Movie from Canon T2i not smooth on computer

[Mauro C. Dal Canto]

I just bought the Canon T2i and I am very happy with it in photo mod. However, when I shoot videos at 1280 and 60 fps and I try to see the movie on my computer they do not move smoothly, but rather you can almost see it going through the frames like a 1920 movie. The computer is almost new and quite powerful, so I do not think it is its fault and I can see movies shot with a lowly Canon SD1200 (point and shoot) very nicely and very smoothly. Am I doing something wrong? And by the way I have tried to see the movies through the PICASA program as well as with the Canon provided browser program. The Canon program is perhaps slightly better, but it still gives the same "framy" effect. Anybody can help?

[Perrone Ford]

If it plays back smoothly in the camera, then your computer is not fast enough to cope with the very difficult compression of the Canon DSLRs.

[Noa Put]

then your computer is not fast enough to cope with the very difficult compression of the Canon DSLRs

Just for playback through a mediaplayer? Then I think something else must be wrong, my 3 year old pc can playback raw 550d files just fine.

[Perrone Ford]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

Just for playback through a mediaplayer? Then I think something else must be wrong, my 3 year old pc can playback raw 550d files just fine.

Video card plays a major role here. And if you note, he says the problem is resolved by reducing the size of the playback window. That indicates either memory or throughput bottleneck most likely.

[Noa Put]

I have a Pentium4 2.6ghz pc (about 7 years old) here as well with 1gb of memory and an ancient nvidia 5600xt card which is able to playback 1920x1080p raw 550d files. ofcourse not fluid, it starts very choppy and then progresses a bit more smoother but still with a slower playback and stuttering.

If that pc can do that I would imagine that a "new and quit powerfull pc" should not have any problems whatsoever? Maybe unplugging the memory modules and trying them one by one to see if there is a faulty one could be a solution? Or trying to use a videocard from an older pc to see if the problem is there?

[Martyn Hull]

At present my quad core pc will only edit 720p video from my 550D even that is jittery in the timeline ,1920P refuses to even be recognised by the software,raw 1920 video plays in the pc but in my vaio laptop files play but stop and stall after a short while,i am fast wishing i never ventured into DSLR video.

[Arman Bohn]

Quicktime is a horrible media player. Download VLC (pc or mac) it is free and plays back the 500d footage way more efficiently.

[Noa Put]

For newer pc's I think you are right but on my second 7 year old pc the vlc player gives a lot of big artifacts while quicktime doesn't, both result into stuttering video but quicktime manages to playback a bit smoother.

At present my quad core pc will only edit 720p video from my 550D even that is jittery in the timeline

I think there is a difference between native editing and native playback, we were talking about previewing raw 550d footage through a mediaplayer which on my main 3 year old Q6600 pc is no problem, editing in the other hand is hardly possible. For that I convert to canopus HQ codec and then I can handle 550d footage as easily as standard def footage, even several layers in a multicam sequence with colorcorrection I can fly through the editing process. I you have got the right tool highly compressed mpeg4 footage is as easy as pie to handle. :)

[Darryoush Mossleh]

I was shopping for a new machine last week. I had T2i footage with three resolutions on a thumb drive plugging away in Best Buy. Windows player (7 home edition) had no problem playing it back. To my surprise some of the lower end machines with no graphic cards had no problem playing the files back but some of the beefier ones with 500Meg-1Gig graphic card and i5-i7 processors did. It looks like how machine resources are used by the software, how the graphic card handles the information as well as how the pieces are put together may make a difference.

[Sareesh Sudhakaran]

it's not the graphics card, but the RAM and Hard Disk speed that causes stutters - from data rates and tough codecs like h.264. At full 1080p, you'll need the very best for smooth playback and edit. The graphics card only determines how to control your monitor/LCD screen.

Try using a second hard disk or USB drive for checking. If it still doesn't work, you'll need a more powerful computer.

[Joseph Kassana]

I have exactly the same PC. It is a PC issue. I fragmented my hard drive and the playback is better.

But generally speaking get a newer PC. I am getting one.

[Lee Ying]

A fast PC with large Ram can definately play 1080p .mov file silky smooth. Not only that, the 64bit windows 7 can display large movie icons too. With hundreds of photos and HD movies in the folder it makes recoganizing and picking video clips much easier.

[Martyn Hull]

Originally Posted by Martyn Hull

At present my quad core pc will only edit 720p video from my 550D even that is jittery in the timeline ,1920P refuses to even be recognised by the software,raw 1920 video plays in the pc but in my vaio laptop files play but stop and stall after a short while,i am fast wishing i never ventured into DSLR video.

Upping the software from pinnacle12.1 ultimate to to 14 allows me to edit the footage now.the playback on the time line is not perfect but the rendered film is fine.

[Augusto Alves da Silva]

Originally Posted by Martyn Hull

At present my quad core pc will only edit 720p video from my 550D even that is jittery in the timeline ,1920P refuses to even be recognised by the software,raw 1920 video plays in the pc but in my vaio laptop files play but stop and stall after a short while,i am fast wishing i never ventured into DSLR video.

Hi Martin:

I think that the problem you are having is because you are trying to edit the footage directly on the canon native codec. You should convert to an edit friendly codec (appleprores on mac) and then you will start having fun with editing those files. The reason is the native highly compressed files require tremendous processing power to edit. that is the reason why you can´t even play them properly. If you are a mac user download the free mpegstreamclip process your raw files through it and you will be set.
If you are a pc user get neoscene from cineform www.cineform.com. You can download the trial and test it. I think your problem will be solved.

Good luck

[Augusto Alves da Silva]

Originally Posted by Joseph Kassana

I have exactly the same PC. It is a PC issue. I fragmented my hard drive and the playback is better.

But generally speaking get a newer PC. I am getting one.

Please see what I posted to Martin.

Good luck