Choppy Editing in Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0

[Aron Yert]

Originally Posted by Chris Soucy

Aron,

I really would suggest you un - install Premier from your D drive and put it back on the C drive. I'm talking about the programs here. The software is read only and is only competing with your data by being on the D drive. With such slow drives it really pays to have nothing competing for drive access that doesn't need to. I realise this may leave you pretty tight on the C drive but there really should be nothing there but software (ie programs) that in the main are read only.

If "End it all" does as you say then there seems little to be gained by persuing that avenue of thought, although, it would still be worth checking your "Services" and "Startup" tabs after running it to see what it has left still running (if anything).

Going back to point 5 in my original post - you will find people (on DVinfo)in similar situations to yourself with choppy playback, with far more powerful systems than yours, why? I have no idea but even my monster can have "bad hair days" and throw an occasional "chop".

I do think that if you can get your system to be bouncing your data back and forth between your D and, er, "F?" drive with nothing else in the way is your best chance, tho' it may well be that your 5400 drive just cannot cut the mustard with this application.

CS

forgot this in my last post (and my first, second....) as well!

Check out the following :

http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/333161.html

AND

http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/333204.html

If you can't sort it from those, I don't think you will.

CS

I didn't have time to go through all the Adobe checks last night, but I did uninstall Premiere from D and install it back on C. I will go through the whole list over the weekend.

I'm wondering now if it isn't a weak video card. Not only does my laptop run the Premiere preview window choppily (is that a word?), but is also plays back streaming video (such as YouTube) sporadically. For a few seconds and even minutes sometimes it's very clear, and then the video turns to garbage and lags for seconds at a time.

However, being a laptop, and also being the particular laptop I have, I'm stuck with the video card I have. I did download the latest driver for the video card off of Sony Vaio's website, and actually so far I haven't had a problem with YouTube again. The new driver is still about four years old (dated 2003), so I'll keep looking for updates in the hope that that will improve the programs I use.

As I've said, Premiere was still choppy on the C drive, but I tried rendering the work area a little at a time and setting the preview monitor to draft quality, and that seemed to help a bit. It still wasn't perfect, but I had a better chance of it working for longer periods (20-30 sec) uninterrupted, which is better than what it was doing.

Does using larger sized capture files affect preview playback at all? I shoot live bands sometimes, so this is hard to avoid since I need the entire set for the audio, at least. Would using smaller sized .avi files help?

Is there any way I can limit the quality of the preview window more so it would run more smoothly, at the cost of pixel quality (just for the preview)? In previous versions you could change settings for DV playback, Desktop playback, etc. but I can't find that option in Premiere Pro 2.0.

[Aron Yert]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

I think the problem is your laptop which can't keep up, premiere can be quite demanding for your system, I have cs3 and a desktop pc which was high end 2 years ago, in "normal speed " editing everything runs fine, only if I fast forward through the time line the image in the preview monitor skips a few frames and it looks like it can't keep up. It can't be the c drive because I have a 10k raptor drive and the videodrive is a dedicated 7200rpm drive and I'm editing sd footage. My best guess is that it's, or the processor, or the memory which is not sufficient. I have a P4 3,2 and 1 gig of memory but plan to add an additional 1gig stick soon to see if that makes any difference.

I have 1 GB of RAM, so I would hope that was enough. But I think you're right - I don't think my laptop is quite up to the task. Before Premiere Pro 2.0 I was using a cheap copy of Pinnacle to edit, and that ran very well on my system. Premiere is a processor eater, though.

[Aron Yert]

Originally Posted by Denny Bryant

I never trust the analysis ... I would defrag anyway .. just my $.02 ..

Will do. Especially with the new install and switching drives.

[Chris Soucy]

Just to throw you a curve ball .............

Let's just assume that Resource Hog Premiere is not ever going to sit comfortably with your laptop, and that it is going to annoy the c**p out of you in the process every time you use it...........why not.............

Download the trial versions of either PE 3 or Ulead VS 10 (hey, why not both if you can cram 'em on yer C drive) and see if either of those sits more comfortably with the available resources?

I don't know what features of Premier are "must haves" for you, so it's your choice, but if either of the two I mentioned "do it for you", then it may be a better solution than trying to get a quart out of this particular pint pot.

