Adobe's 64-Bit Commitment

You may have read about this elsewhere, but it's worth noting that future versions of Premiere Pro and After Effects will only run on 64-bit operating systems. In my view this is a smart decision by Adobe and should serve to make your work flow faster and better able to support HD video formats.

64-bit computing has been around a long time but Microsoft Windows and processors from Intel and AMD have matured to the point where upgrading to a 64-bit system is relatively affordable and bug-free.

Adobe boasts performancegains of up to 227%
using Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 on a 64-bit system
with more memory.

But what are the advantages of 64-bit computing for video makers? The main advantage is performance.

Adobe notes in its FAQ: "With a 64-bit operating systems you get a wider address system and data path, providing access to essentially unlimited RAM. On 32-bit systems, each application is limited to 4GB of RAM (and in practice this number is actually smaller). More RAM means applications can manipulate larger chunks of data, cache more information, and handle a wide range of tasks more efficiently."

At EventDV, Jan Ozer documents the performance gains, "...the 64-bit system was 67% faster on my standard DV test file, up to 63% faster on HDV-related tests, up to 50% faster on AVCHD tests, and up to 227% faster on tests using footage from the RED camera."

Now with the new release of Windows 7, 64-bit computing looks even more promising. Microsoft received nearly universal and well-deserved atomic dope slaps for its awful Vista operating system. However, having recently installed and worked with Windows 7, I'd say things are looking up. I'm in the process of building a new computer build based on the Videoguys DIY-7 specifications. I'll follow up with a review after I've tested this 64-bit monster.