a variety of file types from different devices including the popular Flip Video(tm) camera and video from DSLR cameras. Users can quickly find the best videos with the Auto-Analyzer that automatically tags the most interesting, highest quality video footage - eliminating the hassle of clicking through dozens of clips to find the great ones.

Take the Work Out of Moviemaking

With Premiere Elements 9, users can create eye-catching videos in just minutes, easily fix audio problems, automatically trim away bad footage, stabilize shaky shots, and correct bad color and lighting. Once users select the footage they want, movies can be created instantly or enhanced with professional flair in just a few clicks or with simple drag and drop effects, like the Cartoon Effect, which turns any video into an animated feature. Optimized performance also makes editing and viewing smooth, even in HD.In addition, friends and family can experience an interactive DVD-like viewing experience on the Web or share directly to Facebook and YouTube via interactive albums.

Plus Extends Software Capabilities

For added convenience, now Adobe Premiere Elements 9 Windows and Mac users have the option to purchase Plus, which offers 20GB of storage for automatic online backup and sharing (up to 15,000 photos or four hours of DVD-quality video), as well as ongoing deliveries of creative extras sent directly to the desktop software. A benefit to all Photoshop Elements users is virtually anywhere access to photos and videos online or via select mobile devices at Photoshop.com.

Pricing and Availability

Adobe Premiere Elements 9 for Windows and Mac is available now at www.adobe.com, and also will be available soon at retail outlets such as Amazon.com, Apple (Mac only), Best Buy, Costco, Fry's, New Egg, Office Depot and Office Max. Premiere Elements 9 for Windows(r) and Mac is available for a suggested retail price of US$99.99, and users can purchase Plus from within the product for US$49.99/year. Plus is available in the U.S. only.

Information about other language versions, as well as pricing, upgrade and support policies for other countries is available at www.adobe.com/go/premiereelements. For free training videos on Premiere Elements, visit Adobe TV at http://tv.adobe.com.

* Source: The NPD Group/Retail Tracking Service (January 2007 to March 2010) based on units sold in the Video and Photo Editing Categories. Combined units sold for Premiere Elements and Photoshop(r) Elements & Premiere Elements bundle (U.S. only).

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