I have a pretty decent system for editing that now seems to have been brought to its knees by CS6.
My machine is an HP built just for editing. It has:

i7 990 with 3.46 ghz processor (6 core) .
24 GB's RAM DDR3
Nvidia GTX580 video card
About 10 TB's of attached storage. Drive C is just for programs, a WD 4TB Raid 0 external drive is used for projects, and it is backed up to WD 8TB "Sentenal" running in Raid 5.

Timing for this to happen really sucks, I have to cut down two concerts I shot in April to make demo reels for the bands.

I had been running Adobe CS5.5 Production Premium with just fantastic results. But the cost of the upgrade was low enough that I decided to go for it.

Well that apparently was a mistake. Now I cannot play back anything without major issues. For example, when trying to play back a single video track shot on my Panasonic AC160 at 1080/60i, I can hear the audio playing just beautifully....but the video images stays frozen like a still image. The video is not advancing with the audio. If I let it run for ten minutes, the video will be 10 minutes behind the audio.

When I open up a project from last April with three tracks of video, which was originally edited in Premiere Pro CS5.5, there are red lines all over the top of my timeline where there were none in April. I try and render the timeline, and it tells me "time remaining = 104:38:15"!!!!! For a project that is not even 45 minutes long.

Now when I installed CS6 Production Premium, it was an upgrade to my CS5.5 Production Premium, which was an upgrade to CS4 Master Collection, which was an upgrade from my CS3 Master Collection.

Could that history of upgrading be the issue?

Curently I am transferring files from my CS6 computer to my old computer that is still running CS4.

I am also attempting to burn an H.264 file on the CS6 computer because there is no way I can edit on it. My hoping was that by burning the H.264 file I could drop that on a new timeline in CS4 and cut the clips I need out of that.

Is there a way that I can "cleanly" delete my CS6 upgrade and revert to CS5.5 without munging things up?

The computer running CS6 litterally cannot be used for video editing as it is. Before installing CS6, I had no such problems.

Has anyone else had this type of problem with installing CS6? If so how did you resolve it? Any advice or help would certainly be appreciated, I am at a real loss.
Thanks in advance,
SW

Multiple versions of CS should co-exist on the same system with no problem as they are completely separate installs. Similarly, you should be able to uninstall a version without affecting the others. That shouldn't be necessary though since your hardware sounds very much up to snuff.

But there must be a bottleneck somewhere. Some of the common gotchas, most of which should only take a few minutes to check, and if necessary, fix:

- C drive almost full and/or severely fragmented. Many programs, including CS, default their temp/cache/preview files to the C drive and it is easy to get surprised with a near-full disc that starts bogging down your computer. The first thing I do after installing programs is to go to preferences and point all those working files to a fast drive with ample free space.

- Throughput from the project array. You mention that your source files are on an external RAID0. Assuming it is 4 discs all set up as a single RAID0, that's great editing, but the next question then is "what's the interface?" For example, USB2 wouldn't cut it for multicam editing. That's probably not the case, since your system's performance in CS5.5 was good. But even if you don't really think this is the problem, do use a utility to check the sustained throughput of the array to rule out a choke point.

- Make sure GPU acceleration is working for you. I believe the GTX580 is certified so you shouldn't have to do the GPU hack, but if you have red bars everywhere it either means you are using non-accelerated effects, or GPU acceleration isn't turned on, or both. Check in the Project preferences to make sure it is enabled.

- Incompatible third party hardware / software. What else is on the system? Any custom controllers or capture cards?

- If all else fails, try uninstalling and re-installing, as maybe the install has a corrupt driver or something. Hey, it happens. Since you describe freezing video frames, this seems fairly likely.

So many of us are really happy with CS6 that I have to think your troubles relate not to the software per se, but some system glitch. Will be interested to hear what the problem turned out to be.

Thanks for the fast response, Pete.

Now that you mention it, I do have a rather full Drive C. It's showing that it has "only" 153GB's left out of 1.82TB's. It's little bar in "my computer" is red. I will go pick up a new Drive C and start transferring data over.

As for my connection to the computer, it is eSATA.

I will double-check to see that my graphics card accelloration is turned on and working. It was certified for CS5.5, I asked Adobe if it would work for CS6 and they said yes. But....I never double-checked to see that it was enabled after the install.

No custom controllers or such, although I did download NewBlueFX Colorfast immediately prior (about a week) to installing CS6.

