Jumpy playback in Premiere

[Vince Becquiot]

Just edited EX3 footage recently and the playback was fine. The system is no better than yours, so I would vote for a bottleneck in your system or a wrong sequence setting.

First, I would make sure to hit update to make sure you have the latest version.

What is your drive configuration?

Are you previewing through a third party card as well (AJA, Blackmagic,matrox) ?

Are you seeing a render line in the sequence ?

Vince Becquiot

Kaptis Studios
San Francisco – Bay Area

[Todd Roush]

I’ve noticed that CS4 freezes up if I have my camera/deck connected via the firewire. Noticed this by accident after my freelancer got so frustrated with Premiere that he quit. Not sure what is causing it…only in Vista 64 on 1 HP laptop while the other HP laptop with 32 does not seem to have an issue with it.

Good luck.

Best,

Todd

Todd Roush
Dreamscape Digital Media
Panny DVX-100’s but changing so Sony or Cannon HDV soon.

[Simon Davis]

I have exactly the same problem, as I’ve posted on here before. I’m using Premiere CS4.01 with Sony EX1 HDCAM EX footage (1920×1080 25p). I’m using the correct Sequence (HDCAM EX 1080p (HQ)) and my system is a Core i7 940 (2.93GHz stabiliy overclocked to 3.4GHz) – 8 cores effectively, 3GB DDR3 memory, nVidia 9600GT 512MB graphics card and WD VelociRaptor HDD (10000rpm). This is enough to cope with editing HD video, I would have thought.

I get jumpy playback, that’s intermittant. I find that rendered video is often worse. I’m using draft quality playback and the CPU isn’t heavily loaded. The video jumps and stalls along with the audio. I’ve tried a number of things. I’ve even taken the overclocking off and stopped the processor SpeedStepping.

[Dylan Evans]

Right, well i had alot of hardware problems, was getting complete computer freezes, so during the process of elimination as to what hardware bit was causing it I had to reinstall Vista. On the fresh install I dont seem to have a problem.

Interestingly enough infact I am using a graphics card i dug out of the cupboard for the aforementioned reason, which i beleive is a radeon x300 so i have effectivly downgraded, but nevertheless the problem has vanished.

[Nick Schale]

So, I am wondering what is the best sequence settings for ex cam. I am having a ton of problems with cs4 and am thinking (PRAYING) it is a user error.

Project: 2hr long recital where we had three Sony EX-1 cameras. All shooting 1920x1080p (HQ). And there are two shows, but I’ll edit them in different projects.

In CS3, I would start the project and just pull the footage in… no problem everything played fine. Then when I upgraded to CS4 it was CHOPPY to the point I could not edit.

Sequence Settings: General:

Editing Mode: Desktop. But was the EX1 1920×1080 hq by default… but that wasnt working. So far, Desktop is the only thing that has even let video show up… if I import only 25minutes of footage, it plays back smooth! NOTHING has worked like this, so is Desktop the way to go?

Video Previews: I-Frame Only MPEG
I really do think this is where the problem is. The video is killing me, audio plays back like a champ (if i turn off the video and press play). I dont know enough about this to know if I am correct or not. Should I do I-frame or AVI? and if AVI which Codec? Also, should i click max bit depth and render quality? i’d assume no for a preview.

Thanks a million for any help!!!

System
Dual Core 2 6600 (2.4GHz)
8 GB ddr2
64-bit vista prem
NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT
1.5 TB of storage
OS Drive is a Raptor 10k

I am on my way to work now to get CS3 to downgrade. /sigh.

[Vince Becquiot]

My guess is the playback hits a bottleneck either on the CPU or harddrive side. For 1080p you would usually need a RAID setup (you didn’t mention what your storage setup is) , unless you are editing native XDCam, which you can’t do in CS3. It would be worth trying to playback one of the preview files by itself in Windows Media Player and see if you are getting a smooth playback.

The CPU may also not be able to process what’s thrown at it in desktop mode. I think that’s the one we have in our HP laptop, and I doubt it’ll playback 1080p in any flavor.

Vince Becquiot

Kaptis Studios
San Francisco – Bay Area

[Aaron Grech]

Hi,
I am having the same, identical problem you were having with jumpy EX3 footage playback in CS4. However, in my case, when I did re-format the PC, the problem persisted. I would be extremely grateful if you could give me details of your setup, and the difference in hardware / software between the problematic install and the correct install.

Thanking you in anticipation,
Aaron Grech

[Martin Frericks]

I have exactly the same problem. I’m using Adobe CS4 and the 35Mbit/s material from the PMW-EX1 plays back extremely jumpy. The 25Mbit/s material from the camera plays back fine.

The videos also play back fine in VLC player and the playback in Sony Vegas 9 is also fine. This seems to be a Premiere related problem, not hardware related.

—–
KYAM Studios – Media Production, Marketing and Web Programming from Aachen, Germany
http://www.kyam.de

[Vince Becquiot]

Are you seeing a render bar?

Vince Becquiot

Kaptis Studios
San Francisco – Bay Area

[Aaron Grech]

In my case, I solved the problem by dumping the nVidia graphics card with an ATI, specifically a 3870 512Mb from ASUS. The playback, which was unbearably jumpy, is now silky smooth. No other modifications either to hardware or software were necessary.