Stuttering, choppy playback? What gives?

Okay, I just got home with my new G5. I'm stoked. I hook up my external drive with my video clips. Last night I'm happy as a clam and playing with video footage... this morning I'm ****** off and frustrated because now FCP is playing everying choppy.
If I wanted this kind of performance I would have stayed with a Mac Mini.
What the heck? Help please before pack up the G5 and take it back to the store.

Sorry for my frustration showing, but with my post dropping to the second page of the forum I didn't want it getting lost in the shuffle. < </div>
Right. You'll notice all the newbies want answers right now. We're all volunteers. We handle what we can when our jobs and lives permit time to pay attention to the forums. You can often find answers in your manuals faster than we can post options.
The clips in the browser are not rendered. < </div>
You must render them for them to play in the native codec you have chosen for your sequence. iMovie uses DVstream which is not a realtime option in FCP.
I'm still on the learning curve of FCP so I don't know if I'm able to edit a clip in the timeline or how. < </div>
You cannot expect this forum to be a substitute for the 2000 pages of manuals you received with the applications. FCP is really complicated and deep and it takes a few months to get up to speed. That's m-o-n-t-h-s. We were all new to this application at one time or another. You've got a lot to learn and there is no shortcut. Start with the tutorials. They're very well done.
Rendered clips play fine on the Canvas but are still choppy and studder in the Viewer< </div>
Many things can display this symptom and many are only discernable if we can see your monitor. We can't. The most common newbie mistake is having thumbs visible on the sides on the Canvas window. That is, your Canvas viewer is set to be larger than the window in which it is contained. See the manual for how to adjust the size of the window and the playback screen.
My clips are on an external drive with about 97 GB available. < </div>
Good start, at lest we don't have to cover the basic capture scratch information.
bogiesan

Similar Messages

Experiencing lots of audio stutters / choppy playback

With Adobe Flash Player in Youtube I am experiencing lots of audio stutters / choppy playback. The problem started happening only recently and seems to be getting worse. I am running Flash Player 11.2.202.208 in Internet Explorer 8 on Windows XP (SP3) with a pentium 4. I cleared my internet history / cookies. I did a disk clean up and defrag. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling Flash Player, and also turning off hardware acceleration in Flash Player. What else can I do?
Thanks.

Hi Daniel,
I think the best approach at this point would be to gather system information and open a new bug report at bugbase.adobe.com. Could you take a look at the following FAQ and gather the info needed and open a new bug report? Once opened, please post back here with the bug URL.
How do I troubleshoot and report problems with Flash Player Video?
Thanks,
Chris

I am getting choppy playback, what's wrong?

I am currently using a Canon t4i rebel hdslr filming at 720p/60fps.
As far as my computer specs go, I use a macbook pro 13" from 2009:
2.26Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo
8Gb @ 1333 Mhz DDR
Nvidia Geforce 9400m 256mb
and OSX 10.8
My video playback is so choppy no matter how small the clip is. When I preview out of the software FCP X the video is smooth and has not problems. What can I do to make it smooth in fcp? This playback is with no filters, just as is. Is it the settings I have to mess with? or is it a hardward issue. I have already tried going to "Use media proxy" but the video clip turns red and says "missing proxy". It also can't be previewed. Some please give me some tips and advice for this problems. Thanks

Hi Tom,
   Thanks for your reply. I have now discovered, and this should also help the original poster here, that FCPX will stumble and fall on playback of media on a machine with 256mb VRAM. One has indeed to use proxy media or face instant frustration with the software. Apple have been very disingenious in stating 256MB VRAM as a minimum requirement to operate the software, as FCPX will effectively only halfway function on that hardware and has to use proxy media.
Why they couldn't just state this in the specs is beyond me, instead you are faced with a dialogue telling you to upgrade your hardware. So, after you have already shelled out for the kit listed by Apple as sufficiant to run FCPX, you discover that you need something more powerfull to accomplish even a basic playback of supposedly supported media.
Back to the 'proxy' route then...
   Best,
   Niall

Stuttering/Choppy Playback of smallish .mov files

Hi all... I have been running QTPro 7.0.3 and before that 7.0.2 and both had severe problems running Quicktime movies off my hard drive without skipping, and stuttering.
These are files that are no more than 500MB and I've got 2GB of Apple RAM in my computer. My processor is a 1.25ghz, but this still shouldn't be happening. Right?
Please help -- it's really annoying!
-andrew

Same here. I have 3 solutions that work for me:
Use QuickTime Player 6.5.2 app (works fine with QT7.0.3)
Use MPlayer / ffmpeg
Use VLC player
My problem is not related to the audio settings, as 44,100 Hz is the only sample rate available in Audio/MIDI setup. It would be nice to have the QTP 7.0.3 Player work, since that's the default which opens when you double-click a movie.