These are all very good suggestions, thanks Pete. I am a real fan of Adobe CS, have been since 2004.

Sorry Steve...

But what do you have in C:\ drive, that would fill it up??

Except for OS, and program installs, nothing else should be on there.

Now I cannot play back anything without major issues. For example, when trying to play back a single video track shot on my Panasonic AC160 at 1080/60i, I can hear the audio playing just beautifully....but the video images stays frozen like a still image.

You aren't the first or only person to see something like this. It's typically due to configuration issues. Search the Adobe PPro forums (http://forums.adobe.com/community/premiere/premierepro_current?view=discussions&start=30#/), maybe ask a question there.

Steve,

There is something seriously wrong on your C: drive. Even with CS5, CS5.5 and CS6 Master Collection installed, it would be difficult to use anything more than say 60 GB. With the fill rate on your 2 TB drive it seriously slows down and I would suggest you clean up massively. Around 1.6 TB or more should be deleted permanently. Maybe the best approach is to go for a complete format and fresh install of OS & programs on your C: drive.

By default CS6 puts all files in your My Documents folder which is of course on your c drive. Unless you set up all temp folders etc etc then I expect everything you have done since loading CS6 in on your C drive.

Ron Evans

This is all really great information.

Yeah, I checked and under "My Documents" on C drive there is an "Adobe" folder. Clicked it, and there was a folder for PP 5.5, with 342GB's of .PRV files.
Can those be safely moved to another drive I have, or do I risk screwing up files that I may have to go back and work on in the near future?

.PRV contains rendered preview files. They are not needed and can be safely removed, but it means your timelimes need to be rendered again. You can not move them to another drive. I suggest you use both Preferences and Project setup to direct Media Cache files and Preview files to another drive. Also disable hibernation and (manually) remove hiberfil.sys. That can also save 30+ GB. In addition set your Windows environment variables to another drive, Variables like TMP and TEMP. If possible change your My Documents to another drive as well.

Harm thanks, I can do that.
Won't move .PRV files now, but will make other changes you recommended.

Need help on video freezing up in CS6 please.
I cleaned out my C drive, replaced a suspect WD 4tb drive with a new G-Raid 4TB, un-installed CS6 and re-stalled CS5.5 so I could get some work done. Tonight I tried a re-install on CS6, but nothing has changed! Video still freezes up, on the simplest AVCHD video clip. It starts out alright, but...if I drag the CTI along the timeline to another clip, he video will freeze on the first frame of that clip and not move at all, while the audio plays back just perfectly.

Do I need to do another un-install and go back to CS5.5, or does Adobe have some sort of fix for freezing video in CS6?

It just amazes me how there always seems to be more to learn, and even pretty important stuff that you think you have a handle on, but really don't. Back up the thread Harm suggested serious problems with the OP's C: drive, and I'm thinking that my 238Gb SSD — which is only supposed to have the OS and program files on it, has just 50Gb of free space.

I actually started trying to track things down manually by checking individual folder’s properties, and keeping score with an Excel sheet. Jumping ahead, I later found a handy utility called Windirstat that does all the hard work for you, and delves into all the hidden folders, and system files. That helped a lot.

http://www.downloadbestsoft.com/WinDirStat.html

Amongst other things, I discovered that my Bridge CS6 cache is more than 10Gb in size, but I can't find how to move it off the C: drive. Anyone know the answer to that? I also found lesser, but completely unnecessary cached data in earlier versions of Bridge, so I just purged those.

97% of my User folders consists of 27Gb in my AppData subfolders, nearly all of it related to Adobe apps, and 7Gb in \Local\Temp\After Effects Disk cache — what the heck? I have only just started using After Effects, but have spent a lot of time with the Lynda.com AE CS6 tutorial. I have also set up preferences to use other drives. I think I might purge everything I can in AE, and look again at cache locations. This assumes I am not barking up the wrong tree so to speak — but I did say I know there is always more stuff to learn!

After following the Adobe Premiere Pro Hardware forum for a couple of months when I had my system built earlier this year, I have left my Page file on the C drive, but I am not altogether sure that was the right choice. But with System files taking so much space, I did have a Google round, and discovered that your Restore points can seriously impact on disk space.

http://www.quepublishing.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1804138

I’ve won back an awful lot of space on my C: drive since being prompted to look at it after reading this thread, and have not finished yet. What about hiberfil.sys for instance? That’s another 24Gb on my C: drive, and never use Hybernate.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/15140/what-is-hiberfil.sys-and-how-do-i-delete-it/

Trevor,

Your 238 G SSD would presumably be a 256 GB SSD, but shows only 238 GB after formatting, right?

