Adobe Premiere Pro 15 System Requirements

[Brittany Bhadd]

Needyour help with Creative Cloud System requirement. My Son need to buy a laptop or a descktop to complete his high school work in number of creative cloud applications. We have spoken to multiple people to understand the system requirements so we can buy a new computer. The desktop we are planing to buy has the below configuration.

Unfortunately, this overview is severely lacking in realism and a lot of people were disappointed when their system met these minimum requirements, but still would not do what they expected, or at least not without jerkiness, hiccups and similar issues.

The problem with these requirements as stated is that they are really bare minimum requirements to install the software, but unfortunately it does not tell how well a certain system will perform with the myriad of codecs used and the different needs and expectations people may have about their editing rig. Since this issue is nearly a year old now and nothing tangible has changed, I decided to write this article to help people understand what is realistic to expect, what influences the hardware choices in order to use CS5 to full satisfaction.

The nature of one's editing projects can have a major impact on the hardware required to run projects effectively. Long form documentaries, delivered on BRD demand different hardware and priorities in hardware setup then music clips with lots of multicam work and color effects delivered to the web, or wedding video's delivered on DVD. And unfortunately, there is no simple rule saying that if you edit X, you need Y hardware.

The second thing that has a major impact is the source material, the codec used. Back in the old days things were very simple, you had DV material from a tape based camera and that was it. Nowadays, things have grown much more complex. The number of codecs used in source material has grown enormously, the number of formats and frame rates has grown in a similar fashion. We used to have 480, now we have added 720, 1080, 2K, 3K, 4K plus various DSLR and other formats, we had interlaced, now we have progressive as well, we used to have 25 or 29.97 FPS, now we have 24, 25, 29.97, 60 and even more frame rates. We had DV, now we have MPEG2, HDV, XDCAM, P2, AVCHD, RED, Cineform, Matrox, and numerous other codecs.

Some codecs are easy to handle for a computer, others are difficult to handle. It is generally known that DV material is very easy to handle and AVCHD is pretty tough to handle. The general rule is that the more compressed the material is, the harder it is for the computer to edit this. GOP (Group of Pictures) structure is an extra burden. The higher the resolution, the harder it is on the computer.

Of course boundaries when using three categories are not always very clear, but the tendency is rather clear. Easy codecs are in the upper left corner, difficult codecs are in the lower right corner. For that reason we have identified three categories, Easy, Intermediate and Difficult.

This is somewhat similar to the color coding PR uses with none, yellow and red in the time line. It is not complete in the overview of common codecs, but is intended to show what the impact can be of different codecs and the hardware requirements.

I realize this is a limited overview and generic in nature. It will not answer all questions, but may be helpful to avoid disappointments. It also has a number of limitations. For instance, uncompressed MS AVI SD material. No GOP structure, no compression, low resolution, that should be at the top left corner, right? Wrong. Uncompressed does not burden the CPU, but is a definite burden on the memory and disk I/O system.

Hi Todd. Is there a publication explaining what effects when using Premiere Pro (PrP), Media Encoder and After Effects (AE). an example I am trying to find out if when previewing an effect i have added in PrP or AE, is it relying on CPU, GPU or RAM - or combination of them. When rendering is it using CPU and maximising cores and multi threads? Classic question I get asked - Would it be better to Buy an iMac 5K or a 6 Core Mac Pro.

Just a heads up, I've updated our DIY8 article to reflect the latest info and chipset pricing. Intel Hex core has fallen to $599. I'm still onthe fence about the new Sandy bridge chips. while I thinkt ehy are fantastic for laptops, not so sure I like them for workstations. When you add PCIe cards for I/O (eg Matrox MXO2 Mini or AJA Kona) and an exteral RAID controller, I'm concerend about throughput bottlenecks.

First off, Harm...I've been reading your responses all over the Adobe forums and I have to say thanks. You seem to be very knowledgeable and I'm hoping you can shed some light on issues I've been having related to system requirements.

Basically, I'm barely a step above hardware illiterate -- an important step, but still. I saw the article Adobe posted on system requirements and was immediately concerned that I do not have the correct graphics card for my workflow to, well, flow.

