HDV playback has low frame rate

hello - i just imported a bunch of HDV 1080i 29.997 footage to my external laCie FW400 drive that has 20gb remaining of space. I have my drive hooked up to my macbook pro 2.0 intel core duo, which is closed....but is being sent to my 23" cinema display. it only has 128 vram. the laptop also only has 5 gb remaining of storage space. all my hdv clips in quicktime only play at 15fps or so....no matter if its off my external or internal. I've tried restarting everything....but no luck. what is going on? I have also tried checking and unchecking the high quality setting quicktime......no luck. my laptop has 2 gigs of apple ram, and everything is updated.
thanks for any help

You need to be a little more clear in your description eg
"my macbook pro 2.0 intel core duo, which is closed....but is being sent to my 23" cinema display."
What is closed?
" all my hdv clips in quicktime only play at 15fps or so"
Are you talking about playing back in FCP or in Quicktime?
If you are looking at the FCP interface you will not see the full quality. FCP plays back a "proxy" image in order to minimize processor overhead.
You can try setting External Video Playback to Cinema Desktop preview, which when toggled will give you a better look at what you've got. Other than that, you'll need an HDV monitor in order to see the full output while editing.
rh

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9400M intermittent low frame-rate : let's get heard !

hello
i have the exact same problem described on this thread
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2085771&tstart=1
" Has anyone else noticed, the performance of the NVIDIA 9400M graphics chip is intermittent. Sometimes everything will be fast and smooth and fluid, and suddenly it will switch to having a low frame rate.
A good example of this is in iPhoto's Full-Screen Edit mode. As you tap through the image with the right/left arrows, the animation can be quite jerky and slow. Then suddenly it will switch to being really fast.
Have Apple just not optimised the NVIDIA 9400M graphics drivers yet? Will its performance be better in the near future? "
sam problem, except it's on a 24" iMac . (latest one - 2 X 2.66 ghz + 4go RAM + 9400m)
the problem happens constantly when i use my firewire soundcard. guess what : i'm a musician, and my firewire soundcard is on all the time !
it also happens when i copy files from my external firewire hard disk, or if i use my macbook on target mode.
the only way to make this problem disappear is to switch to 1280 X 960 resolution (or below). therefore the 9400M has enough power to overcome the drain created by ... either bad drivers or a problem with firewire... i don't know.
anyone knows when the drivers will be updated ? if a new firmware is in the work ?
thanks
Message was edited by: Bontempi

i guess not so many people use the firewire 800 port.
had to pay 15 euros to get a 800>400 cable, so no wonder ...
here's my bug report
hello
here's my setup :
iMac 2.66 ghz / 4 gigs of RAM / 640 go HD / Nvidia 9400M graphic chip
Leopard 10.5.7
when any firewire device is in use, the frame rate switches from fast / fluid to slow / lag-ish.
simply launching Dashboard shows the frame rate drop. same problem with Expose.
the problem happens exactly the same weither i use my firewire soundcard (echo audiofire 8), my external hard drive (WD mybook 750 go) or my macbook in target mode.
the problem disappears when i turn off my soundcard, or when the external hard drive is idle. another way to "fix" the problem is switching to a lower resolution ( 1280 X 960 ).
i've spent more than 30 minutes with apple on the phone, we did a lot of tests, and the technician came to the conclusion the computer was perfectly working.
this definitely looks like a driver problem.
i've started a discussion about the matter here :
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2085911&tstart=0
some users have the same problem :
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1959109&tstart=0
please keep me up to date
thanks
matthieu
Message was edited by: Bontempi

Is this a bug?: copied movie clip has wrong frame rate and ruins the main movie's sync

Hello,
I am trying to copy a movieclip with a frame rate of 30 frames per second to a movie that has a frame rate of 30 frames per second. Both movies are actionscript 3 movies. When I do this, my copied movie clip's frame rate reverts to 12 frames per second and all my audio synched animation is trashed. Then when I change it back manually to 30 frames per second it makes my main movie's stage animation go crazy at full possible speed and the audio is all out of sync. I have not set export for sharing or action script on this movie clip. I've tried other movie clips that are 30 frames per second and it is all crazy!
Is this a bug? What can I do? I've got 100s of movie clips I need to make. I can't keep remaking them just because flash has a screw loose. I'll go crazy!
-theGibler

Oh sorry I goofed! My main time line is 12 fps! I can't belive I didn't see this before.