Just a thought.

PS. I'm sure there are other options I haven't thought of, but you get the idea.

CS

[Alfred Diaz]

I use premiere 1.5 with an Athlon 64 processor 1.6 ghz, but on windows xp pro (32 bit, reluctant to change over).

Anyway, when I had one gig of ram I had similar problems. I doubled it and they went away, for the most part. I know 2 gigs of ram sounds like overkill, but it isn't. Or it wasn't for me.

Also, I don't know how others feel about this, but I don't think you will ever get away from choppy looking video with a 32MB graphics card. 64 is also inadequate. I have an ATI with 128MB (can't remember the bus speed). It is adequate, but I wish I would have invested in a 256MB card.

And I agree with previous posts, put your programs on your c files. Save your projects and captured video to other drives that have the space.

[Aron Yert]

Originally Posted by Alfred Diaz

I use premiere 1.5 with an Athlon 64 processor 1.6 ghz, but on windows xp pro (32 bit, reluctant to change over).

Anyway, when I had one gig of ram I had similar problems. I doubled it and they went away, for the most part. I know 2 gigs of ram sounds like overkill, but it isn't. Or it wasn't for me.

Also, I don't know how others feel about this, but I don't think you will ever get away from choppy looking video with a 32MB graphics card. 64 is also inadequate. I have an ATI with 128MB (can't remember the bus speed). It is adequate, but I wish I would have invested in a 256MB card.

And I agree with previous posts, put your programs on your c files. Save your projects and captured video to other drives that have the space.

It's on the C drive now.

Unfortunately, what I have on my computer is what I got - it's all maxed out. Since it's a laptop I can't upgrade the graphics card, and the max RAM I can hold is 512 MB for two, or 1024 GB total. That's what I have.

Yeah, it's a four year old comp.

[Aron Yert]

Originally Posted by Chris Soucy

Just to throw you a curve ball .............

Let's just assume that Resource Hog Premiere is not ever going to sit comfortably with your laptop, and that it is going to annoy the c**p out of you in the process every time you use it...........why not.............

Download the trial versions of either PE 3 or Ulead VS 10 (hey, why not both if you can cram 'em on yer C drive) and see if either of those sits more comfortably with the available resources?

I don't know what features of Premier are "must haves" for you, so it's your choice, but if either of the two I mentioned "do it for you", then it may be a better solution than trying to get a quart out of this particular pint pot.

Just a thought.

PS. I'm sure there are other options I haven't thought of, but you get the idea.

CS

Having Studio Pro (well, CS3 now) is what I eventually wanted so I was given Premiere Pro as a gift over the holidays. Just don't think my system can crack it at full speed, though I have been able to put it too good use with several projects. But it would be so much easier if it ran more smoothly.

In the near future I plan on upgrading to the CS3 studio pack, during which time I plan on also investing in a desktop system that can handle it and put my laptop out to pasture with simple tasks like word processing and checking my email.

It is a resource hog, though, very much. Never had this much trouble getting a program to run on this before.

I'll look into PE 3 and Ulead, though I don't know much about them to be honest.

[Chris Soucy]

Ulead VS10 Plus is so simple even I can use it (and that's saying something!). PE3 ain't bad but suffers a bit from the same "resource hog" problems as it's big brother, tho' not as easy to use (for me) as VS10.

VS10 doesn't seem to need nearly the resources as either of the others, but maybe someone can come up with alternatives that are better suited.

In the very short term, not knowing your financial resources, you can get round the C drive space limitation for application software by tacking on yet another external drive. I normally wouldn't advise it, but running apps off an external drive has the benefit of not interfering with the data drives, and if the software needs a module, everything has to stop till it's got, simple as that - no dropped frames etc.

It doesn't need to be a monster either - heck, you've got a C drive so small you could mistake it for an aspirin! The smallest "tack on" drive you can get your hands on would do the job - if you get it with both Firewire/ USB you can use one connect (USB) during capture (say) and the other (Firewire) for editing - bit messy but do - able if you have the energy for it.

As I say, a temporary work - around for the circumstances. If anyone has suggestions for viable alternative software I'd be interested - must be tons of stuff out there that does the job without needing a Cray 3 to run it.

