I am so tired of being a beta tester for adobe!!
 

CS3 had parts of it that simply and to this day do not work.... CS4 has more bugs in it than a flea circus. Today after a week of trying to get it straight and FINALLY completing one simple project the media encoder decides it's no longer going to work. So that simple project that needs to be in tomorrow still sits.... I have been working with Adobe since Premiere 6.0 and have yet to have one come out that works properly out of the box. This will be my last Adobe purchase.

Are you using the latest updates, including the major 4.1 release? Fixed a lot of bugs including with AME, and added some missing features.

Unfortunately, bugs are a way of life; look at the forum for any software package and you'll see people bitterly complaining about bugs -- Apple or PC, Vegas, Adobe, Grass Valley, anyone, everyone. Hopefully, everyone is reporting the bugs they find, along with pertinent hardware and software environment details, to the manufacturers since NOT doing so doesn't help much.

Yep downloaded everything the day I installed CS4. Bugs are one thing but the constant random crashes and the simple fact that they release things that are not fully functional (or really even close) drives me nuts. Any ideas on why the encoder would just stop working???? System is a clean 64 bit Vista Ultimate with nothing installed except CS4 and service pack 2. Quad core 2.66 with 6 gigs of ram and Terabyte Raid.

All the people I know that have these kind of problems often have one or more of four things in common:

1. They use esoteric formats,
2. They have a convoluted workflow,
3. They have limited expertise causing OE,
4. Their system setup (hardware/software) is causing trouble.

All the people that are happily working with CS4 have none of these things. That is the vast majority. If you want to try your luck elsewhere, go ahead, but if one or more of the above mentioned applies to you, another NLE will give the same unsatisfying results.

CS 4 has some pretty major bugs just like about every other CS that has been put out. Yes I do feel like complaining today because I' VERY tired of working with that software and getting no where. Back to CS3 at least I know those bugs and the work a rounds that should not be needed.

Can you list some of these MAJOR BUGS? Which ones of these could be replicated by Adobe or others?

I will start with everything that 4.01 supposedly fixed.... 8 months of stuff not working right for a 1,500 dollar product.....

as always --> the truth is most likely somewhere in the middle. I use Ppro Cs4.1 in the below described semicomplex multimedia environment on a daily basis. I have to make some compromises (as seen below) but I'm quite satisfied with the breath and stability of CS4.1

My main critics are the lame GUI (I'm not sure if a faster graphic card would be the cure), a mysterious interrupt problem, e.g. sometimes a WAV-file - while playing out of the storybook - cannot be stopped/interrupted, I have to wait till it's fully replayed, afterwards the GUI-control is back :-( and the API-3rd party support is still quite disappointing (e.g. Colorista, Mainconcept AVCHD smart rendering, ToonIT are not working with CS4.1)

Maybe only the last point is Adobe SW related, but I'm not the propellerhead diving into all obstacles of the OS, ASIO-handling and I/F support, this is not my desire...

HB

*****
SW Vista Ultimate 32 bit SP2, Cubase SX 5.0.1, Wavelab 6.1, Triton Le, Sony CX6, Adobe CS4 Master Collection, Izotope Ozone 4, Reason 4, Native Instruments Massive, Battery 3, VSL Vienna Suite 3.1, HW Intel D975XBX2, RME HDSP9632, Quad Q6600, 3 GB memory, Marvell 61xx 1 TB Raid 0 storage, GeForce 7600 GS silent, ext equipment MX200+166XL, Yamaha N12digital mixing studio, etc., etc.

Premiere is hopelessly bloated. How come I can effortlessly edit and colour-correct HD in Final Cut realtime, but Premiere struggles with one stream of SD DV with CC on the SAME MACHINE? I`ve given up on Premiere, too unreliable and slow. And it`s got nothing to do with "bloated workflow". Capturing DV and trying to CC is not bloated workflow.

Maybe I'm just lucky, but touch wood - CS4 with the latest upgrade has been trouble free. To be honest, I can't comment on FCP as I'm PC only here.

Maybe the CS products are now so complex that Adobe should do what Microsoft does and make their beta versions available to all who want to use them.

They do right after they sell them to you....

I've had one involving rendering of a specific sequence that included a traveling matte. The only way I could get it to render was to reboot my computer each time I made a change to it.

The problem is this general kind of instability and glitchiness is nearly impossible to re-create. It depends too much on workflow AND used media. It can only be traced by a background daemon tracing memory leaks, response times and crashes. Not our job, but Adobe`s really.

Paul, the traveling matte issue is on the "fixed" list for 4.1...we'll see......! / Battle Vaughan