Adobe Premiere Elements 4 [OLD VERSION]
by Adobe
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Software Reviews of Adobe Premiere Elements 4 [OLD VERSION]
Customer Review: Will not work with AVCHD file format.
Summary: 1 Stars
This is probably a real nice program like all other Adobe programs, but you can not work with the new High Definition AVCHD format that the new flash memory video cameras produce. Unfortunately I had to return this software to Amazon, and received full credit. I gave this one star because I couldn't use it.Customer Review: Audio cuts out, video timeline entry useless, plugins don't work
Summary: 1 Stars
I encountered a number of problems with this program:
* Audio cuts out unexpectedly, including when saving videos, making the videos useless.
* Lets you enter videos in the timeline, but then to cut and splice them you need to go back to the sceneline, which doesn't show any of the videos you entered in the timeline. Since I used the timeline to painstakingly synchronize audio and video tracks, I now have to undo ALL of that work and re-enter them in the sceneline. This is plain STUPID.
* VST plugins do not work. They don't tell you explicitly which directory to put them in, the documentation points to a mythical directory. I eventually found the right directory and added my VST audio plugins. I know it was looking there, because it gave errors for a few plugins that required a security key that wasn't enabled for this boot partition. I deleted those, the program loaded (FYI, I had to hold a key while the program loaded to even get this far - not documented in the manual, eventually found it on a web forum), but it still doesn't show the VST plugins in the program audio effects folder. I ended up editing my audio files in Wavelab.
I'm giving up on this program. It simply doesn't work as advertised.
Customer Review: Not worth the money or frustration
Summary: 1 Stars
I have thousands of photos that I organize and edit with Photoshop Elements. I try to take the next step and create slideshows to music and put them on DVD for sports teams, family events, etc. I enjoy doing most of the slideshow work in Photoshop Elements. When I get to Premiere to get into final form and burn to DVD, my frustration level goes through the roof. Yesterday, I spent 6 hours trying to get one 10 minute slideshow on DVD. Here are the issues:
> Crashes regularly and must shut it done
> Slow -- unable to break apart slides to add effects (i.e. transitions, titles, menus)
> Complex -- not user friendly for the non-professional user. I spent hours trying to figure out what should be simple edits (i.e. adjusting audio tracks, changing timing of slides)
I wish Photoshop would just add more functionality to making a slideshow and burning to a DVD. I have un-installed Premiere after yesterday.
Customer Review: Good Interface but Slow and Crashes
Summary: 1 Stars
Well, I just finished my first project with Adobe Premiere Elements 4. Overall, I'd say I'm very dissatisfied with the product. It has a good feature set for the money, a very attractive and easy to use interface, and has a useful set of templates for titles and menus. So what's not to like? In short, it's very slow and crashes a lot, often taking saved work down with the ship.
I was doing a project that should have taken a couple hours and it ended up taking all night (and all morning). I frequently had to redo work when the program crashed (4 times in 4 hours). Also, it seems that every time I switch to another program (even a text messaging program) Premiere Elements 4 freezes up for a minute or two. I assume it's re-scanning resources to see if anything changed. That "feature" is such a productivity killer I can't even give the product two stars. My machine has a dual core 3 gHZ processor and 4 GB of RAM, and hardware encoding/decoding, so it's not the machine's fault.
The interface is very prety and super intuitive, but seriously, what good is it if you stare at hourglasses and the program crashes? And a penalty for multitasking between programs? What is this? Windows 3.1? Honestly, Windows Movie Maker is more reliable and productive.
Customer Review: Aggravating Program
Summary: 2 Stars
The more I use Adobe Premiere Elements 4.0, the less I like it. There are few redeeming qualities and too many flaws to make it worth the money or hassle. I am running it on XP and want to capture HD from my camcorder. Windows Movie Maker does not support capturing HD unless it is the newer version on Vista. So I got Premiere Elements to address this. This is one of the few benefits to the software I can find. Now for my complaints:
1. The software is a pig - with my desktop computer that is fairly capable and has 3GB of RAM, Premiere Elements still has trouble starting up and keeping up. It can't render the video in preview mode accurately - often falling behind so you can't get a good idea of what the final product will be like. So I have to output it as a video file in order to get a "preview", but this processing takes a while.
2. It crashes occasionally - I have seen it crash on numerous occasions and yesterday lost my changes for no apparent reason other then the program being minimized.
3. The time markers are sometimes inaccurate - when dragging the markers around to indicate where to start/end the scene it sometimes will show you something other than what it will actually render in an output file. I especially see this when attempting to use transitions.
4. Unintuitive - this is a difficult program to get the hang of. Things are layed out differently than I would expect and the UI makes it hard to find things. Sitting through tutorials help, but it makes it difficult if you are a casual user such as myself that does not use it every week.
Luckily it is functional enough that I can complete a project, but it certainly does not make it very easy.