I have the same capacity SSD, formally a 256 GB but after formatting only 238 GB. With Win8 64 Enterprise installed and a few other applications, like PerfectDisk, SnagIt, HD Tune Pro, CPU-Z, GPU-Z, Speccy, EVGA utilities, CCleaner, TweakNow and SpyderElite it occupies 15 GB but this is before installing the Master Collection.

To remove the hyberfil.sys file,

Go to cmd.exe as administrator and from the command prompt type in:
"powercfg.exe -h off" without the quotes and press enter. Then exit.

For checking your disk drives for what takes what space, there are two utilities on my favorite list:

1. Treesize Professional, http://www.jam-software.com/treesize/ and
2. Beyond Compare, http://www.scootersoftware.com/moreinfo.php.

Trevor,

Your Bridge cache will be in the same place as the cache for all your other Adobe applications. You can check for its location by going to Edit > Preferences > Cache. It may be that what was on your C:\ drive was left over from from when you moved the Premiere cache.

Once there you can navigate to place it wherever you want. I have it on my F:\ drive - Programs on C:, non-video files on D:\, media on E:\, and Exports on G:\. It needs to be on a fast drive, my E: and F: are both RAID0 - I have an external backup drive.

At last! I now have CS6 Premiere Pro up and running on my system with no apparent issues. No more freezing up of the video, while the audio keeps playing.

I called Adobe about the issue, and the tech there advised me that it would be best to un-install the CS4 Master Collection, and CS5.5 Production Premium that I had, then re-install CS6 Production Premium. He said they were taking up too much memory. So we did that-deleted CS4, and CS5.5, then re-installed CS6. Now it works like a champ..

Thanks to all on this board who gave their time to respond to my request for help. I wanted to thank you, and post the resulkts in case this happens to someone else, tghey will know that worked for me in solving the problem.

And a big thanks to Adobe for sitting with me for 1.5 hours figuring it out. That was really great.
SW

Hate to do this, but I must walk this one back. I am still experiencing considerable issues trying to play back simple single track videos from the timeline of Premiere Pro CS6. Video still freezes up, while audio plays just fine. Have now gone back to using CS5.5, which so far has been very fast and reliable.
.
I only had success editing a single project on CS6. Most stuff it just cannot handle on my system, (Intel i7 990 Extreme 3.46 Ghz, 24Gb DDR3 ram, Nividia GTX 580, 2TB 7,200rpm 64MB cashe, Sata drive C that is only 25% full, and G-RAID 4TB Raid 0 drives for project files) so it just is not useable at any level.
Had Adobe on the phone looking at my machine via Abobe Connect, they could not figure it out. I currently have HP (my computer is an HP) looking at it and they volunteered to contact Adobe and try and figure it out).

I did note, that the issues I am seeing look as though maybe my C drive is not fast enough, although it really only has my operating system and applications on it, and about 90GB's of .PRV files that I mistakenly allowed to be sent there. So it is using 500GB's out of 2TB's. CS5.5 just flies with this set-up, but CS6 seems to be much more resource intensive.

So I have been wondering-is it really necessary to use an SSD for my system drive? Would that solve the problem? Seems a lot of testers who praise CS6 have SSD's or 10,000 rpm drives, not the 7,200 rpm that I have used with great success for every previous version of Premiere Pro.

I would do it, if switching to a SSD would solve the problem. I really, really want to get CS6 working.

Steve,

The problem you have is that you have only two volumes, the boot disk and the G-Raid over eSATA..

Now, depending on how you tuned your system, this setup may be hampered by the fact that you still have indexing and/or compression on on both volumes, you may not have removed the sidebar, turned off Aero, or uninstalled stuff like MSN and the like. Maybe you have installed iTunes and QuirckTime. I don't know. but that kind of things I would look at. Then disable or remove background services and processes that are not needed, things like mDNSResponder.exe, jusched.exe, and similar.

I responded on the other thread about the SSD, so no need to repeat it here.