Whatever, if you get to the end of the Adobe check list and it still isn't playing ball, worth giving some thought to.

Good Luck

CS

[Aron Yert]

Originally Posted by Chris Soucy

Ulead VS10 Plus is so simple even I can use it (and that's saying something!). PE3 ain't bad but suffers a bit from the same "resource hog" problems as it's big brother, tho' not as easy to use (for me) as VS10.

VS10 doesn't seem to need nearly the resources as either of the others, but maybe someone can come up with alternatives that are better suited.

In the very short term, not knowing your financial resources, you can get round the C drive space limitation for application software by tacking on yet another external drive. I normally wouldn't advise it, but running apps off an external drive has the benefit of not interfering with the data drives, and if the software needs a module, everything has to stop till it's got, simple as that - no dropped frames etc.

It doesn't need to be a monster either - heck, you've got a C drive so small you could mistake it for an aspirin! The smallest "tack on" drive you can get your hands on would do the job - if you get it with both Firewire/ USB you can use one connect (USB) during capture (say) and the other (Firewire) for editing - bit messy but do - able if you have the energy for it.

As I say, a temporary work - around for the circumstances. If anyone has suggestions for viable alternative software I'd be interested - must be tons of stuff out there that does the job without needing a Cray 3 to run it.

Whatever, if you get to the end of the Adobe check list and it still isn't playing ball, worth giving some thought to.

Good Luck

CS

Thanks again. I do have a Seagate external drive with 500 GB of space. Is that what you mean? It was a lifesaver when I got it. No more worries about my C: drive running out of space.

[Chris Soucy]

that wasn't what I meant. If that Seagate is your only external drive and is the one you stream captured video to, you do not want software apps on it as well (well, at least nothing you're going to run during capture/ writeback, anyway).

If you let both types of data share the same drive, all it takes is for the software to make a module call from track 1 (say) whilst the drive is quite happily writing to track 7,956. The resultant seek to track 1, read, and seek back to track 7,956 loses you 5 dropped frames of video (-ish).

If you are going to put software anywhere but your C drive, it really should be kept away from any drive used for streaming video to/ from, especially on such a performance challenged system.

Hence why I suggested yet another external drive to overcome you C drive limitations for software apps.

The reason for suggesting dual connect (USB/ Firewire) was that during capture the camera is hogging the Firewire and you don't want a disc drive on that link. During editing/ rendering etc the Firewire is idle and would be better suited to your second external hard drive, especially if you are running your edit/ render software from it.

Does that make sense?

CS

[Aron Yert]

Originally Posted by Chris Soucy

that wasn't what I meant. If that Seagate is your only external drive and is the one you stream captured video to, you do not want software apps on it as well (well, at least nothing you're going to run during capture/ writeback, anyway).

If you let both types of data share the same drive, all it takes is for the software to make a module call from track 1 (say) whilst the drive is quite happily writing to track 7,956. The resultant seek to track 1, read, and seek back to track 7,956 loses you 5 dropped frames of video (-ish).

If you are going to put software anywhere but your C drive, it really should be kept away from any drive used for streaming video to/ from, especially on such a performance challenged system.

Hence why I suggested yet another external drive to overcome you C drive limitations for software apps.

The reason for suggesting dual connect (USB/ Firewire) was that during capture the camera is hogging the Firewire and you don't want a disc drive on that link. During editing/ rendering etc the Firewire is idle and would be better suited to your second external hard drive, especially if you are running your edit/ render software from it.

Does that make sense?

CS

Before I get too confused or confuse anyone with what I was using and what I am using now (after starting this thread and reading suggestions), let me state what I am using now:

C: drive (internal hard drive) - XP OS, all Premiere Pro program software, misc software
D: drive (second internal hard drive)- some Premiere videos, downloaded files, misc programs, Word documents, etc.
G: drive (Seagate USB 2 external hard drive) - exclusively used to save Premiere videos, cache folders, projects, etc.

I now run Premiere on C: and capture files and save them to the G: or D: drive(depending on how long the video is I want to capture). I only used the D: drive for the Premiere software to save the 1 GB of disk space, but it is now on the C: drive. I am running all software off of the C: drive now.

[Eric Shepherd]

Several things come to mind here that no one has mentioned:

Are there *2* physical internal drives in this laptop? It seems more likely you have 2 partitions on one drive.