One swf running on lower frame rate

Hi,
I have a basic loader swf, which loads several external swf's and displays them in a browser. Now all the other swfs work just fine, at 24 fps, but one particular swf drops down to 12 or 11 fps in the middle of the timeline. Why is this happening?? And how can I get it to run at the same frame rate as the others.
There is some heavy animation in all the external swf's but that does not seem to affect any other files, only this one. Also, the animation is not heavy throughout, though the low frame rate persists...
What could be wrong???Any help will be greatly appreciated..as the entire site is looking bad because of this file...:|

Have you tried just loading the problematic file? Does is play better? Does this problematic file play correctly alone?

Why lose mbps when conform to lower frame rate?

When I export a QT pro res HQ movie out of MOTION 4, with the same settings as the sequence (Pro res HQ 422, 59,96 fps 1280x720p), it renders out a good, same 221mbps file, but when I then take that file into Cinema Tools and conform it to 23.98fps, the file is now 88mbps? Why and how, and did losing 140mbps somehow lose also color correction and other quality capabilities?
Why does CT lose many mbps when conforming to lower frame rate?
Thanks
K

Thanks fo replies - I shot in 60 fps 720p to purposely slomo the shots in MOTION using Optical flow - then I conform to 23.98 using Cinema Tools, though I guess I could do the same by exporting to 23.98 out of MOTION 4. Wonder if there is any advantage or otherwise using CT over MOTION export to 23.98?
Nick is right, I can see a decline in visual quality/sharpness in the footage now conformed at 23.98. Should I export out of MOTION at PR HQ or 4444 or uncompressed? Hoping to preserve what I think is 10-bit footage recorded on ATOMOS NINJA at PR HQ422, which is 10 bit correct? But when I choose PR HQ 422 in MOTION export, it says (at the bottom summary of my codec) that it's HQ at 8-bit? Why and how to preserve 10-bit for color grading?

Poor performance / low frame rate

Hi
Well I have a scenegraph with some objects imported
from vrml files and a lot of boxes (1200 Box objects)
So when I move the view (camera) to see my model
when i pass near the boxes i have a very low frame rate
3 ,4 ,5 max.
When I don't include the boxes into my scenegraph
i get a better frame rate 15 16 17 max.This scene contains about 30 objects loaded from vrmk file.
apx. 1000 boxes are so hard to render?
they are grouped together like in a container terminal.
what can cause this?
is this scenegraph to large?
The computer is very good 2Gb DDRAM, a very good graphic card (128 Mb).
Please answer to me or give a hint
Regards
Cristian
PS. I have also noticed that when I tried the well known java3d HelloUniverse program with 1000 colored cubes it was very slow when i resized the window?
Do i do something wrong or java3d is slow ?
Thx again

Well, 1200 boxes equals 14,400 faces/polygons (2 per side of the cube) to be rendered. Plus, with the addition of the objects imported it'll be higher.
The graphics adapter may not be powerful enough to render this amount at an acceptable frame rate. Having 128MB of RAM doesn't mean it's fast.

Bootcamp Vista and Low Frame Rates

Hey Guys,
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I've tried the official bootcamp drivers and also some from Laptopvideo2go. I'm at a bit of a loss here.
Can anyone recommend a decent driver set or at least provide some numbers on what they're getting in TF2 or the Source engine stress test?
Screen settings are at 1280x1024 with all settings at default recommendation.
Tried 3dmark06 but it runs at about 15FPS in the first test and I bail out cause I can't bare to watch it like that.

Fair point Sorry

JPEG viewing low frame rate.