Basically you are travelling on a two lane highway and if there is much traffic (services, processes) this will cause delays. If you can't afford to expand the highway to three or more lanes (volumes), then you need to get some traffic off the highway (remove services and processes) in order to avoid traffic jams and increase your speed.

Harm, are you sure this is his main problem?

For some reason CS5.5 seems to work fine on Steve's system, and CS6 doesn't. I think the problem must be in a different place than hardware. My bet is on the Mercury Transport Engine that for some reason conflicts with past components or hardware.

Steve, have you tried doing a clean install of Windows and installing CS6 on a computer without other software installed?

I am still experiencing considerable issues trying to play back simple single track videos from the timeline of Premiere Pro CS6. Video still freezes up, while audio plays just fine.
I m guessing it was DSLR footage, cuz i see the same, and I do have dedicated SSD drive for the footage, but at the same time i cut 4K R3Ds on the same system with no any problems , i don't get it :)

No I am shooting AVCHD with my old Panasonic HMC150 + an AC160.

Have not yet tried installing CS6 on a system with nothing else on it, perhaps tyhat is worth a go.

Went to the reateshere video expo in Burbank today because Adobe was there. I got to talk with their technical rep, Mitch. Wasn't sure what it could be. He asked me to send him a clip via Dropbox. He did say that it should not be a hardware issue, that he thought my system as described should be stout enough.
But I do see that a lot of the testers and those who praise CS6 use either SSD's, or 10,000 rpm drives and try somewhat to separate functions on drives, like Harm was describing. It is just that for me at least, none of that was necessary in order to successfully run CS5.5. I am not sure what exactly Adobe did, if anything, to make CS6 so much more demanding of system resources.

Mitch from Adobe thought that the two should be substantially similar in how demanding they are on system resources such as drives and configuration.

I also got a call from Adobe at the office while I was taliking with Mitch, so I will follow that up with a call back in the A.M.
Thanks to all for your continued input. MY IT guy will be out 'til Saturday, tyhen we will look at doing this stuff.

To all those that said to "clean' the cache THANK YOU!!. My C drive just dropped 90gb of unwanted files. I've re-directed new projects cache to my 2TB data storage drive and all is well with the world.

Harm, when I try to disable hibernate - it tells me I do not have the authority.
I notice this with a few other files as well - how do I become "authorised" - I am the only user.
Thx

But I do see that a lot of the testers and those who praise CS6 use either SSD's, or 10,000 rpm drives and try somewhat to separate functions on drives, like Harm was describing. It is just that for me at least, none of that was necessary in order to successfully run CS5.5. I am not sure what exactly Adobe did, if anything, to make CS6 so much more demanding of system resources.

I am using a 2-3 year old Dell Studio XPS, Win 7, i7, 24 GB RAM, nVidea Quadro 3800 GPU.
All of my drives are SATA 7200- one drive for system & software, a 2 drive RAID 0 for media, a USB 3 drive for project files, previews, renders, etc.
CS 5.5 ran very smoothly while editing in native formats and DI formats, as well as for complex and long form projects.
I am using CS6 currently (CS5.5 is still installed) and am having the same experience- it is smooth sailing so far. This includes new AVCHD and Cineform projects, as well as importing and converting prior CS5.5 projects to CS 6. I am not really seeing any suggestion that CS6 is more demanding or less stable than CS 5.5
IMO the sort of dramatic problems you describe are way out of profile with what would be the expected performance of CS6 on your system.
I'm skeptical that changing one of your drives to SSD will make any difference at all.
It sounds like the main problem is failure of avchd video playback from the timeline.
For me, the fact that it does play normally on CS5.5 rules out any basic hardware problems like disk drives.
You might double check your GPU for CS6 compatibility, make sure the latest drivers are installed properly, etc.
This leaves challenging issues like software conflicts, etc.
At the end of the day, a clean install of everything (including tthe OS) may be the last resort.
IMO, CS6 should run well on machines that can run CS5.5 well
Good luck

Chris,

You have to open CMD.exe as administrator.

Harm,
I downloaded Treesize trial and it looks pretty complicated! Does the pro version come with instructions? Hard to tell which files I need to delete and how to delete them. I have 21 gig left on my 300 gig HD. Any idea how to use this software?
Thanks!
Art

My understanding, the main purpose of Treesize Free is just to show you all the folders in the selected drive, and tell you how large they and each of their subfolders are.
You can thus use TreeSize to discover folders that are way bigger than you think they should be (like maybe a previously unknown media cache file with 30 GB of useless stuff in it).
That's the end of TreeSize's job.
It's up to you to then use those clues to pinpoint, examine, identify, & make decisions about those folders and their contents.