The computer is almost 4 years old and it's a laptop. It most likely is FILLED with dust and is running hot. I'm willing to bet the upper left corner of the keyboard is getting hot. The fans are probably running fast and loud on this.

Pop off the cover above the keyboard between the keyboard and the display hinges. There's a fan underneath there which is probably filled with dust and junk. This one is easy to get to on the VAIO's, but there should be other fans that can be reached through further disassembly.

Definitely keep the drives defragmented. The one with XP is decent (it's a light version of Diskeeper, but it's almost 6 years old at this point). The only files that get fragmented are the ones you use often, so even if it the drive is 1% fragmented, odds are it's fragmented exactly where you need it contiguous.

The paging file's minimum and maximum need to be set to the same value for minimum and maximum or the paging file gets fragmented EVERY time it's accessed.

More RAM will probably help, but it should run fine for basic capturing and basic cut stuff.

When was the last time Windows was cleanly installed on this computer? If you don't remember, it's been waaaaay too long. Windows (all versions) lose performance over time and doing a clean install will get everything running nice and smoothly once again.

There's probably a bunch of junk running on there, like iTunes helper, QTTask and a lot of other useless things, taking up lots of RAM. A clean install will get rid of all this stuff and cleaning out the fans and heatsinks internally will increase the performance by a lot, and also make the computer much quieter and nicer to work on.

Hope this helps. :)
Eric

[Aron Yert]

Originally Posted by Eric Shepherd

Several things come to mind here that no one has mentioned:

Are there *2* physical internal drives in this laptop? It seems more likely you have 2 partitions on one drive.

The computer is almost 4 years old and it's a laptop. It most likely is FILLED with dust and is running hot. I'm willing to bet the upper left corner of the keyboard is getting hot. The fans are probably running fast and loud on this.

Pop off the cover above the keyboard between the keyboard and the display hinges. There's a fan underneath there which is probably filled with dust and junk. This one is easy to get to on the VAIO's, but there should be other fans that can be reached through further disassembly.

Definitely keep the drives defragmented. The one with XP is decent (it's a light version of Diskeeper, but it's almost 6 years old at this point). The only files that get fragmented are the ones you use often, so even if it the drive is 1% fragmented, odds are it's fragmented exactly where you need it contiguous.

The paging file's minimum and maximum need to be set to the same value for minimum and maximum or the paging file gets fragmented EVERY time it's accessed.

More RAM will probably help, but it should run fine for basic capturing and basic cut stuff.

When was the last time Windows was cleanly installed on this computer? If you don't remember, it's been waaaaay too long. Windows (all versions) lose performance over time and doing a clean install will get everything running nice and smoothly once again.

There's probably a bunch of junk running on there, like iTunes helper, QTTask and a lot of other useless things, taking up lots of RAM. A clean install will get rid of all this stuff and cleaning out the fans and heatsinks internally will increase the performance by a lot, and also make the computer much quieter and nicer to work on.

Hope this helps. :)
Eric

Yeah, it's one disk drive. D: is just a separate partition of one 40 GB hard drive.

I did a fresh install of all my VAIO drive a few days before starting the thread. It's completely clean, no junk on the computer. I usually clean it out once a year and it was past due. I thought this would fix Premiere, but it didn't. Still runs about the same, though with some tweaking it has gradually improved. I just have to know my limits when running this machine.

I'll defrag it tonight and try cleaning out the fans, which I'm sure could use some dusting.

[Eric Shepherd]

If you just installed a few days ago, it shouldn't be too fragmented. But a little bit happens during a clean install.

I would do a clean install and make one full-size partition. It'll make life much easier for you. A 40 gig drive gives you around 36-38 gigs available, split in half it's even worse. You can also use Partition Magic or similar apps to merge the 2 partitions.

Check out this site for great tips on which services you can disable, and why *not* to use MSConfig to do that. :)
http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

My laptop is 2 years old, with a P4/3.46Ghz (HT) chip. Premiere runs fine on it. It runs the same with HT disabled too. I have 1.5 gigs of ram in it and a 5400rpm 80 gig drive currently. I have no capture problems. I don't think you're giving your computer much credit. :)

Eric