PPro 5.5 timeline freezing

[Larry Kropp]

I have problem with Premiere Pro CS5.5. I'm hoping someone can help. Problem is my HDV timeline keeps on sticking or stopping, sometimes for several minutes, when I'm playing back the video. I have 12gb of memory, Windows 7 Professional and a 600gb 10,000rpm hard drive. It has about 500gb of HD video on it.
It seems if I wait long enough playback will begin again but it is frustrating for it to lock up so often. I playback at 1/2 resolution but even that doesn't help. Now it just takes too long to do a project. I just changed my setting from optimize for performance to optimize for memory. Don't if that will help. Anyone have any ideas? Thanks.

Larry

[Alan Craven]

Is your 600 GB drive your only drive, and so have your Windows 7 on it as well as your video files? If so, there is your problem. You need at least one other drive apart from your system drive for Premiere to operate successfully.

500 GB on a 600 GB drive will also cause the drive to slow down and cause this kind of problem. Ideally you should keep your drives no more than half full.

A third possibility with a drive this full is that the files on it are fragmented. This would also cause the problems you describe.

The second and third suggestions would apply even if your 600 GB drive is a dedicated video drive, and you have a separate system drive.

[Larry Kropp]

Thanks for the excellent reply Alan. The 600gb J drive is one of two drives. I have the operating system on my C drive. I didn't know I should only fill up the J drive to no more than 50% of its capacity. I can fix this by transferring 250gb to my external WD drive. I will also defragment the remaining video files on that drive. When I have project this large is it ok to put 250gb on my J drive and the other 250gb on the external drive? The external drive I have is 2 terabites. I thought it was better to stay away from an external drive but maybe for large projects like this I simply use my external drive so I don't over load the internal drive. It is connected to my computer via firewire 800 cable. Thanks again for you're help.

Larry

[Alan Craven]

A firewire 800 connected drive should be OK - it depends just what format your HD video is. I use eSATA connected external drives sometimes with HDV without problem. Other flavours of HD video can be much more demanding.

[Larry Kropp]

Hi Alan
I just defragmented the J drive and opened up Adobe to try a timeline and in 20 seconds it froze up solid. I've left it on for 10 minutes and it is still froze. Now I going to transfer 250gb of the video to the external drive and see if that will help. In preferences I also changed to optimise for memory vs performance but that didn't help. I use mainly AVCHD and I know that is a difficult codec to decompress for play back. I also have a Sony HDR FX 1000 that shoots normal HDV videos so I'm going to use that camcorder more often. Do you think that will help in the play back? I'll give you an update on how reducing the hard drive by 250gb's works.

Larry
P.S. I'm using a Nvidia 4000 graphics card. Recommneded by Adobe among others.

[David Trayers]

What is your processor? AVCHD is pretty processor intensive.

[Jay West]

I recently had a similar problem with timeline lock-ups. It turned out my processor was failing and was overheating under any load. Scolling an AVCHD timeline is a load. I found out what the problem was when a ran my ASUS mobo's temperature monitoring utility. Scrolling the timeline would result in CPU temps going over 85°. Something to check.

[Larry Kropp]

David my processor is an Intel i7 980x Hexa Core 3.33ghz. Do you think that is enough power?

Jay how do I get ASUS mobo's temperature monitoring utility?

This morning I'm going to try a test. I'm importing the AVCHD video I have on one of my external hard drives with a USB 3 connection into Adobe but this time the proejct will be a specific project set up in Adobe for AVDHD video (1080 x 1440 60i). This is different than my other proejcts where I married AVCHD video and HDV video in a project set up for HDV (1080 x 1440 60I). Since both were at 29.97 fps I don't think that would make a big difference. Also this hard dirve will have plenty of space on it unlike my J drive drive I'm having the issue with, which is 85% full of HD video. This was an idea Alan give me. So all I'm going to do now is set up the project in Adobe CS5.5 as a AVCHD 1080i project and import it and than drop it into the time line and hit play back. I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks for the ideas. I'll be back with a report.

Larry

[Harm Millaard]

Larry,

Maybe I misunderstood, but it seems you are out of disks and out of disk space. A disk filled more than 60% rapidly deteriorates in performance and at 85% fill rate is about 50% slower than when filled below 50%. Maybe it is time to have a look at some extra storage space. I have the exact address for you:

One Petabyte (1PB) in a Rack

Notice the 963 TB space. That should suffice for now.

[Kawika Ohumukini]

GL with the test. You might want to also try viewing just a movie with no cuts or effects. I agree that you should check your CPU Core Temp. I have the i7-960 and had to use a water cooler to keep the temp down to a level I was comfortable with. It would still work but I didn't want to risk it. Works great. GL

[Jay West]

Originally Posted by Larry Kropp

David my processor is an Intel i7 980x Hexa Core 3.33ghz. Do you think that is enough power?

Jay how do I get ASUS mobo's temperature monitoring utility? Larry

First, an I7-980x is more than sufficient power for AVCHD.

Second, do I understand that you have an ASUS mobo in your system. Ifso your ASUS mobo should have come with a CD/DVD of utilities and software. Install the AI app. When you start the "AI" you'll probably get a bar with a "monitor" button. This will allow you to monitor temps and/or CPU frequency. Older versions of AI had something called "Probe" which does the same thing.

If you do not have an ASUS motherboard, the website of your motherboard's manufacturer may have something similar.

There are also numerous downloadable applications, some free, some not. I'll bet Harm has even posted the names of some. I'd suggest search on "CPU temperature monitoring software download" and see what you find.

[Harm Millaard]

In case you can't easily find them, look at RealTemp, Speedfan or HWMonitor. Personally I use the latter two.

[Larry Kropp]

Today I tested AVCHD video played back on PP CS5.5 from of my external drive that was only 25% full. It is a 2gb drive connected via USB 3. It has about 250gb of AVCHD video on it. I imported via Media Encoder which was a breeze. P.P. didn't even have to transcode it. I dropped it on the time line and begin a 75 minute playback. NO isues. I think you guys all helped solve the problem. What I learned is that on really big projects where I was getting the freeze up I need to use several drives and make sure none of them are filled up over 60%. I guess even though my J drive says it has a capacity of 600gb I guess I can't go over 325gb. I assume going higher just slows down the drive and it also loses head space. I'm not for sure I understand why and I don't care as long as I don't the frustrating contiual freeze ups are gone. Again thanks for all the help. We'll run across each in other areas of the forum.

Larry

[Larry Kropp]

In my note below I meant to say my external drive was a 2tb drive not 2gb.

Larry

[Jay West]

Good to hear the problem is solved.