Bob,
I think you are right. It shows all my files and how large they are. I don't have enough knowledge to know which ones I need to delete/move. I got rid of my PPV files but the drive is still full. I haven't learned how to direct these files and others I don't need on my operating system drive to my 3 other 2T drives in preferences. ( I remember a thread on that a few years ago when I wasn't concerned) all I have on that drive are Abobe CS5 and Digital Juice files, no virus mgt, office etc and the 300 gig is full. I'll keep doing sme checking.

Thanks
Art

Art,

I have TreeSize Pro, but honestly I have never tried to find documentation, it is all pretty intuitive to me. It is used to show where obvious files are located that occupy space that should not be there. Because of your question, I looked at it again and found a temp directory with a 485 MB video file where it should not be. Since I knew I had that same file on another disk, I deleted that whole directory with TreeSize, but it could just as easily be deleted from Explorer.

All these utilities have their own place. Take for instance BeyondCompare, it is great to get files from one (10 TB) raid to another (18 TB raid), by only comparing say drive E on the local machine to \\machine_name\$drive and then copying to either left or right or synchronizing both directories. It beats copying to a file-server first and them moving to the local directory.

I think now I just need to know which files I can delete. I just go rid of my CFA files and saved 20 gig. Anyone tell me if I'm all done with the projects a few years ago and no longer need them, Can I get rid of my LRPREV, CASHE,PRMDC, MPGIDEX, and PI-EPR temp files? I could save a lot if I can just delete them. the PI-EPR files are 40 KB a pop and there are about 2 million of them!

Art

No I am shooting AVCHD with my old Panasonic HMC150 + an AC160.

I've had an fs100 that recorded avchd and had a helluva time editing that codec. It taxes the system like crazy. It would act wonky with audio syncing which would disappear if I deleted the timeline then hit ctrl-z. I finally upgraded to the F3 an xdcam works like a charm. Don't know what it is about avchd, but it sucks in premiere. Just my experience.

True enough, Xdcam is a whole lot less taxing on resources than AVCHD, being MPEG-2 based. But it's not the AVCHD codec that is at fault.

I am now back to using CS5.5 Production Premium, and the same computer that chokes with CS6 goes like blazes on CS5.5. Even CS4 handled AVCHD pretty decently though nothing like CS5.5!

But with CS6, it is very inconsistent. I shot a theatrical production on the 15th with 4 AVCHD cams- 2 Panasonic HMC150's + AC160, and a Canon HFS-10 "backstage cam" for good measure. CS6 is doing a great job on that, NO choking up!!! It's running just like it should! I about passed out.

On the other hand I just shot a real simple church service today, nothing fancy (with the AC160) and CS6 just cannot do it. It's back to having the video freeze up. Why it cuts through the multi cam project like a hot knife through butter and dies on a simple single cam shoot, I just do not get.

Steve,

Is there any difference in sequence settings that you used in either project?

Sorry to resurrect this.

Steve, I'm having a similar problem to you with 1080 50i footage from my new Panasonic AC130a. I'll post computer specs later (can't do it from memory).

But.... here's the story.

I've edited AVCHD footage for years now with Premiere Pro with no problem. Initially I used CS5 with 1080 50i Panasonic footage. Then I moved to 1080 50p 28Mbps footage with CS5, then later CS6 - again without any problems at all.

You'd think that 1080 50p would be the hardest to edit, given the amount of data and frame rate, but I never had problems.

Now with the AC130a, I don't have 1080 50p, so I chose 50i. It's approx 21Mbps.

Then the fun begins when it gets into CS6. Performance is pretty much as Steve describes. I presume Premiere is de-interlacing and having problems. Here's the scenarios:

1. Create 1080 50i sequence, add the clips, performance terrible.
2. Right-click the MTS file and create sequence from clip (just to be sure) and it's the same
3. Create a 25p sequence, drag the clip on. Render the footage... bingo, magic, performance is perfect.
4. Convert to Cineform, 50i footage. Result: 14GB file instead of 2GB, performance is magic, though the files are massive
5. Create a 50p footage and drag the clip on. Render it, and performance is perfect.