Hi, I am trying to play a list of jpeg files using player, as if it is a jpeg movie. But I am getting low frame rate, like 10 fps. However, by using the same jpeg files, and make it in a .mov file, the player could play it at 30 fps (the setting during making the stream). The .mov file is produced using the same setting as the program JpegImagesToMovie posted on the forum.
The testing applet that run the movie in full rate is (simplified, without exception catching):
url = new URL(getDocumentBase(), mediaFile);
mediaFile = url.toExternalForm();
MediaLocator mrl = new MediaLocator(mediaFile);
Player player = Manager.createPlayer(mrl);
player.start();
For the JPEG file stream, the player is created as:
Player player = Manager.craetePlayer(customdatasource); // refer to below for the custom data source class
1. Is it I need to make the data source format to something else , so that the player will play it with 30 fps instead of the slow 10 fps rate?
2. How would a player render a jpeg image faster? I checked the timing, the loading time for each jpeg file is less than 1 ms, but it took the player around 100 ms to render the loaded image.
I created my own PullBufferDataSource and PullBufferStream. Below is the list of my program. I make the datasource and datastream to load a image file each time the:
read( Buffer buf)
method is called in the datastream class.
public class MJPEGDataSource extends PullBufferDataSource {
protected InputStream sourceStream = null;
private MJPEGDataStream streams[];
public MJPEGDataSource(int width, int height, int frameRate, String sourceFile) {
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     streams[0] = new MJPEGDataStream(width, height, frameRate, sourceFile);
public void setLocator(MediaLocator source) {
public MediaLocator getLocator() {
return null;
public PullBufferStream[] getStreams() {
return streams;
public String getContentType() {
return streams[0].getContentDescriptor().getContentType();
public void connect() {
public void disconnect() {
// TODO: Add your code here
public void start() throws IOException {
public void stop() throws IOException {
public Object getControl(String parm1) {
return null;
public Object[] getControls() {
return new Object[0];
public Time getDuration() {
return Duration.DURATION_UNKNOWN;
public class MJPEGDataStream implements PullBufferStream {
protected boolean eofMarker;
protected ContentDescriptor cd;
String sourceName;
     int width, height;
VideoFormat format;
FileInputStream infile = null;
public MJPEGDataStream(int width, int height, int frameRate, String sourceFile) {
eofMarker = true;
this.width = width;
this.height = height;
sourceName = sourceFile;
format = new VideoFormat(VideoFormat.JPEG,
new Dimension(width, height),
Format.NOT_SPECIFIED,
Format.byteArray,
(float) frameRate);
cd = new ContentDescriptor(ContentDescriptor.RAW);
try {
infile = new FileInputStream(new File(sourceName));
catch (IOException ex) { }
public boolean willReadBlock() {
if(eofMarker)
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return infile.available() == 0;
} catch (IOException ex) {
return false;
public void read(Buffer buf) throws IOException {
if (infile.available() <= 0) {
System.err.println("Done reading all images.");
buf.setEOM(true);
buf.setOffset(0);
buf.setLength(0);
eofMarker = true;
return;
byte data[] = null;
if (buf.getData() instanceof byte[])
data = (byte[]) buf.getData();
byte byteSize[] = new byte[4];
infile.read(byteSize);
int size = byteToInt(byteSize);
if (data == null || data.length < size) {
data = new byte[size];
buf.setData(data);
infile.read(data, 0, size);
buf.setOffset(0);
buf.setLength(size);
buf.setFormat(format);
buf.setFlags(buf.getFlags() | buf.FLAG_KEY_FRAME);
public Format getFormat() {
return format;
public ContentDescriptor getContentDescriptor() {
return cd;
public long getContentLength() {
return SourceStream.LENGTH_UNKNOWN;
public boolean endOfStream() {
return eofMarker;
public Object[] getControls() {
return new Object[0];
public Object getControl(String controlType) {
return null;
public int byteToInt(byte in[]) {
if(in.length > 4) return -1;
int result = (in[3] << 24) + ((in[2] << 16) & 0x00FF0000) +
((in[1] << 8) & 0x0000FF00) + ((int)(in[0]) & 0x000000FF);
return result;

Hi again.
I found the solution to my problem. In the read(Buffer buf) function, the buf timestamp and sequencenombur should be set in order to play at the expected frame rate (30 fps in my case):
public void read(Buffer buf) throws IOException {
if (infile.available() <= 0) {
System.err.println("Done reading all images.");
buf.setEOM(true);
buf.setOffset(0);
buf.setLength(0);
eofMarker = true;
return;
byte data[] = null;
if (buf.getData() instanceof byte[])
data = (byte[]) buf.getData();
byte byteSize[] = new byte[4];
infile.read(byteSize);
int size = byteToInt(byteSize);
if (data == null || data.length < size) {
data = new byte[size];
buf.setData(data);
infile.read(data, 0, size);
buf.setOffset(0);
buf.setLength(size);
buf.setFormat(format);
buf.setFlags(buf.getFlags() | buf.FLAG_KEY_FRAME);
// ====== added line ========
long time = (long) (seqNo * (1000 / format.getFrameRate()) * 1000000);
buf.setTimeStamp(time);
buf.setSequenceNumber(seqNo++);
Thanks for reading.
Ryan

NVidia GT 120 and intermittent low frame-rate with Expose, Dashboard...

