automatic video resize in Premiere Pro where there was none before

[turk690]

Premiere Pro CS2 is installed in a PC that had an nVidia 9500GT graphics board in it with Win XP Pro. Ultimately, all my current outputs are DVD, so I always start a project in this PC by choosing "widescreen PAL DV AVI 48kHz" template. Of late, most of my source files are Cineform Neo Scene codec *.avi files that have been converted from AVCHD, and they are 1920x1080. When such a file is dragged onto a timeline, understandably, only the center portion will be seen on the monitor (1920x1080 juxtaposed on a 1024x576 window). So, for every such HD file, I have to open its video effects tab, click on motion, then scale it 50% so that it is now correctly visually resized to the required SD proportions.
Then I changed the 9500GT card to an nVidia Quadro FX580, testing it with a view to updating another PC to workstation status. I start Premiere Pro projects the same way (widescreen PAL DV AVI), but now, when I drag 1920x1080 *.avi files to the timeline, they are automatically resized to SD. I no longer have to manually scale them down 50%, and the monitor window indeed shows the HD files properly rescaled down to SD. I would have expected the scale to show 50% down or so, but it's still at 100%. If, for some reason I want to go back to the HD clip's original resolution to rescale/reposition it some other specific way in the SD monitor window, I now have to rescale it back to 200% first and start from there (close viewing shows the original 1920x1080 is retained when blown up 200% again; apparently it's just for monitoring & the original files are not touched). I'm not sure if this is a bad thing but the automatic rescaling of the 1920x1080 clips down to SD does save me a step.
Why is this happening? Is it because I changed the graphics card? When I opened previous similar projects, where before they clearly show the 50% downscaling I did for the HD clips, now they are 100% and fitted right to SD proportions (!). What gives?

[KenJ57]

I have an older copy of Elements. Sounds to me like the option "Scale to Framesize" got turned on.

[fitch.j]

Do you by any chance have Adobe Updater running on your machin so that it can automatically update with fixes ?

[turk690]

There is no Adobe updater on the machine, which has XP Pro SP3. I didn't change any settings in Premiere CS2. The only thing that changed is h/w: the former nVidia GeForce 9500GT (gigabyte) graphics card was replaced by a Quadro FX580 (pny).
I'm testing the quadro on loan to see what differences there are to NLE between using a gaming card and a professional graphics card. I've read some about these two types but maybe someone here can tell me in a nutshell why a pro graphics card is a necessity, not just for NLE but for other graphics activities. What's wrong with a top-tier gaming card??

[fitch.j]

The drivers are the biggest difference as far as I am aware. The quadro cards come with drivers that allow them to intergrate into software such as 3DSMax or After Effects, or Premieres new Mercury engine. The gaming cards don't. Plus the quadro cards are configured in a different way to allow for massive amounts of processing, whereas gaming cards are designed to process what they do faster to increse framerate.

There has been versions of quadro drivers 'hacked' to allow cards such as a 290GTX to perform in the same way, however these are few and far between (also not legal).

It is possible that when Premiere detected a compatible card it changes its default setting to accomodate it, and as such, changed the way in which large footage is imported to the timeline.