It's not disk or processor, these aren't getting taxed at all. 8GB of available RAM and only 1.5GB in use by Premiere. 4 separate disk drives (OS + program / source + project files / Premiere render files / render drive for output). This setup has worked with everything else I can throw at it.

I don't particularly want to edit at 25p or 50p, I'm outputting to DVD and should be able to edit interlaced.

It appears to be something specific to putting 1080 50i footage in a 1080 50i sequence. So either:
(a) This specific combination creates a processor load waaaay in excess of all other AVCHD footage, including 1080 50p at 28Mbps that I wasn't expecting
or
(b) There is a bug with that combination of format and timeline setup that exists in CS6 that didn't exist in CS5 on the exact same hardware 2 years ago!

I think that the common factor here is a Panasonic file. How were they transferred to the PC ? Is the audio LPCM ? I have all Sony cameras and just checked in CS6, Vegas 12 and I know my Edius 6 works but don't use the others for video normally. Tried a 60i file from my Sony SR11, 60P file from my CX700 and NX30 and 60i file with LPCM audio from my NX5U. All files transferred with Sony transfer software. They all worked in any of the NLE's with either 60i project, 60P project or 30P project with either square pixels or anamorphic. Don't have any 50i files to try for you.

PC is i7 2600K, 16G RAM, GTX560, separate boot , temp, storage and render hard drives. WIN7 64.

Ron Evans

Ron,

My system is similar to yours apart from the RAM (I have 8GB) and an ATI graphics card.

I suspect it is a specific combination of hardware and software here for CS6, along with specific files.I'll try to get one online for you to play with.

As a fix - I had a momentary brainwave, and applied a fast color corrector (at default settings) to all the video clips on the timeline and rendered it. The problem seems to have gone away. I presume it's because it's using the rendered files rather than the native .MTS.

I'll report back after a night of editing.

check out WinDirStat to visually see and easily navigate to space hungry files or files not needed/wanted. my old machine, now donated to my folks, had only an 80GB Intel SSD and little 4 laptop disk RAID5 array and 1TB storage disk; it took very little time to fill it up with junk.

This is the thing.... I know my way round computers (I'd need to after all these years in the business). Plenty of disk space, defragged regularly, no unnecessary files etc. The issue is not down to disk space or similar problems, I can edit bigger, more complex files than 1080 50i AVCHD on the same hardware.

It has to be a problem with Premiere and that combination of files (possibly on some hardware). The main thing is I seem to have a workaround for now, and one which sort of makes sense to me.

I guess I'll never know what goes on inside Premiere when it's processing different file types. The fact is, the processor, memory and disks are not being stressed at all with these files, it really seems like a bug of some sort.

Hi All,

Unless I missed it, I don't see where it was ever suggested to apply the 6.0.3 update to Premiere, which would be one of the first things to try and help performance/fix bugs.

Thanks

Been having similar problems, using 6.0.3, with timelines with AVCHD on them. Called Adobe tech support. They were hard core that stripping out MTS files can cause corruption problems. This is a major PITA and frankly i have a hard time believing it. But...
I think the problem could be a corrupt media cache or even a sequence corruption. When I created a new project, new sequences, after deleting the media cache db the problm has vanished. If i return to the old project/timeline, it returns, cache cleaned or not.

I believe this corruption is caused by panny AVCHD and Pr. This is only a hunch, but i have never experienced this problem with non AVCHD footage timelines (ie canon mxf and canon mov.).

In the meantime, i am not going to strip MTS out of my AVCHD footage, and will minimize it's use. I wonder if canon 100 users are having similar problems with pr? Not sure how i will. Avoid duplicate file names with AVCHD in full folders. Anyone got a solution to that?

Just to clarify, I'm on 6.0.3, I update Pr as soon as each update is available.

Al, I've tried it with new projects and old projects, it didn't make things any better if it was a brand new project with a single timeline and one 20-second MTS file in it.

You're right, it might be the Panasonic implementation of AVCHD in these files, I've no way to try other files. I haven't yet tried 720 50p either to see if it's any better, I haven't had time.

Can anyone point me at a sample raw Sony 1080i 50 file I could compare with? I only have 1080 50p from my last Sony.

One last thing Al - can you explain what you mean by "stripping out MTS files"? I have several possibilities in my head for that one, and I'm not sure any of them are correct!

