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Been a little over a week working with AA 3 and overall I am not sorry I bought it. It would be unrealistic with current options to believe that any application would occupy the role that CEP filled for me between '96 & 2001. Considering how poorly AA 2 performed for me I was pleasantly surprised that the age and relative weakness of the system on which I'm trying it out does not seem to be an issue. AA 3, generally speaking, performance is at least a little faster in each area I've run direct comparisons with AA 1.5.
Still have not found any documentation or info (from Adobe) about problems with previewing processes in edit mode (problem is application locks up and has to be stopped and reloaded) but stumbled accidentally on a cludgy work around: If I close/cancel the process window while the preview is running, i.e. Do not stop the playback then application does not freeze up. I got to this from an unintentional [Alt] + [F5], but have found, I can click on either close or cancel (rather then toggling playback) and do not have to reload the application. A poster in the Adobe forum indicated a similar work around but he indicated that he had to click on the 'X' in the upper right corner of the process window. In any case the common thread seems to be closing the window while the process is previewing. As I will use AA primarily as an editor this combined with changes they made in hot key function reduce through put efficiency and constantly force me to think about the program rather then what I'm doing . . . More AA v3 from 'killer' to 'useful' . . . Unlikely I will be able to not run older versions in parallel with v3.
The primary reason for this post is another issue though. I am unable to Enable DirectX plugins. About a minute and a half into process the application shuts down. I do not have a huge list of either VST or DirectX audio plugins, but there are a couple of DirectX ones that I use with a good deal of frequency. One of the things I was hoping to avoid with AA3 was the need to shell out to another app. To accomplish one task then return to the parent app to proceed. That approach makes scripting some of these things a tad difficult. (any video project can involve hundreds of clips for which library and unifying functions have to be scripted. Using AA on these projects prior to v3 has entailed at least 3 scripts (with additional debugging overhead for each script): everything up to function AA does not support, that process, then everything after. In a more perfect world I'd cue these things up first thing in morning, last thing at night. I have been juggling this stuff for more then a decade (as I've said in past video rendering is seldom faster then 8 frames per second (on 24 or 30 fps material) and networking the rendering does not reduce time by a factor of number of render nodes.) In a project studio environment profit is less about the speed of a computer then about how you organize work flow. I stay with apps I can use to increase efficiency, abandon ones that don't. AA's more or less unsupported scripting was a necessary component for it's continued use.
Anyway. I pulled up a list of 'registered' DirectX dll's, only found two still in registry that were no only installed. Deleted those. No change in AA v3's performance. My problem now is that so many functions have been handed off to DirectX dll's that it is virtually impossible to delete them one at a time, or en-mass, just to find one Adobe is offended by. (standard caveat in effect here: installed AA on a relatively clean system, nothing new installed on it for months, except for some evolving quirks with older versions of AA no major issues with system. Older versions of AA had no problems with DirectX plugs and are currently displaying no issues.) Needless to say Adobe could give a Sh*t, even if I upgraded six 'seats' that is not even used Kleenex (tm) to them. I'm not saying there is a 'problem' with the application. There is a problem with the interaction of the app with my system. My guess is that proximal cause lies with poorly written plugs associated with the video editing suite (which is an unruly and chaotic mess . . . Out of necessity) . . . But currently that stuff makes me money and Adobe is being 'auditioned'. It is unlikely that I would ever use AA as a primary tracking app . . . Everything I'm seeing in Adobe's management of the app is moving it in the opposite direction of a functional tracking app. (yeah I know, ASIO and direct to disc blah blah blah . . . But 'how' functions are implemented is more important then invoking the buzz words and for tracking you will always need less crap not more . . . And the 'more' crap that might be useful in a tracking app simply is not showing up in AA (imho . . . Insert appropriately inappropriate smilie here))
While there might, possibly be some directx direct show component that is known to have issues with AA (though even if there where I'd be terribly surprised if Adobe made the info available) it is more probable that the issue is species specific to my system . . . . Problem is that deleting all apps (or more practically wiping drive, reinstalling OS, loading AA first (which I did with AA2 to such magnificent result (and that is sarcasm))) and starting from scratch is not currently on the budget. In all likelihood I will continue to use the crippled AA in tests, load it on a new (brand new) multicore platform budgeted for the stationary studio sometime this summer and see if it performs better under those circumstances. (since all the raw material goes to networked storage accessing material being worked with in video bay is not a significant issue for any machine in the house . . .) .
So? As there is only a single DirectX plug I can't live without not being able to enable them does not seem like that big a deal . . . It is just that for every baby step forward Adobe guts some previous function . . . And traditionally configured broadcast radio is disappearing (in US) much faster then Adobe seems to realize and even in US that might have been their last best market . . . AA 3 is fast and furious but I have some questions about it's long term ability to continue as a front end forensic tool (not having to do with 'capability' but with transparency and logging capability) . . . If I were doing any forensic work I would probably try to stay with AA 1 (CEP 2) at this point.
Anyway do not expect any specific pointers for this type of issue (though stranger things have happened) but it is in just these small frustrations that this application continues to drift farther back in the pack of available tools: Ozone, Reaper, Melodyne, TCPowerCore plus a handful of powerful VST tools, that might or might not be useful in AA (at least one wont work because Adobe made an assumption about VSTi's that while on the surface might make sense, in real world is a bit crippling (for the app)); continue to leach AA's usefulness. It is not Cakewalk (Sonar), Cuebase, that were ever AA's primary competition . . . . In marketing against application rather then for functionality I think Adobe has squandered much of CEP's relatively unique legacy. CEP was never the application for everyone (none can be . . . I use Vegas Video but would be quite happy to find a CEP of the vid edit world (and Adobe doesn't have it), but in mid 90's I consistently went head to head with PT boys in John Henryesque (friendly) competition and never did worse then a draw (of course I was able to live on less then 4 hr of sleep a night at the time and my closest competition had a new infant)
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