I have an iMac early 2009 with a NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 (256 Mo) graphic card.
I have intermittent low frame-rate problems with Expose, Dasboard and several other large animations...
For example, when I trigger Expose or Dashboard, the animation may sometimes be choppy (with few intermediate images) to very choppy (practically no intermediate images)...
The second after, the same animation may feature a very high frame-rate...
Neither Apple diagnostic tool nor TechTool Deluxe finds any hardware problem.

I have the same iMac, and also have this same problem.
When I first activate Dashboard, the animation is choppy. If I activate it several times in a row very quickly, the animation smooths out noticeably. It's as though the video card is asleep, or cycled down, and then wakes up and springs into action.
This is testable. If I run the command line utility OpenCL Bench immediately following a restart, my iMac's GT 120 gives a time of 14 seconds. If I open iTunes, turn on the visualizer, and then run OpenCL Bench again, the GT 120 gives a time of 1.7 seconds! If I turn off the visualizer, wait a few seconds, and re-run OpenCL Bench, the GT 120's time increases to 5.6 seconds.
The same performance increase/decrease shows up with Dashboard. If I open Dashboard with the iTunes Visualizer running, right off the bat, Dashboard's animation is very smooth. If I turn off the visualizer and wait about 30 seconds, Dashboard's animation is back to choppy.
This is not dependent on the iTunes Visualizer. I can have the "OpenCL Procedural Grass and Terrain Example" running, for example, and get the same results from OpenCL Bench and Dashboard.

HDV MPEG2 Video Playback in QuickTime - frame rate too fast!!

Hello All,
I'm having a very strange problem which just began this past week when I upgraded to QT 7.2 (darn me, I'm a video pro, I should have known better than to do this mid-project!). I am editing a film with HDV content: 1280 x 720 pixels, MPEG2 video (.m2v file type).
I have the MPEG2 plugin for QT.
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I think this is a QuickTime specific problem because I downloaded VLC Media Player (which can also open MPEG2 files) and it opened and played the same MPEG2 file perfectly and at the correct speed.
I tried uninstalling and downgrading to QT 7.1.6 (and then re-installed OS 10.4.10) - but the problem still exists. So there must be something else that was installed in this QT update that I haven't been able to figure out that is causing this very weird problem.
I'm at a standstill with my FCP project because all the files it refers to in my sequences use the same QT engine - so all my video files are playing back too fast. Yikes!
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Thank you,
Catherine
P.S. I'm going to post a similar thread over with the FCP folks to see if they have heard of any similar problems.

Sorry to dig up an old post, but I am having the same problem. Does anybody know a solution, it seems to occur on all MP2 movies, HD or not.
Ben

Low Frame rate with new Apple TV.

Hi,
I just watched a purchased TV show (Top Gear) on my new Apple TV, connected to a 42" flatscreen, and I am not impressed at all with the quality. Apart from the resolution, which we all now, the image is jittery, and the frame rate is so low that when somebody moves his arm you can wee it jump from one frame to another.
Looked at settings on my TV (Sony Bravia) to see if there is something there, but I don't see any setting that might affect this.
Anyone else has this experience?
Kind Regards,
Erwin

Same issue with a British movie I just tried to stream and I didn't think this would help, but it worked like a charm! Definitely the cinemotion. I didn't even know I had that setting. It's way to the left under picture in my Bravia onscreen menu. Just make sure that you turn it off for the correct input. Im more used to using the motion enhancer toggle under options, but that wasn't it.

Low frame rate in QuickTime Player since 10.4.6 update

Has anyone else noticed that after updating to 10.4.6, QuickTime Player drops frames when playing 25/30fps movies at full screen (or any window wider than 1024 pixels)? The actual frame rate I'm getting is about 15fps, although CPU usage is low.
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I haven't noticed any change myself, Dan, but I have the 2 GHz model.
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You should also run DiskUtility and check for any directory and permissions issues.
Cheers
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Ultra low frame rates, GPU not being used

