Photoshop CS6 Performance in Video-Animation mode?

Question

I've just started playing with the Motion workspace in Photoshop CS6 with the goal of doing some HDTV slideshows of still images with "Ken Burns" zooms & pans & maybe other animation.  I bought a training video from Infinite Skills that seems pretty good, but when I load their example files into CS6 and try to scrub around on the timeline, it takes forever to do anything other than scrubbing to the right (and that is slow).  CS6 plays through their example videos well enough for non-rendered video, and I can scrub slowly to the right with the image keeping up fairly well, but when I try to scrub left, jump to the right, or click the icon to move the scrub button to the start of the video, it takes 5 seconds to 10 seconds for anything to happen.  I'm running CS6 64 bit in Windows 7.  My processor is an i7 920 @ 2.67 GHz, 8 GB ram, system drive is a Kingston SSD.  Windows' Performance Information gives a score of 7.0 of a possible 7.9.  A Passmark PerformanceTest 8.0 run gives me numbers typical of my Asus PS6 motherboard and i7 processor.
I know PS wasn't built from scratch for this kind of work, but is a 5-10 second lag to be expected every time I scrub on the timeline?

Answer 1

There is a site named Black Viper. The guy there knew how to configure an XP computer for different purposes, and then set it back easily for everyday use. I believe that he has updated to incorporate Vista and Win7. But, the whole purpose of the story is - knowing what system resources you need for rendering video - and what resources you can temporarily suspend, and then easily restart. Many, many resources can be suspended in Win7, which frees up resources for the important and resource-hungry activity that is video rendering. If you can get on over to Black Viper, it is a very useful starting point, because he designates the normal state of your computer - so that you can put it back there again. However, as a general rule, if your computer does not need to be active on a network, a lot of the networking services can be suspended. AV and anti-spyware - once disconnected from the network - can also be shut off (but do this only after you have done a comprehensive AV and spywware sweep). Software updaters can be turned off. In fact, if you know your way to the Services section of Windows (I cannot say what the equivalent for a Mac may be...) using trial and error, switch out services - say three at a time - and then see what effect. Obviously, put them back in if it turns out they are vital to the video-processing. But yes, nothing beats extremely fast hard drives, and even an overclocked chip can help, with more like a gamers GPU to boot. This, as you will understand,is more a dedicated video editing setup, and CS6/CC are meant for a more casual approach. If you own a Honda Civic, so to speak, it will not drive like a Porsche!
If you have a modicum of computer savvy, go to www.blackviper.com and scroll down to your OS - make a copy of the table of modifications (or print) and then proceed to lock-down resource-hogging services. They can have a significant effect on processing speed.