Here's what I am in dire need of: someone to tell me once and for all that my system is (a) just fine, or (b) needs work. I am on a borrowed system essentially. I started work at an ad agency and came onto a system that had been used for video by someone who did not do video by trade. The girl before me was a graphic artist who, unfortunately, got roped into video work because there was no one else to do it. Anyway, since I took over working on this machine, the system drive has failed once and it was just cloned again this morning because the disk utility said the disk was failing yet again.

Aside from that misfortune, PPro has a ton of bugs, runs about as fast as cold molasses and frequently leaves artifacting and lines in exported video projects, none of which are longer than 10 minutes. My native format for video is .MXF from the Sony XDCAM HD -- beautiful stuff, comes in just fine, works wonderfully on the timeline until I start keyframing, then I grab a pillow and take a nap for 2 minutes at a time while it loads the frame I'm working on.

I'm rambling a bit, so I will tie this up and allow you to respond...if you require more information I'm more than willing to provide it, assuming I know what you're talking about. You may need to dumb things down for me, sorry.

I feel for you and especially with a system as fast as molasses in winter now that spring has begun, but basically the system is pretty slow. Possibly the unresponsive nature of the system makes you feel there are a lot of bugs, but I think it is more the capability of the system, than bugs. CS5 is not bug free, no program is, but by far the most stable and reliable version ever brought to market IMO.

What you are facing is a system with rather dated and slow Xeon CPU's and an insufficient hard disk setup. The Drobo is good for backups, but nothing else. Whether you want to remain on a MAC platform or switch to a PC environment is your choice, but it seems very advisable to prepare for a complete overhaul with better CPU's and a better disk setup.

It didn't stand to reason that CS5 was quite that buggy. I know it's not perfect yet, but it will get darn close. Unfortunately, I don't have much control over switching from Mac to PC platforms. Can you offer any advice for a better build on the current platform? Honestly, any specifics you have, even if its directing me to a thread that could shed some light on the subject, that'd be amazing. The higher-ups here are rather dead-set. I will need to make a very compelling case to see any improvement. Assuming I don't tear all of my hair out and/or throw this thing out the window before then.

I am new to this forum and have some questions before I purchase Adobe Creative Suite 5 Production Premium software. I am planning on starting a business taking photos, and video from many sources, cameras for editing. Primarily, I will be working on Weddings and similar events. Below are the questions:

Adobe software tends to be the industry standard when it comes to multimedia. Since you are looking at photography, video and multimedia I believe Adobe Creative Suite would be best as all the software is right there.

As for video cameras, you can go prosumer or professional...your choice. I have a Canon Vixia M31 (prosumer) and that seems to do a nice job. As for a cameras, stick to DSLRs. Canon makes a bunch of nice gear. I'm not to much into that gig yet, but am expanding from web design and development to multimedia (video/audio). Don't forget tripods, cables and that...it really depends on what you want to do.

Sorry to say this, but the chain made a few wrong choices. The AV-GP hard drives are not compatible with PCs at all - but instead they are designed specifically for standalone HDD-based DVRs and PVRs. And their "800W" PSU could have been a generic one that could have handled or provided barely half that much before failing. And the Quadro 4000 costs way too much money given its hardware specs (it is based on the original power-hungry GF100 that the GTX 480, GTX 470 and GTX 465 were also based on, but cut to only 256 cores on the Quadro 4000 versus the 480, 448 and 352 cores on the GTX 480, 470 and 465, respectively). For so much money, there is zero practical performance improvement in CS5 over the cheaper GeForce GPUs. And as I have found out, 12GB of RAM is not quite enough RAM for CS5.

In addition to what Randall correctly mentioned, there is also the issue with the Intel mobo's, not an optimal choice IMO because it lacks expansion capabilities, is not easy to overclock and the memory only allows running at stock speed.

Overall, I think this is a very mediocre proposition. I wonder what their quoted price would be, but I guess you can do much better in terms of BFTB by looking elsewhere. I would suggest 'the powers that be' to get another quote from another supplier.

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