Encore CS3 - Hangs and import problems with

I'm trying to import some footage files in .avi format into Encore CS3 and am
having several problems.

In what follows when I say "crash" I mean Encore quits with a standard
Windows error. When I say "hang" I mean Encore does not quit but
rather becomes an unresponsive process that must be killed manually using
Windows Task Manager.

My System:
  WinXP Pro SP2
  2.93 GHz Intel Celeron CPU - single core
  Intel PERL mobo
  3GB 400MHz RAM
  NVidia 7800GS video
    I mention these specs however I am not experiencing any hardware
    related bugs or issues (like out of memory or video driver crashes
    etc) when using any CS3 app.

The footage files (as reported by GSpot) and problems I am seeing. In all cases
GSpot reports that I have the appropriate codec installed:
  footage1.avi - Dx50 XVid 1.0.3, Dolby AC3 48kHz 192kb/s, 716834 KB
      Attempting to import as timeline causes Encore CS3 to hang.
      Importing as an Asset allows it to import but when I try to click
      on it in the project windown to add it to a new empty timeline,
      Encore hangs. It plays fine in Windows Media Player.
  footage2.avi - Dx50 XVid 1.0.3, MPEG-1 Layer 3 48kHz 128kb/s, 718302 KB
      Imports fine as either a timeline or asset but no audio track comes
      with it, even though there is an audio track in the footage. It plays
      fine in Windows Media Player. Video imports perfectly, just no audio.
  footage3.avi - Dx50 XVid 1.0.3, MPEG1-Layer3 48kHz 112kb/s, 717606 KB
      Imports fine as either a timeline or asset but no audio track comes
      with it, even though there is an audio track in the footage. It plays
      fine in Windows Media Player. Video imports perfectly, just no
      audio. I tried converting this one using AVS to both MPEG3 and DivX,
      each using MPEG1-Layer3 44kHz 192kb/s audio, and got the same issue
      upon importing into Encore CS3. I also loaded it into Camtasia
      Studio and it looked fine over there. The audio was present and I
      was able to export it as a .WAV file. When I tried looking at the
      file in Soundbooth CS3, there was no audio track or, more
      accurately, the audio track was a flat line.

By way of comparison these are importing perfectly:
  footage4.avi - XVID XviD 1.1.0 Beta2, MPEG1-Layer3 48kHz 189kb/s Two mono
      channels LAME3.96r, 717436 KB.
  footage5.avi - XVID XviD 1.1.0 Final, Dolby AC3 48kHz 448kb/s Six
      channels (3/2 .1), 716418 KB.
  footage6.avi - XVID XviD 1.1.0 Final, Dolby AC3 48kHz 448kb/s Six
      channels (3/2 .1), 716418 KB.
  footage7.avi - XVID XviD 1.0.3, Dolby AC3 48kHz 448kb/s 6 channels
      (3/2 .1), 717502 KB
  footage8.avi - XVID XviD 1.0.3, Dolby AC3 48kHz 448kb/s 6 channels
      (3/2 .1), 717180 KB
  footage9.avi - XVID XviD 1.1.2 Final, Dolby AC3 48kHz 448kb/s 6 channels
      (3/2 .1), 2291904 KB
      Although this one imported & transcoded correctly, when I went to
      build it to a DVD image file I got some strange errors during the
      "planning video" stage that prevented the process from
completing.
      Unfortunately I neglected to write down the error message I recieved
      which read like quite nonsensical babble to me, and I have since
      deleted the project folder. I remember it was not a memory or
      display related error and it included a timestamp where the error
      was happening. I played the footage in the preview panel thru the
      identified timestamp but it previewed perfectly without even a
      jitter in either the video or audio. Took forever to transcode so I
      doubt I'll be doing this one again anytime soon.

Another issue I am having is with the motion menus. I burned a DVD and it does
not load correctly in one of my DVD players (a Sony rdr-gx330 recorder/player).
It appears to take extra time to recognize the disk, the startup (first-play)
menu does not show automatically, and I must press the Main Menu button on the
remote control to make it appear. Other than that it seems to play ok in that
player. Also tested it in 2 other DVD players (a Panasonic and Zenith) and it
worked just fine like it's supposed to in them. Also plays perfectly in my
computer's DVD player/burner using Windows Media Player v10. I tried burning to
Memorex +RW single-layer single-sided disks at 6, 7, & 8Mbps project
settings but got the exact same result every time.

