Smooth playback in AE preview?

[Michael Szalapski]

I agree with Dave that encoding into a friendlier codec like Quicktime with PNG codec tends to help. (And I’m on a Windows machine.)

How are you doing the previews? Are you doing it by hitting 0 on the number pad and letting it build before trying to play something back?

In the info panel what is it telling you on playback?

Do you have Matrox, AJA, Kona or any other type of I/O card?

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[Matt Gosciminski]

Hm well being the newb that I am to this software I was not aware of the 0 on the keypad being a pre-build preview option which helps significantly with the workflow. Id like it to be a bit snappier but as dave said I suppose I’m going to need to upgrade my ram for improved performance.

A question on quicktime with png codec however. In media encoder the options only let me go to a 720×480 resolution, so are you saying that if i want to use that format it must stay in sd? I tried to vamp it up to 1080 (source clip is 1080) however media encoder just gives me a fail message.

[Walter Soyka]

[matt gosciminski] “Am i using a bad codec? is there some setting i should be aware of i havent tinkered with? or is it just normal for after effects to never play back smooth video? “

Dave and Michael have pointed out AE-friendlier codecs, AE memory requirements, and RAM preview.

I’d like to add that After Effects will ONLY play media smoothly in RAM preview. AE is not designed as a realtime system, and while adding RAM and transcoding your media will greatly improve performance, AE will never behave like an NLE. RAM previewing to evaluate your work is a normal part of the workflow.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Matt Gosciminski]

would you say that quicktime codecs work better with premiere pro as well? im having some trouble getting video to play back smoothly

[Walter Soyka]

[matt gosciminski] “would you say that quicktime codecs work better with premiere pro as well? im having some trouble getting video to play back smoothly”

The animation codec is an “intermediate codec.” It’s completely lossless, but the data rate is astronomical. Most computers can’t play it back smoothly.

Other software developers have developed “visually lossless” codecs that preserve nearly all visual information at manageable data rates. Final Cut Pro has ProRes, and Avid has DNxHD.

Premiere Pro doesn’t have a native accelerated codec. I think a lot of Premiere editors are using Cineform (a 3rd party, realtime HD codec), but you will almost assuredly get a better answer on this on the Premiere Pro forum.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Matt Gosciminski]

thanks for the speedy reply, very helpful

[Matt Gosciminski]

yea i have raid set up, two 1 terabyte drives with video on a separate drive from programs