What configuration of the new macbook pro do I need to run FCS 3 without choppy playback.

Yep, just wondering what configuration of the new macbook pro do I need to run FCS 3 without choppy playback or lagging. I'm thinking about the 7200rpm, 2.2ghz, antiglare, 4gb ram, with 1gb GPU graphics card configuration

Nothing wrong with the computer. Playback is dependent on the media and the drives.

HD video has choppy playback on timeline

Equipment:
New MacPro 2 X 2.93 GHz 6-Core intel Xeon
12GBs Ram
Nvidia Quadro 4000 2048 MB video card
Software 10.7.2
Video Card: Kona 3 with 9.0.3 driver & 9.01 premier plugin
Videodrive: 7200 RPM 2 TB internal (not the system drive) remaining space about 750 GB
Adobe CS 5.5 software
I just switched from FCP 7 to CS5.5 including a new computer which I perceive is optimized for CS 5.5. In playback my audio is choppy and dropping out some of the time, then if I stop and start the payback it will be fine, or sometimes there is no audio. doesn't seem to be any consistencey in what will happen the next time I start playback. On the timeline is a 1080i ProRes file I finished in FCP 7, then imported the video & audio file to Premier to make a couple of last minute changes. Program is 50 minutes long. I have the sequence setup as Kona 1080i compressed. I imagine I have missed something very basic here, but don't have a clue what it could be. Can anyone point me in the right direction?
Thx...Jim Watt

John,
I don't really think it's applicable in this particular situation. I have just switched to PP for FCP-7. All my FCP 7 shows are mastered in ProRes and this last one of course was too and it's the one I had to make a small change in. I didn't see anything in the post you referred me to that suggests that PP cannot/will not play back proRes material.
At the moment I'm screening DVCPROHD 1080i material and I'm having the same problem with choppy playback/freezes and lost audio in the viewer. I saw a post that came from Walter Biscardi for audio setup and followed that, which did seem to help a little, but the problem still exists. This is what i did...
Audio...set preferences in Premier to "built in output" and also set audio mapping to same, set audio hardware to "built in output" with caches at 1024
set computer preferences audio output to Kona card...
So I think this is some sort of setup that I have missed since I get identical problem with ProRes and DVCPROHD. Any other sugestions will be most appreciated. I'll give AJA a call tomorrow if I can't find a fix on the forum.
thx...jw

Why am I getting such choppy playback?

Long time reader, first time poster, I'll make this short and sweet. Here are my specs:
Imac 27"
3.4 GHz Intel Core i7
24 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX 2048 MB
1TB internal Fusion drive SSD
I am working in a fairly big (1TB footage) 4k mixed with 2k project. It's a 3 simultaneous camera shoot, so I need to multi-cam. I have two external WD Caviar Black 7200rpm drives. I also have a Lacie 1TB Thunderbolt drive available.
Because the final output will be 1080, but possibly 2k in the future, I decided to import all the RED footage natively (as opposed to transcoding to prores 1080). All my sequences are 1920x1080, with multi-cam nesting in 1080 as well. Ram is allocated to 20GB Premiere, 4GB other.
No matter what I've tried, I always get choppy playback in the project...especially with multi-cam activated, even at setting my resolution to 1/4. What I've tried:
All Media on WD 01 drive...Project, Cache, Preview, Scatch on WD 02 drive...Internal SSD for OS and Apps: Terrible performance
All media split between WD 01 and WD 02...Cache, OS and Apps on Internal SSD...project, preview, scratch on WD 01. I also tried the same thing but with the project, preview, and scratch on my Lacie 1TB Thunderbolt and internal SSD: Slightly better than all media on 01 drive.
At this point I feel like I've tried every variation of where the MEDIA, Cache, project, and Scratch/preview files go but nothing seems to give me smooth playback consistently. I'll have brief periods where it's very smooth, but then choppy soon after. I'd understand if I were trying to edit in 2k or 4k, but all my timelines and nests are 1080. Even if I pre-render the sequence, it barely helps. Is it possible I need more RAM, a better GFX card, better external drives? Help?!
EDIT: Premiere 2014 updated to latest version. No big apps running aside from Premiere. All my drives have at least or close to 50% space available.

