avi files in adobe

[ch4321_99]

I am trying to import avi files into premier 5.1 and I am able to play them in the preview window, but when I drag them to the timeline, premier crashes. The compression used is Cinepak. They were captured using a package other than premier but I can play them in widows media player and the file 'properties' are the same as sample files that came with premier. Does anyone have any ideas as to what could be the problem? I posted this question a few weeks ago, when I was using premier 5.5 and someone suggested I go back to an earlier version, so I got a lend of 5.1.

[eddie]

could be several things I expect.
What is the spec of your computer?

I imagine it might be relaited to your graphics card/driver. What graphics card do you have?
How much memory have you got? (RAM)

[Ruthie]

The compression shouldn't make a difference. One suggestion is to open up your systems file and throw away your adobe preferences folder. This should reset premiere. When you import the movie can you play it in the monitor window?

Ruthie

[Mark Jury]

to edit movies on a pc, your pc must be..what -- a pentium 3 top of the line? I have ATI all in wonder on my Pentium 2 with lots of space and the final compressed image is very poor quality. Plus, how do you get it onto video tape without any kind of border around the image?

[ch4321_99]

I'll try to answer all yuor questions in one reply:

I don't think it is the computer that is lacking...it is a PentiumIII 500MHz with 198Ram (I am in the process of upgrading to 256 - only 64M to go.....). It has a 6G primary hard drive with a 30G hard dirve for holding video. The graphiccs card in it at the moment is a 16M Voodoo card but I have a 32M card which I am going to install this weekend - Could the graphis card prevent the files from playing in Adobe? I thought it only affected the quality of the picture.

Yes, the avi file plays fine in the preview window. It crashes when I drag it to the timeline.

Thanks for your replies - can anyone offer any suggestions or ideas as to how I can get around this problem. I am able to edit fine in the package I have (ULead which came with PYRO DV capture card) but Premier has alot of nice features I want to use.

[Ruthie]

Try the user forum at adobe web site. They can answer the toughest questions.