Alternative to Premiere 6.5

[Diving Mullah]

I have been using Premiere 6.5 since I don't know when, and for the most part, I am use to it and it get the job done (I make under water videos)...

I am looking for an alternative that works on Windows XP and won't break the bank...any suggestions?


Appreciate any feedback

Diving Mullah

[lordsmurf]

I still use Premiere 6.5 for most motion menu creation, and intermediate level editing work intended for DVD.

When not using that, I opt for Premiere CS3. This is mostly for web videos, H.264 and FLV output.

There's really nothing else that compares to Premiere, if you're used to it. Vegas and Final Cut Pro come close, but are different in their own way. Not a good different, if you're a long-time Premiere user.

[fitch.j]

I'd wait for CS5 if your looking at upgrading, although this may not fulfill you 'not break the bank' requirement. I wouldn't suggest changing however, only moving to a more up to date version of premiere if you can.

[lordsmurf]

CS3 works well, even on older computers.

CS4 barely works at all, unless on a souped-up dual-core or quad-core. Even then, bugs galore (random AME hang-ups aggravate me to no end -- I still have to do most FLV encoding in CS3)

CS5 is something I don't even want to think about -- I'd rather seem them stabilize CS4 and AME

[fitch.j]

I have very few issues with CS4 at all, as far as premiere is concerned, certainly no more than PremPro2 which we were running before the switch. AME is fairly glitchy i will agree and it does annoy me.
I've had CS4 running fine on a P4 3.6Ghz 2GB ram and XP SP3. I wasn't touching anything HD on that machine obviously, but i dont expect anyones editing machines to be much lower spec than that these days.

The issue i have is that i dont expect them to Patch CS4 much more, rather just release a (hopefully) better and more stable suite in CS5. I'm also probably basing my 'wait for CS5' mindset at least in part on After Effects 64bit, which for me is going to be huge but in this case its entirely irrelevant to the OP.

It depends on the reasoning for the OP upgrading. If he wants to be able to do certain new things that 6.5 didnt do, AVCHD for example, then that bears heavily on what to get. If not however his choices are much wider.

[lordsmurf]

So you moved from CS2 to CS4, skipping CS3 entirely?

I could never get CS4 to not crash on a single core CPU, when it was used. It would install fine, but then in the middle of a project --- poof --- gone. No error message, nothing -- just gone.

You bring up a good point. Why does the OP want to upgrade?

[fitch.j]

Yes we skipped CS3 Entirely. We were happy with 2, it was doing all we wanted and weren't really in a position to upgrade until the news of CS4 came around, by this time we were also looking at newer hardware and it made sense for us to wait for and get CS4.

Hmmm, What workflow were you using on that single core? The majority of ours was DV > Mpeg2 and we really didnt have many issues at all. Of course you always have the odd random occurance, but no more than usual.

Why the OP wants to upgrade is really the most important issue, as without that we cant know what he needs.

[lordsmurf]

Uncompressed YUY2 or HuffYUV input. Sometimes MPEG-2 mixed in.

[kimco52]

I occasionally had problems with 6.5. I normally now use CS2 but have CS3 loaded also. I generally do most of my Premiere with CS2 because it works better on my computer. I use it for the multi-cam functions. CS3 works but not very well for scrubbing or playing out. My computer is just too slow, methinks because the finished product is fine. I save my project and load it into CS3 if I want to make H.264 for flv, however.
My current computer is an old reliable Pentium4 processor at 2GHz speed and 2GB of RAM.

I have CS4 but it won't install due to the processor I have. I am in the process of specing an upgrade to the computer. I am planning to change to a Quad-core i7 processor(930) with 6 or 12 GB RAM. That should be OK for CS4. That is for HD work.

I still have P6.5 installed on a Windows 98 computer which has an old Miro card so I can access my library of older clips that I have when I need to access them with the older codecs.