Premiere Elements 8 keeps closing or crashing

Question

Hello,
I was really looking forward to the new Premiere Elements 8, downloaded the trial and....it keeps closing with no error when I am editing very simple videos.  The other thing it does is it will crash sometimes and come up with the Adobe Send Error dialog box.  I have checked other posts and looked at some things like making sure I have the latest Quicktime and I did download the latest Nvidia driver as well.  Thought that it fixed it but nope, had another unexplained crash/closing last night.  I am running Windows 7 RC but dont know if that is the problem.
Any help would be very much appreciated.
Oh, and my system is a quadcore and 8 gb of ram, so it should have enough power.
Doug

Answer 1

These are their forums and should have moderators monitoring these threads. They are the ones that should bring it up to their development team or someone that can look into it, or get someone from Adobe to come read this thread and give their input on it.
Here we agree, though not on the exact details. The MOD's on these fora are volunteers. They are mostly power users, who have businesses and lives far beyond the Adobe fora. They give freely of their time, both answering questions and helping to keep the fora running perfectly. None is an employee and none gets any compensation, other than added responsibility and a Moderator's Console to correct things on the fora.
Other than that point, we are in sync. Especially with a new release of PrE, I feel that there should be an Adobe presence here. Someone from development should be assigned to furnish info on working with the new program, sort out problems and offer suggestions on how to run it to the max. The PrPro forum is very fortunate in that an Adobe employee has showed up and is now a major contributor. I do not know if the forum is part of his "assignment," or if he has just decided to spend time on the forum, contributing. To date, he has furnished tons of great info on upcoming updates and even on CS5, which is still under development. I hope he gets some extra compensation for his efforts and also full support from Adobe.
The Photoshop has Chris Cox, one of the original developers of the program. I do not know if Chris is there out of love for the program, or as part of his work at Adobe. It's really moot, as his contributions are wonderful, whether he does it out of altruism, or because it's part of his job - the result is the same - a benefit for all forum subscribers.
One of the big pluses to having someone from the development team would be that we do not spend countless hours of trying to troubleshoot problems, when some simple tweak, fix or change would take care of it. As we are but lowly users, we have to rely on what we have experienced, read, or encountered elsewhere. None of us really knows what is "under the hood." Even Steve G., our MOD, is on the development team. Now, he probably does get his hands on the beta of every version, as soon as possible, but other than maybe some tips from Adobe, he doesn't have access to the code. His knowledge is built on his experience and a sharp mind to figure out how the thing works. Same for AT Romero. While he gets his copies, as do the rest, he has torn into PrE 8 with a critical and analytical eye and published his observations, built on years of experience with PrE and with NLE work in general. Both are invaluable assets, but with a simple Adobe presence, both could be greatly aided. Going back up to Chris Cox and the PS forum: I've been a power-user of PS from the instant that it hit the PC about 20 years ago. I've done most of what PS can do at one time or another. Still, there are times that I speculate on something in that program, only to have Chris come forward and correct me, explaining exactly what the code does and how it does it. I never fail to learn something new about a program that I have used extensively for about two decades - a little Adobe inside info goes a very long way.
I would also strongly urge Adobe to assign a rep. to this forum, especially now. I would hope that this person is on the development team and not from marketing or elsewhere. I would also hope that this person has actually used the new version in real-world situations, as there are often major differences between the lab and the Projects that people actually produce.
I realize that there is a major price-point difference between PrE and PS, PrPro, AfterEffects, etc., but the install-base, or potential install-base is much greater for PrE. For Adobe, the unit profit is potentially smaller, but the volume is much, much greater.
I support your contention that Adobe needs to be here. If they show up, I would strongly urge the forum to be respectful of their time, as they are probably doing this out of the goodness of their heart - though Adobe COULD add a little something to their paycheck. If someone does show up, I'd hope that the subscribers would ask only technical questions and keep any personal feelings about Adobe products to themselves. There should also be respect for the material that this representative could not share for various reasons.
Going back some years, we were blessed by the presence of an Adobe employee, Wil Renczes, in the PrPro forum. Some people spent a great deal of time yelling at Wil for things that Adobe had done, or not done. Hours of typing went into telling him how much better Avid, or FCP were, compared to Adobe. They demanded to know what the next version would hold. One day, Wil didn't come around anymore. The forum had lost a most valuable asset. My guess was that it just ceased to be fun for Wil anymore and he chucked the whole idea. I hope that the same does not happen with our Adobe representative, Dennis, this time around.
Just some observations,
Hunt