Recommend you take a look for disc layout & such over at the Tweaker's Page ...
Tweaker's Page ...
http://ppbm7.com/index.php/tweakers-page
Basically they recommend just the program file on the system/OS disc ... and then putting things on other drives as per the needs of the "asset" ... some need very fast connects, a couple only mostly fast connections.
Footage is mostly a one-way read-only operation, and export out is mostly a read operation, so those can at need be on somewhat slower connections as long as they aren't on the SAME drive over a slower connection. Such as say one of the PNY 128Gb high-speed USB3 flash-drives into a USG3.0 external port on your computer. I've adapted this from one of the other users, and it works fairly well for my 1080p footage. I export to one of several drives I've got in external boxes connected via USB. It's adequate, though not blazing.
Everything else ... project files, database, previews, cache ... there's a TON of read/write work going on constantly during playback with these. So 7200 or faster "standard" drives or SSD drives, connected internally via SATA-II or better, or external via eSATA-II and Thunderbolt connections are needed. None of the Firewire nor USB2/3 connections available have near adequate sustained read/write speeds to work in the massive testing they've done at the above mentioned site. The "burst" speeds claimed by manufacturers are achieved on the absolute most ideal set-up with the um ... right size? ... of data packets to get the best numbers. They aren't usable numbers for heavy and constant read/write demands like the Adobe DVA's through at the machine.
Remember ... during playback ... PrPro "reads" the source footage including when to jump in & out of every clip, throws in all your instructions for editing, color changes, transistions, effects, EVERYTHING ... and on-the-fly builds the image you see in the playback monitor. It doesn't make something for it to just 'read' from disc, it does this on the fly. Even when you make previews for a section of a timeline, any change you make ... those previews are outdated.
Which is why we all need machines that both have pretty solid hardware off the mobo, AND plenty of high-speed disc connections. Best case is say a 4/5 disc array of 2Tb discs in RAID 0 or 5 for the project files, d-base, cache, & previews ... and that can maybe even have media (original footage) on it.
Neil

Choppy playback of AVCHD footage. 1920 x 1080 60p. Imported as optimized media.

So I have some stuff shot on different days, same card, same camera, same settings. 1920 x 1080 AVCHD 60fps progressive, imported as optimized media. I know my computer and external drive are able to handle this kind of footage. What is puzzling is that some clips with the same specs, play back very choppy (like unrendered media) and others play back wonderful. What gives, I must be missing something obvious. Why would some clips play ok and others really badly? I have double checked that everything (codec, frame rate, optimized vs. proxy) is the same by viewing stats in the events browser. Dropping these clips into the timeline does not show they need rendering, but if I output the clip as a master file, it plays fine. I have clips in other events that play great, with the same specs. I am at a real loss. thanks gentlemen.

Sorry, but I can't think of anything during import that would introduce errors that would cause choppy playback. A momemttary loss of connection would be a problem but would typically corrupt the file and it most likely not play at all.
If you hadn't said that some clips played (or previewed) perfectly smoothly, I'd suspect a hardware problem.
Maybe someone else will have some better ideas.
Russ

Choppy Playback - Video Card? Settings?

I am experiencing Choppy playback, I am using HD video recorded on a Flip Mino and a iPhone 4.
After getting numerous "dropped frames" warnings, I have transcoded my media to proxy video and still get choppy playback and dropped frame warnings (I have elected to turn off the warnings).
I have a late 2009 MacBook Pro with a NVIDIA GeForce 9400M with 256MB VRAM. 4GB of RAM.
I am selecting to use Proxy Video in my Preferences.
I use an external G Drive via FireWire. I realized I am on the low end of video card requirements, but should playback be this bad?
I have to export to a MOV file to actually see playback without the frame drops.
Is this unusual, or am I limited by my video card?

