scrub comp time line

[Randall Martin]

I’ve had no reply to my question, so in case anyone is interested I’ll reply to myself

I am not a expert in AE, using it only as I need it and therefore often having to seek help

The problem is this: when there is one clip in the time line, scrubbing it leads to a blue overlay; when there are two clips, scrubbing one leads to both showing, one with a red or yellow, one with a blue overlay. It is like the “quickmask” in photoshop. It is very annoying.

I can find no settings that change this…

The video card is an NVIDIA GeForce 7300 SE. One of the monitors is a ViewSonic hooked up to the VGA output, the other a Samsung hooked to the digital output.

The display mode is dualview, the monitors configured independently which usually works well for what I do.

This problem seems to occur when the comp panel is moved to the Samsung monitor…it does not occur in the ViewSonic monitor.

At the very least, I would like to know what settings lead to the overlays?

Thank you.

[David Johnson]

It sounded like an OpenGL problem until I got to the last line where you said: “This problem seems to occur when the comp panel is moved to the Samsung monitor…it does not occur in the ViewSonic monitor.”

As far as the issue happening on only one monitor, perhaps confirm that monitor has current drivers and, if controlled by a separate video card from the other monitor, that you don’t have an issue with that video card … AE hates weak or weary video cards.

You might also try turning off OpenGL either in the main options or by clicking the little lightning icon at the bottom of the comp viewer window and switching it to “Adaptive Resolution”. Personally I don’t think OpenGL is worth all the headache it causes so I leave it off all the time, but I do use it sometimes when doing 3D stuff.

I’d also remind you that After Effects is a motion graphics & special effects program rather than a video editing program so you shouldn’t expect flawless timeline “scrubbing” the way you would in video editing software (like Final Cut Pro or Premiere Pro). AE has to render everything you see frame by frame so you can only “scrub” to the degree your hardware can handle.

I hope this helps.