Extremely choppy/stuttering playback w/high end system?

[Vince Becquiot]

Stay far away from K-lite, it will not be needed.

It sounds like you are having issues with particular formats or hardware configuration. AVCHD is a broad format still, and depending on how it is compressed, can be problematic with Premiere.

[Daniel DeSouza] “Does not matter if I reduce preview quality to draft or change project settings to 1080i.”

What is the footage frame rate (recorded) and at what resolution?

Vince Becquiot

Kaptis Studios
San Francisco – Bay Area

[Ann Bens]

Converted to what kind of avi? Cineform?

[Daniel Desouza]

difficult at this point to recall everything exactly – I’m dealing with files that were created about a month ago, prior to upgrade.

I believe I used something like AVS Video Converter to convert them from AVCHD 1920×1080. They are now .avi files, 1920×1080, 29 frames/sec. Short clips – probably about 150mb average (down from over a gb each in native AVCHD).

[Mike Cohen]

your AVI files may play ok in your media player, but if Premiere does not have a native preset for that format, then playback may be no better than native AVCHD.

I too have a new i7 machine – playback is certainly better than the Core 2 Duo with AVCHD, but the video card also has an impact. We went with the Matrox MXO2-mini for our intermediate codec, since Windows does not have a Pro Res equivalent that comes with Premiere. Cineform is another option.

Mike Cohen

[Brian Louis]

[Daniel DeSouza] “They are now .avi files, 1920×1080, 29 frames/sec. Short clips – probably about 150mb average (down from over a gb each in native AVCHD).”
You’re going from a compressed format to extremely compressed, the higher the compression usually the more problems you have

“2x Samsung Spinpoint F3 1x TB drives in RAID 0”

Are these the only drives in your system??

[Daniel Desouza]

well, as it turns out, Premiere doesn’t seem to like whatever avi format that AVS Video Converter used. I found a few native .mts AVCHD files on another hard drive and tested them out, and they run smooth as butter on this system. If I convert the .avi files to something like windows media format, same thing. I’m guessing there’s a codec being used with the .avi that Premiere is not happy about.

[Tim Kolb]

[Daniel DeSouza] “I believe I used something like AVS Video Converter to convert them from AVCHD 1920×1080. They are now .avi files, 1920×1080, 29 frames/sec. Short clips – probably about 150mb average (down from over a gb each in native AVCHD).”

So the clips are shorter, or they’re simply more compressed?

Keep in mind that AVCHD is EXTREMELY compressed…if they are compressed that much more, I’d guess it’s like cel phone video…

Regardless, it sounds like the converter is producing files that are a problem since AVCHD runs that well…I’d stick with the native files if that’s the case.

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

[Philippe Verdoni]

I am using mpeg 29.97fps clips and I also have the same problem i.e: “The audio tracks play smoothly, but the video either is choppy/stuttering or simply not playing at all.”
When I started my project everything was fine and the video was running smoothtly in the Program Monitor. I can imagine 1 cause among 3 at the origin of this trouble:
1 – I have installed update 4.2 of my Premiere CS4,
2 – I have installed the Nvidia 196.2 driver for my GeForce 7600 GS video board to replace the driver installed by Window when I have move from XP to Windows7. But I have a doubt about this point since the video remains very smooth when played in the Source Monitor,
3 – my project duration (30 minutes) has became too long to be handled correctly by Premiere. In such case it’s a Windows7 lack of development since I had no problem with projects longer than 1 hour when using Windows

[Philippe Verdoni]

In addition to what I mentionned above I fill usefull to outline that the choppyness occurs about 10 seconds after the reading is started.