That drive will work best for video editing compressed HD with the eSATA interface. FW800 would also give you a few HD streams. But, if you use the USB2 or FW400 interface, you're not going to be much better off than using your single drive. That's called a "bottleneck."
Here's what you need to find out:
1. Estimate what the data-rate is for the footage you want to use. There are "data-rate calculators" all over the internet. Use Google.
2. Mulitply that data rate times the number of layers you want to play simultaneously in real-time.
3. Install a drive AND interface combiniation that exceeds the "Sustained Data Transfer Rate" for the number you came up with in #2.
Then, if you drop frames, it's not because of your drive (array); it's due to puny CPU or some other factor.
Some codecs strain the CPU more than others. Long-GOP codecs require more decoding to play back than intraframe codecs. Most DSLR footage is Long-GOP, and some flavors of it take 100% of all eight of the 3GHz cores in my MacPro to play back one stream. 2 or 3 is out of the question, no matter how fast my RAID is.
So, it may be that drive speed isn't your problem... you may have just maxed out your CPU's ability to decode that many streams of video in real-time.
But, if you do the math I just suggested, you can determine whether your drive is the issue.

Choppy playback in fcp x 10.1

Since I updated to FCP X 10.1 I get choppy playback with almost all my clips. From old HDV to h.264 and even Poxy files play with audio drop outs, and mostly choppy. On the drive the files are hosted I get 240 MegaBytes/s. Editing is very unresponsive. Sometimes I have to wait for 10 or more seconds until the playhead is ready.
Seems to me like a bug, as that wasn't the case in Final Cut Pro X 10.0.9.

What you are experiencing is NOT normal.
I would try deleting preferences, and also checking the drive.
How big is/are your library(es)?
If you imported everything into a big library that may be causing some trouble.
Also: how much RAM, and what does Activity Monitor report about RAM pressure? (don't worry if it appears that there is no free RAM, unless RAM "pressure" is high and/or there is significant swap space).
If I had to bet I'd say a very big library may be to blame. You may need to give a thought on how best to organize things with the new media management model. The solution depends on your workflow, but the ability to have manageable size libraries that you can open and close as needed, and move from one drive to another, together with the easy handling of managed or external media, open up a number of great possibilities.

Stuttering flv playback issue- need help asap

We need help asap. Have a project is due to deliver today (5/14).
We have a video to go on a dvd-rom, live action with Motion Graphics behind.
When output is done thru Projector the Motion Graphics stutter as they scroll.
Here is more technical info:
Stuttering flv playback issue:
Prores 422 timeline 29.97fps 1280x720 output from fcp using current settings.
Mov file is approx 7gb, plays relatively smooth on a mac pro with no raid.
Frame by frame analysis shows all frames are present with no jumps tears or skips.
Tried several output paths, programs and settings to create a smooth flv file to no avail.
We adjusted data rates from 2k, 3.5k, 4k and 8k, no luck
We adjusted keyframe rates from low to all frames, no luck.
We tried cs3 flash encoder, cs5 media encoder, squeeze ect, same results.
Playback in the flash projector seems to choke slightly no matter what we do.
Have also posted in the Director Forum.
Any help much appreciated!

Here are a few ideas off the top of my head:
Try playing the file using a different xtra, sometimes different ones will work better. If you have Director 11.5, there is a native flv playback xtra.
You can build a player easily in Flash using the flvPlayback component, then bring that into Director as a swf.
Once you have the video in Director, try making the member Direct To Stage (DTS). If it is already DTS, try making it not DTS.
Make sure the video is not transparent, and nothing in Director overlaps the video... in fact, when the video is playing, nothing should be moving at all, and try to keep the amount of code that is running to a minimum.
Try lowering your video's data rate further or try using a different codec.
Using VBR (Variable Bit Rate) compression often makes the video appear to play smoother.
Try compressing the flv with different software. FFMpeg, for example, is free and does a very good job, often better than the Flash Video Encoder that comes with Flash/Creative Suite.