Encore CS3 crashes fairly often during authoring, particularly during imports,
and when I go to edit things like calling up a timeline in the timeline panel,
dragging footage into an existing timeline, or changing button links in a menu
etc.. I have also experienced seemingly random hangs even more often, probably 5
or 6 times as often as a crash. Saving the project after every little change I
make, then closing and restarting Encore allows me to make progress albeit at a
significantly reduced workflow rate. Accessing Photoshop from Encore appears to
be working flawlessly so far aside from the slow load times. Encore hangs
sometimes during video transcoding, repeat the process and it works ok. If I try
to import a menu from the library after importing my footage files, Encore hangs
trying to import it either at the 50% mark or the 99% mark (it varies even with
the same exact menu selected from the library). If I import the menu first and
the footage after, then no problems. Also trying to render motion menus after
importing footage causes Encore to hang, render before footage import and
everything works ok. Interestingly enough, previewing my project in Encore's
monitor or preview panels works perfectly even in High quality mode -- in fact
it operates quite smoothly in comparison to other apps I have tried. Although
those footage files that had missing audio tracks on import obviously played
silently, I have yet to experience a hang or crash during a preview or when
scrubbing through a timeline in the monitor panel.

The last problem I've seen is with the project cache files. It doesn't always
get rid of cache files when stuff is deleted from the project. I was working on
one project and surprisingly ran out of disk space. When I tracked it down I
found that there were some two dozen copies of a footage file I had repeatedly
imported and deleted from the project still sitting in the cache folder. The
file was an avi about 2GB so it was taking up some 40 GB of disk space for stuff
that was no longer in the project. I tried shutting down Encore and manually
deleting all the cache files, and that worked for most of them, but there was
one 2GB file that kept reappearing in the cache folder even though it was no
longer in the project. The XML file in the cache folder still had references to
it in there so I can only assume that was the reason it kept showing up. I
eventually had to delete and totally recreate the project from scratch to regain
my lost disk space. This included having to sit thru a 6 hour long transcoding
session which pissed me off to no end.

Stop using DivX or XviD or whatever other highly-compressed codec you have in
your source video footage and/or your source audio.

I think your CPU is not up to the job.
The Level 2 cache will be a minuscule 126kb, and this is insufficient, and I am
far from surprised you get such slow, shaky performance as the CPU cannot keep
up with what you are trying to make it do.
A stock original P4 had 256 (Hence why so many people thought it was not as good
as server grade Tualatin P3 chips, which had 512k of it)
A Northwood P4 got this back up to 512Kb, and a Prescott finally made the
"upgrade" to P4 worthwhile with 1Mb L2 cache.
Then there was the P4 extreme, with up to 2Mb onboard.
Additionally, your FSB will probably be no more than 100MHz, and this is
somewhat slow as well.

As a comparison, my Q6700 Quad core has 8Mb L2 cache, and runs at 1066MHz
FSB.......

I appreciate your responses very much, however neither of these answers explain
why some of them work great and some do not work at all or cause Encore to hang.
Many of the ones that are importing ok are using XVid and DivX codecs and they
bring in the audio tracks with them. It would have been nice if you had
suggested a more suitable codec for me to use instead. What do you use? I hope
you are not suggesting I try to keep all my footage in raw uncompressed formats.
That would be a silly waste of space and I would be absolutely shocked to learn
everybody else is doing that.

I realize my PC is not leading edge but it does have 512 L2 cache and my mobo is
running a 400 MHz FSB at the moment (although it has the capacity to go to 800,
I don't have the CPU or memory chips to do that right now). Still, it does meet
the requirements of the CS3 suite software and even exceeds those requirements
in some areas. Furthermore, asking it to create a 500x500 pixel blank photoshop
doc is not in my opinion an unreasonably complex request and it should be able
to do that in less than 30 seconds. After all Photoshop v5.5 could do it in less
than a second.

Actually I am not seeing "shaky performance" for most things that
don't require disk access or intra-app access. For example, Bridge absoulutely
sux performance wise because it take minutes to load the damn thing. Once it
finally loads up, it performs acceptably well for browsing all kinds of
multimedia content. I am at the point where I avoid Bridge at all costs just
because it takes so long to get going -- it wastes my time because I can get to
those files using Windows explorer in a third the time or less. Yes it could be
better if I had a more powerful CPU, but I am not overly disappointed in the way
it is performing for most of the CPU intensive operations I am doing while
working on things -- when it works without crashing or hanging. It is only when
CS3 apps need to load or import or deal with the preset library stuff or save
things that it gets unreasonably slow. In fact, it is during the most CPU
intensive tasks that CS3 performs the best. Render-type operations like
transcoding are agonizing but I expect that and know it will happen on this
system -- that is if I can ever get the software to let me get to that stage
without hanging on some tiny menu import or outright crashing when I try to link
a menu button to a timeline. Honestly I don't believe the CPU even plays that
big a role in those kinds of simple tasks. It certainly doesn't explain why all
of my other non-Adobe apps perform so much better especially since several of
them are extreemly CPU intensive (3dsMax, Fusion, Visual Studio, Office XP,
Camtasia, Bink & Smacker, Games, etc). None of those have these kinds of
issues, it is only CS3 that lags, hangs, and crashes.