Premiere Elements 10 slow on Mac

Question

Hi,
I installed Premiere Elements 10 on a brand new computer, but it runs extremely slow.
Even just playing one short 30 second clip (un-edited, the original file) causes lagging.
I made sure that the project is up to par with the camera settings and that there are no red lines above the timeline.
These are my computer specs:
MacBook Air
Processor  1.7 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory  8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Graphics  Intel HD Graphics 5000
Software  OS X 10.9.3 (13D65)
As I said, it is brand new so I don't have almost anything on it but PE10 and the files I need to edit for work, so I don't think it should be a space issue.
I'm not much of a computer wiz, so I might be missing on some important info I need to share.
Please let me know if you need to know anything else.
I really appreciate the help and sorry for the inconvenience, but I couldn't find a solution anywhere else on-line.
Thank you!

Answer 1

S
Thanks for checking out the jpg and other video source Timeline performance. Enough of that. I think the results are pointing us specifically to the Panasonic footage. 
Based on online description of your Panasonic recordings, I assumed that you were putting AVCHD.mp4 1080 50i on your Premiere Elements Timeline. In your last post your wrote...
I only have one other source, but it's the same type of file (.mov)
That would mean to me that you do not have .mp4 files but rather .mov files from the Panasonic. Could you double check that point - .mp4 or .mov? Under ordinary conditions one would expect AVCHD.mp4 and AVCHD.mov to be compatible with Premiere Elements with QuickTime installed on the same computer with Premiere Elements.
Right now we have
jpg, OK
another .mov source, OK
Let us try this for troubleshooting purposes only....take what your source video AVCHD.mov or AVCHD.mp4 and put it through the HandBrake program.
http://handbrake.fr/
This is going to be only a quick test. We can go back and fine tune settings later if necessary.
Open HandBrake to its Main Workspace
Source/Open File
Where it says Chapters, I typically set that to Seconds.
Destination - Browse to and set the hard drive save location for the HandBrake export
Output Settings = Container Mp4
Picture Tab (leave settings as is)
Video Tab
Video Codec = H.264 (x264)
Framerate = 25
and then
dot "Constant Framerate"
Hit the Start button at the top left of the workspace
and then
Wait for Queue Finished to be displayed in the progress bar at the bottom
left of the workspace.
The goal is to determine if you can work with this HandBrake export better than you can with the
original Panasonic file.
We will be watching for your results.
Thank you.
ATR