Stuttering DSLR Playback
 

I'm having an issue with playback within Premiere that has me at a loss. I'm working with Canon DSLR .MOV footage within CS5. The playback stutters no matter in the source or program window. Even at 1/2 resolution playback it still stutters every few seconds or so. What has me baffled is that the CPU usage is only between 30-40% when playing and the RAM usage is only at 1.5GB out of 6GB total. I've tried various graphic card settings with no cure. I've even rolled back to the past five drivers with no luck. I've worked with AVCHD footage in the past and do not remember these issues. Is the Canon .MOV footage a more complex h.264 than AVCHD? Anyone else having this issue?

WINDOWS 7
CS5.0.3
CORE 2 QUAD 2.66
6GB RAM
NVIDIA GT330M 1GB RAM
1TB EXTERNAL 1394 HD

Re: Stuttering DSLR Playback
 

Make sure the footage is on a internal drive.

Re: Stuttering DSLR Playback
 

Already tried that. Same problem. Does anyone have any suggestions for settings within the Nvidia graphics properties that could help the problem. I have it set to default settings now.

Re: Stuttering DSLR Playback
 

There is a ton of good information here: Adobe Premiere CS5 and Premiere CS5.5 Video Cards with CUDA Acceleration Mercury Playback Unlock Enable MPE Hack Mod Tip

Your card may be marginal if it is one of the 330's using DDR2 ram. Or if you have not downloaded the current nVidia drivers, the one that came with your card is sure to be obsolete. Or if you are using a 5400 rpm drive instead of 7200. There's a lot of other good info on the link, as well.

Re: Stuttering DSLR Playback
 

Thanks for the link. A lot of good info. It amazes me how many resources Premiere requires to just playback a file. The same clip in media player plays back smoothly. It's only when brought into Premiere does the stuttering occur.

Re: Stuttering DSLR Playback
 

Try a faster drive, or a separate drive (via SATA or eSATA, not 1394 or USB) for temp playback.

Re: Stuttering DSLR Playback
 

Brian,

There is quite a difference in cooking a superb dinner (editing) and eating it (playing). The first requires much more resources than when eating, which only requires a plate, knife and fork.

Re: Stuttering DSLR Playback
 

There is one option, only recommended if your comfortable with tweaking your computer. Last year there was a trick to get better performance between the nVidia 330 on a MBP and Premiere CS5. I've pasted the article below. It enables the CUDA engine on your card. This could help with rendering and playback. Personally I have used it without problems and has increased the speed of my renders and exports. Also I use a fast Firewire 800 RAID-0 G-tech drive.

Re: Stuttering DSLR Playback
 

Thanks for the suggestions. I forgot to mention that I have CUDA enabled already on my system. I have a Sony all-in-one desktop so I had to get a modified .inf in order to get it to work. Anyway, I did some more testing and I have basically come to the conclusion that it is a drive speed issue. Unfortunately, my computer only offers USB and 1394 as interface options so I cannot test SATA. I think the complexity of the footage combined with 1394 is just slightly too much for my system. I can definitely still edit it's just that playback stutters on occasion.

Re: Stuttering DSLR Playback
 

Have you used up all the internal SATA connections on your motherboard?

Re: Stuttering DSLR Playback
 

The desktop is an all-in-one unit similar to an iMac. It is sealed and the only access I have is to the RAM slots. I doubt that it has any extra SATA slots internally anyway.

Re: Stuttering DSLR Playback
 

Just like iMAC, these all-in-one systems are below minimum requirements for editing the material you want. They may be OK for DV material, but not for AVCHD or DSLR material. Add to that the very dated CPU, the limited amount of memory, the slow external disk and the weak video card, and you have all the ingredients for stuttering playback. Not much you can do about it, apart from getting a better system.

PS. It may be that the .MOV format aggravates the problem by using the Quircktime engine, which is 32 bit.