PE7 Memory Issues and Program Freezes Editing AVCHD

Question

I am suffering recurring "low system memory" warnings and program freezes and "bombs" when trying to edit AVCHD video clips captured from my Sony HDR-S11 hard drive camcorder.
I just bought a brand new computer specifically for these editing chores. The system I have is WELL above the minimums specified in the PE7 documentation. I am running Win XP SP3 (clean installation on a 500 GB hard drive), Intel 9400 quad core processor, Asus P5KSE ATX motherboard, 4 GB of RAM, ATI Radeon 3600 video card with 512 MB on-board processing, etc. I have installed only minimal software on the computer, intending to dedicate it primarily to Blu-Ray video processing.
My current project is about 1 hour and 27 minutes long. I have tried editing with both the "hard drive camcorder" and "AVCHD" full-HD presets for the project. While the AVCHD preset produces clearly better results - at least initially - by the time I reach approximately 1 hour into the import of my video clips to the Sceneline, problems begin to occur. They are usually manifested as a warning dialog box informing me that I am running low on system memory and should save my project and proceed with caution. I save what I was doing and then try to "cautiously" continue with the editing. If I click and hold on the taskbar slider to move either forward or backward in the Sceneline, I almost always get a hang-up of the program wherein it will not react to any keyboard or mouse inputs. If I persist, sometimes the program will momentarily revive but further attempts to edit often result in a spontaneous shutdown of the program wherein PE7 abruptly closes and I am taken directly to my desktop.
And during the times that I am able to edit, I have encountered the same kind of glitchy previews of my AVCHD source data that many others have reported on these forums. In scanning those threads, it looks like we are all out of luck on that one until Adobe comes out with an upgraded version of PE7.
I have worked through the Help Section procedures "Troubleshooting system errors and freezes in Premier Elements 7 (Windows XP)" with no improvement. Many of those checks do not apply to me since I basically started with a blank hard drive. I have no old codecs loaded. I have the latest drivers for my motherboard and video card. I don't have any fonts installed that did not come with Windows or PE7. I uninstalled and reinstalled PE7. My virus software (McAfee) is up to date and I performed a total system scan with no findings. Nothing has really helped me to be able to do stable and reliable edits of my source clips.
This is especially frustrating because I used PE4 for more than a year and NEVER had any freezes or bombs when editing HDV clips from my previous Sony HDR-HC1K taped-based HD camcorder. I thought that creating a capable video-dedicated computer would insure that I wouldn't have problems like these with AVCHD. Looks like I was mistaken again.

Answer 1

I couldn't agree more about the basic non-functionality of PE7 when it comes to handling large AVCHD projects, David. We were both taken in by our previous favorable experiences with earlier versions of PE.
My original problem came with a project similar to your own: lots of smalll files (clips) that added up to a large total project. The problems with memory shortfall occur when you pull a large number of clips from the Media window down to the project line. I had no trouble getting my 552 individual clips downloaded from my camcorder to the "Get Media" window. It was only when I dragged them down into my Sceneline that the wheels started to come off. With a great deal of patience and several reboots, I got my 552 clips loaded into my project but got into immediate and deep trouble when trying to edit the raw footage into final form. Apparently PE7 juggles the huge (in my case about 18 GB) file every time you try to do an edit and the manipulation of the big file is what eats up the memory.
As pointed out by earlier posts, AVCHD is efficient as a compression format for the raw video files but is extemely processor and memory-intensive when you try to edit a file with a lot of individual clips.
I certainly didn't know that I was biting off such a big piece of new technology when I bought my new Sony AVCHD camcorder. I don't think the shortcomings of AVCHD are very widely appreciated except by people who have confronted them head-on as you and I have done.
I fear that the solution for these difficulties will be beyond the scope of a patch by Adobe. Both you and I are using what should be a near-state-of-the-art computer with appropriate hardware and we are barely able to work on an AVCHD project. And, yes, converting your project files to MPEG format is a key part of a semi-workable solution.
The multiple project export method that I outlined above is unquestionably "cheesy" as you suggest but some vatiation on it is about the best you are going to do with AVCHD in PE7 for the foreseeable future.