Mike, many of us that I am aware of have had difficulty creating unique file names with AVCHD, because the file structure doesn't lend itself to simple renaming (someone please correct me if I'm wrong). Renaming is needed especially if you have to recreate your project in some way, because Adobe and FCP cannot find a unique file based on higher level folder names (C:\FOO\FOOroll1\AVCHD folder structure\File001). To be clear, Sony Vegas does a much better job of helping you relink lost files. Don't know why Pr has such a hard time with them. Many people I know have taken to stripping out the MTS files, which normally play fine and can easily be renamed.

When I talked to Adobe tech support the other day, the person was adamant that this was a *bad thing to do* and he claimed could lead to problems with the product. I don't know if he really knew what he was talking about or not. Now if Premiere is expecting, as part of it's ability to read multiple formats without transcoding, to find a specific type of folder structure to identify the filetype,maybe there is something to this issue. Again, I don't know, and the Adobe Tech Support person could not specify to me why he was saying this, but that he strongly advised against it. And my timelines that are corrupted did have B camera roll stuff done on a Panny TM900 using an AVCHD structure. My other timelines are fine.

I think that I'm going to see if there is a tool that can leave the AVCHD structure whole, and rename the MTS files inside it. That would be a start to determine whether this is an answer to this corruption business. Also to be clear, while clearing the media cache is a good idea I suppose at times like this, it made no difference to my timeline corruption and it's stalling out while doing playback.

By the way, when this happened, I got a red X in the lower right hand corner of the screen, alerting me to errors in the playback log. The tech wasn't really interested in those errors. He cleared the cache.

Hope this was a clear explanation.

Al, thanks for the explanation, that helps. You basically mean copying the MTS files out of the AVCHD folder structure and putting them somewhere else?

Yes, you can have 14 files all called 0001.MTS. I generally have one sub-folder per camera or shooting session, so I don't have too many problems with names clashing.

To be perfectly honest, I've always just copied the MTS files out of the this\that\the other folder on the SDHC card and put them in my own folder. I've found absolutely no difference ever in doing it this way rather than importing complete cards. Purists will come along and tell me off - but it really doesn't make any difference, and doesn't help at all with my current predicament (I've tried it).

I've tried importing the complete card by copying the whole card to a hard disk then ysing the media browser to add it to my project. Absolutely no difference at all in performance. Yes, I did try this with my current camera and current problems, it didn't make a jot of difference.

I understand that the card will have additional meta data, and you will cope better with files bigger than 4GB, but it's never, ever given me a problem putting the files somewhere else.

Clearing media cache and other files makes no difference to me either.

To backtrack a bit, I'm just happy I have a fix (applying a simple effect to the clips on the timeline and rendering). Oddly, I can scrub the clips just fine in the preview window, scrubbing back and forth as usual, it's only when they go on a timeline that the problems happen.

Al, thanks for the explanation, that helps. You basically mean copying the MTS files out of the AVCHD folder structure and putting them somewhere else?

Al says: Yes, that's what I mean

Yes, you can have 14 files all called 0001.MTS. I generally have one sub-folder per camera or shooting session, so I don't have too many problems with names clashing.

Al says: It's not a problem until you have to find that 0001.MTS on your hard drive because it's been "lost" by Pr.

To be perfectly honest, I've always just copied the MTS files out of the this\that\the other folder on the SDHC card and put them in my own folder. I've found absolutely no difference ever in doing it this way rather than importing complete cards. Purists will come along and tell me off - but it really doesn't make any difference, and doesn't help at all with my current predicament (I've tried it).

Al says: Adobe Tech Support seems adamant that this can lead to corrupt timelines. I have no idea if that's true or not, but that's what they told me, in no uncertain terms. I asked them the question in more than one way.

I've tried importing the complete card by copying the whole card to a hard disk then ysing the media browser to add it to my project. Absolutely no difference at all in performance. Yes, I did try this with my current camera and current problems, it didn't make a jot of difference.

Al says: Then something else is wrong, obviously (G).

I understand that the card will have additional meta data, and you will cope better with files bigger than 4GB, but it's never, ever given me a problem putting the files somewhere else.

Clearing media cache and other files makes no difference to me either.

To backtrack a bit, I'm just happy I have a fix (applying a simple effect to the clips on the timeline and rendering). Oddly, I can scrub the clips just fine in the preview window, scrubbing back and forth as usual, it's only when they go on a timeline that the problems happen.