While using After effects during playback, I am getting about 10-4 FPS. With frame rates that low it's basically impossible to make any videos. I am using a desktop gadget to monitor GPU usage. I noticed that my GPU is not being used at all, 0% usage and only a few MB of memory being consumed out of 4 gigs of GDDR5. I called Adobe customer service and basically I was told that After effects only uses as much GPU power as it needs to. Ok, that makes since and If I was getting 30+ FPS then I wouldn't care, but it seems odd to me that After effects is running so poorly and not using my GPU. If my GPU was maxed out, then I would understand I need a more powerful GPU to improve frame rates, but since my GPU is not being used at all, not even a bit then I don't think it's a hardware problem, but some sort of setting that is not right. The only thing I could think of is that my HDD is pretty slow or that GTX cards are not designed to run Open Gl and maybe that's the problem, but I double checked the Adobe website and GTX cards are supported. Also I downloaded some other GPU monitoring software to double check and both the Desktop gadget and the GPU software monitor show no activity. I am really new to After effects. Thanks for help.
Specs:
64bit win7
8 gigs
760
4670k

That's because it appears that you're using AE incorrectly. I bet you're assuming that if you hit the space bar, AE plays back video like a video editing application.
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AE is an effects, motion graphics and compositing application. It's designed to do completely different things than an editing application does. Hence, it doesn't work like an editing application does. For example, IT DOESN'T PLAY BACK VIDEO IN REAL TIME. That's why you got that getting started link. At least do yourself the favor of reading how AE works.
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Low frame rates under Windows 7?

Greetings Mac users! I bought Windows 7 Home Edition today with the intention of dual booting with Snow Leopard. I have a 17" Macbook Pro purchased back in May of 2008. The installation of Windows 7 went off without a hitch - as well as the installation of the BootCamp drivers. I've updated to the latest Nvidia display drivers as well.
The problem I'm having occurs when I try to play games on the machine. Using Half-Life 2 as an example, the frame rate starts out as a strong 100+ that is consistent for about two minutes. After a small period of time it will drop to around 40 - 70 fps, with noticeable video lag.
I'm aware that official BootCamp support for Windows 7 is not yet available. Is my problem related to an old set of chipset drivers that are not compatible with 7? It's very frustrating because every application besides the games run fine. I have had Windows Vista before on the same computer with no problems at all.
Thanks in advance for any advice. My apologies if this is a topic that has been addressed somewhere else in the forum - I searched around and did not find anyone with this specific problem.
My MBP: Intel T8300 Core2 Duo @ 2.4Ghz
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Memory (and resources) are not just RAM, but also one's Windows Virtual Memory, i.e. the Page File.
Many programs and Processes load at boot up, and a lot of those are not really needed. Computers from retail companies are some of the worst offenders, as tons of bloatware are usually included. These rob necessary resources.
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High Latency with low frame rate

I'm getting 30 seconds of latency (between source video and
FME input window) when frame rate is set to 1.00 fps. With higher
frame rates, latency is very low.
Odd behavior: when switching from, say, 29.97 to 1.00 fps, I
see every frame (no frames are dropped), but they paint at only 1
per second (which means a large buffer is building somewhere).
After several seconds, the behavior switches to the expected 1 fps
(with all intervening frames dropped), but the whole thing is
delayed by roughly 30 seconds.
build: FME 2.5.0.2086
format: H.264 or VP6 (happens with both)
size: 352 x 240
bit rate: 200 Kbps
keyframe freq: 1 sec
Am I doing something wrong?

My encoding machine is a Gateway Pentium 4, 2 GHz with 1
GByte RAM, Windows XP Service Pack 2.
Video capture is done with a Pinnacle 510-USB peripheral,
Pinnacle driver 4.0.46.0.
Here's how I observe the problem: my input video is a color
bar pattern with burned-in time code. When I switch frame rates
from 29.97 fps to 1 fps, I see each and every frame appear in the
Media Encoder monitor window (as verified by looking at the
burned-in frame counter). However, only one 1 frame per second is
rendered. For example, I first see 01:00:00:01, then 1 second later
I see 01:00:00:02, then 1 second after that: 01:00:00:03, etc.
After several seconds, I then begin to see the burned-in time
code jumping in 1 second counts -- the expected behavior:
01:00:20:13, next second: 01:00:21:13, next second: 01:00:22:13,
etc.
The problem occurs when switching from any rate lower than my
source video rate of 29.97 fps, it's just that it's easier to
describe what happens at the lower 1 fps rate.

HDV playback has low frame rate

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