Choppy playback/rendering for one camera in a multicam sequence

Any help is appreciated with this weird, specific problem...
I have a sequence (let's call it "MAIN") which contains many separate multicam sequences (let's call them "M1" through "M5"). Each of these multicam sequences is made up of footage from two cameras, a Canon 5D Mark III and a Canon C100. All footage in M1-5 was shot sequentially, and neither camera changed settings, although the cameras recorded with different settings from each other. The 5DIII recorded at 1080p 23.976fps. The C100 at 1080i 60Hz. This footage makes up all the assets in my project panel and they have no special media interpretation.
Here's the problem. Everything looks/plays fine until I get to M3 in my MAIN sequence. When I switch to camera 2 (the 5DIII), the playback in the program monitor looks about half the framerate of the original footage and all of my other sequences. Camera 1 plays smoothly. Camera 2 in any of the other multicam sequences plays smoothly (while in MAIN). When I open up M3 in the timeline, it plays smoothly. When I open up the original video in the source window, it plays smoothly. Everything plays smoothly but camera 2 in M3 (in MAIN) in the program monitor.
I rendered a clip of MAIN that has M3 cam 1, to cam 2, back to cam 1. Camera 1 is smooth, while camera 2 plays back at about half frame rate and looks interlaced. So this is a real problem and not just some display issue.
The interlaced look of the render made me think there's some sequence settings that were off, whether they were in MAIN or M1-M5. However, the sequence settings of M1-M5 are all identical, and the sequence settings of MAIN are not affecting any of the other multicam sequences.
I tried restarting my computer and deleting my cache. No dice.
Premiere Pro CC
Windows 7 Professional 64 bit
HP Z820 w/ 2 x Xeon E5-2630
128GB RAM
GTX-570
Addendum: After playing around with sequence settings a bit, but after resetting them to be all as they were, now M2 is giving choppy playback on camera 1, while camera 2 plays smoothly. What in the world is going on here?

The LEDs were reflecting on the book that the GoPro was on but I got it to work with a garbage matte using a frame grab with the lights off and including the book. It worked a treat! But I am going to remember the dark grey matte thing; less is more and all that. Thank you for your input, much appreciated. Ooh and as for multicam syncing I just nested the composite shot and used that as a single camera source.

Choppy playback after burning data dvd in toast

Hi Ive just finished burning a copy of various short clips which I exported as a quicktime files from FCP onto my desktop then saved them as quicktime mov. through QT player which was successful enough.I then burned a copy of this QT movie in toast as a data dvd compatible for Mac & PC viewing.When I played the dvd in QT 7.4.5 the playback was choppy but the sound was fine. I then played the same disc on my G5 desktop running panther and QT 7.4.1 and it was absolutely fine.Is this process rather a roundabout way of doing things ? and what could be causing this choppy playback on my laptop?

Data DVD's and regular movie DVD are not read in the same way. A regular movie that is being read by your DVD player app is being stream too...and the player is set up to read from a DVD that way.
On the other hand a data DVD the data is just setting there...The DVD player can't send the video to Quicktime fast enough to play smoothly. That's why you need to copy the data DVD to the hard drive.
It would be if you had a 1gig image on a DVD and tried to edit it with Photoshop from the DVD. Photoshop would constantly bog down trying to read from the DVD while editing the image. Same if you had video files on a DVD tried and to it them from a editing app. The editing app not getting the data fast enough making editing very slow. Sometimes the program that's trying to read the from the DVD will freeze or crash. Best to copy the data from the DVD to the hard drive.

Why do I get choppy playback in Adobe Premiere Pro cs6?

The playback is really choppy.
What I am using:
(Brand New) iMac
Processor 3.2 GHz Intel Core i5
Memory 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce GTX 675MX 1024 MB
Nikon D5100 DSLR
Shot in 1080i 30 fps
Thanks

I cannot believe how bad the playback is in Premiere Pro CC, and, how little help there is out there. Raw MOVs from a 5D plays back like garbage on my laptop or 8 core Mac Pro. Its ridiculous. I'm better off transcoding to ProRes and using FCP which works, or God forbid, go back to using Avid like its 1999. Unfortunately It has nothing to do with the two graphic cards or 32 gigs of memory I have either, it just plays back like garbage. Using the JKL keys is completely awkward because the lag between hitting the key and playback is excruciating. I'm at 1/2 resolution and it cant play back footage without being choppy. no FX, and the footage and hardrive is on a 6g SSD. This should be screaming.
Adobe, seriously, live up to your other products standards, they are so good, why does this one just bomb?

How to fix stuttering song playback?

Over the past week, I began experiencing stuttering song playback in iTunes. I tried to lower the sound enhancement settings to no avail. Please help. System: XP Home, 32 bit.
Note: Am using iTunes 10.7 because I had problems with missing tracks and error messages in the most recent version of iTunes. Haven't had any other problems since the downgrade.

Hello Ayanna R
Verify that you have done some of the other steps in the article below to resolve issues with audio playback. The only other advice I can give is updating iTunes.
iTunes and QuickTime for Windows: Audio does not play or plays incorrectly
http://support.apple.com/kb/ts1362
Regards,
-Norm G.

Stuttering, choppy playback? What gives?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for