Al says: Me too. It doesn't happen with MXF or MOV based timelines. Go figure.

This is a reason I always use the Sony software with my cameras to transfer to the PC. This converts the mts files as clips and creates m2ts files named by the date and time the clip was taken automatically placing in a directory named the date the transfer takes place. If the clips are long it joins the mts files together as a single clip again named at the date and time the clip was taken however long that was such as 20130324130820.m2ts. ie 24th march 2013 at 8 mins past 1pm and 20 frames. Transfer time to the PC is the same as a copy so I see no reason not to use the utility and solve all the confusion. Panasonic must have a similar utility. The m2ts files are then easy to archive as the dates are unique and there is a record of when the files were transferred. I normally shoot multicam events with 4 AVCHD cameras all Sony's but 2 consumer and 2 NXCam versions, so having good clip management is important. I then archive my files before editing. Also these files will of course work in Vegas, Premiere and Edius with no issues. I realise this is really a PC only solution.

Ron Evans

Thanks Ron. Having worked a lot with Vegas I should have understood that idea, but didn't. I'll work on finding this type of solution. It's probably in the software with the camera, but I didn't think to look there.

Exactly the same situation occurs with Canon Legria files, again the Canon transfer software solves the problem.

I believe that there can be problems with spanned clips if the metadata is not copied over with the .mts files, but again the proprietary transfer software does the job.

Over on the Adobe Premiere forum, the purists regularly argue vehemently against using the camera manufacturer's transfer software, but I cannot see there is any solid justification for their attitude.

.., the purists regularly argue vehemently against using the camera manufacturer's transfer software, ....

Yes the purists amuse me at times. They will often complain its the manufacturers fault that something doesn't work or they cannot do something having totally failed to follow any of the manufacturers instructions or very often not even read the manual.

Ron Evans

Well, I won't take the comment personally, but will make a small debate out of it to help us figure this issue out...While I don't think of myself as a "purist" I never remember, in two years of using an HMC150, that there was any software from Panny that actually stripped out the MTS files from the folder structure and renamed them, the way that Canon does in their XF Utility for MXF based files. (it's called Export to MXF). Is there software that ships to do this now with that model? Or with the C100? In fact I was thrilled to find that Canon MXF worked that way (as does Sony I believe). There is no warning from Premiere that those files (nor stripped MTS files) don't work, or cause a problem, nor is there any online material that I've seen that would say that. The fact that the stripped MTS seem to play just fine is an indicator that it's not the MTS file fault, but likely Adobe's way of mapping those to the project. If their tech support people are saying it when you call in, I would certainly like to know if it's true, or whether the one person I talked to didn't know what they were talking about. Having worked with tech support in the computer world, I know that they do learn things that the PR people may not want publicized.

This is important, because I am a person that has, as my business has grown, have needed to migrate files from one drive to another. While I try to keep things named properly, I have experienced every single editing suite choke on moving files from the original drive they were stored on. The dreaded linking in FCP 7.0, Vegas and Pr is solved by the software's ability to find the filename. In Vegas, they do a very elegent search that finds all known names of the same file, and displays all the known files with their folder structure, so if you do have a repeating named file, you can see which folder it's in and Vegas then asks if you want to find the rest you are looking for the same way. Adobe could do with looking at this for their method, which is far too manual and time consuming...

The OP of this was wondering why CS6 was choking on his AVCHD files, while he says he doesn't have the problem with CS5. So I don't think this is about whether folks are reading the ****in' manual, as we used to say. Would be good to see Adobe step up and clear up the issue. Maybe at NAB someone can ask them this. The booth guys usually are pretty good about leveling with you if you don't use their name (G).

All in good cheer...

Sorry if anyone took my comments personally that was certainly not my intention at all. I am sure we all have had experiences of very vocal people who blame everyone but themselves for what is happening to them. Anyone who asks for help and then participates in a helpful way certainly is not in this category.

Although I have CS6 Production Suite I don't use Premier but mainly Edius and sometimes Vegas and those two will transfer correctly from the camera directly, however doing this looses the file renaming etc that is so useful for archiving. I still like to separate the transfer and archiving from the editing process. The equivalent of capturing from tape and then storing the tape.

Ron Evans

Steve Wolla:

Tha fact that CS5.5 works and CS6 is an issue makes me wonder if you may need to update drivers on the display card?

That can have an effect...