With Premiere Elements versions 7 and 8, here at least the playback from the timeline was very poor with major blocky artifacts - in one version, 720p had the problem and 1080i was OK, in the other version it was the other way round. Combining the two formats in one project was a no-no.
I'm happy to report that they've sorted out this issue in the new version 9 just released. They rather boldly say that the trial version is fully functional, but it's not entirely true as anything requiring AVCHD transcoding gives a black watermarked screen on the playback monitor, but if you pay for it, that's fixed.
I believe they have a return policy if you buy and then find that (for some reason) it doesn't work for you.
There's also a Mac version now, which I think is a first for Premiere Elements. I've only tried the PC version.
It's a pretty well-featured program but the engine is a bit slow, requiring rendering of transitions before they play back properly (depending on the spec of the files being replayed). Personally I'll probably be using Nero Vision Xtra for simple stuff (very fast in use) and Premiere Elements for more serious stuff. Of course for seriously serious stuff you won't be using any of these low-end programs.
Note that I'm a PAL user and haven't tested what happens with 24fps footage.
I'm happy to report that they've sorted out this issue in the new version 9 just released. They rather boldly say that the trial version is fully functional, but it's not entirely true as anything requiring AVCHD transcoding gives a black watermarked screen on the playback monitor, but if you pay for it, that's fixed.
I believe they have a return policy if you buy and then find that (for some reason) it doesn't work for you.
There's also a Mac version now, which I think is a first for Premiere Elements. I've only tried the PC version.
It's a pretty well-featured program but the engine is a bit slow, requiring rendering of transitions before they play back properly (depending on the spec of the files being replayed). Personally I'll probably be using Nero Vision Xtra for simple stuff (very fast in use) and Premiere Elements for more serious stuff. Of course for seriously serious stuff you won't be using any of these low-end programs.
Note that I'm a PAL user and haven't tested what happens with 24fps footage.