Choppy Playback - Computer Problem or Sony Problem

RobWS wrote on 3/15/2015, 2:40 PM
I hope somebody can shed some light on what's going on. I am a Movie Studio user with frequent experiences of choppy playback in the preview window. Based on what I read in the forums, this is a common problem. I've read many forum posts dealing with the issue and I can only ask is this a computer problem or a Movie Studio / Vegas Pro problem? Do other NLEs suffer with the same playback problem?

My computer is powerful but certainly not top of the line. My project is AVCHD 1920 x 1080 HD footage. The preview screen displays 60 fps until I hit a motion title which drops the display to about 2 to 3 fps. At the same time I'm watching my CPU usage meter in Windows Task Manager and it runs about 25% during the clip and climbs to about 35% - 40% during the title overlay. I'm not even using half of my CPU's power and the playback struggles. Why?

One solution I've read is to render the AVCHD footage to a lesser video quality and work with those clips instead. Why should I have to do that? That's like buying a Porsche and then being told you can only drive it 55 mph. My project is based on putting the highest quality HD video on to a Blu-Ray disc. Why should I have to lower the quality of the clips just to edit them on the timeline? It makes no sense then to do a Blu-Ray project.

The April issue of "Videomaker Magazine" features a Video Editing Software Buyers Guide. On page 24 the article discusses moving up from a Consumer product to a Semi-Pro product. "You'll rarely need to convert footage before being able to work with it in your project." is the basis of using a Semi-Pro NLE from what I read. That tells me the problem is an application problem, not a computer problem. Is this true? Why then do I read forum posts not just in Movie Studio but in Vegas Pro with the same problems?

If I have to get a custom built top of the line computer from ADK then I will, but why can't Movie Studio handle it on the computer I'm using? That would turn anybody off from getting started in video editing.

Sorry for the long post, but does anyone know what's really going on here? Thanks for your time.

Comments

Markk655 wrote on 3/15/2015, 4:56 PM
I have a similar CPU build (i7-3770k). How much RAM do you have? AVCHD has always been tough on computers.

1. What is your preview setting at? Use a different preview setting...Try preview>Auto or good>Auto. Are you using 'adjust size and quality for optimal playback (right click on preview to see that menu)
2. How are your project settings set? Do they match?
3. How much RAM do you have allocated to dynamic RAM preview? How many concurrent rendering threads?.
4. Have you tried rendering specific clips (like your title) to RAM (select it and SHIFT-B)?
5. Are you running anything else in the background?

For 'normal' 60i footage 1920x1080, I can use best/full and still get full preview (except with Titler Pro titles where it dips a little).
RobWS wrote on 3/15/2015, 8:01 PM
Markk655, thanks for taking the time to review this.

16 GB of RAM. Again, when I watch the Windows Task Manager memory usage, it barely rises above 3 GB, so lots of headroom there.

1. I have tried every combination of preview settings and there is very little change in results other than the quality of what I'm watching. I tried your suggestion of Adjust size and quality for optimal playback. No difference.

2. My property video properties are correctly set at the beginning of the project.

3. Dynamic RAM Preview and Maximum number of rendering threads are at default settings, 200 and 16 respectively. (Default All button at the bottom of that page).

4. I am not familiar with rendering to RAM. Where can I learn more about that? But again, does that mean I do not have a powerful enough computer to handle simple editing of clips?

5. I disconnect my internet and turn off AVG while working. I don't have any Win7 gadgets in use and my computer is basically for video editing and music production (SONAR).

The titles I'm working with are the stock Platinum 12.0 titles. Nothing 3rd party.
Markk655 wrote on 3/16/2015, 10:46 AM
I have 16 GB of RAM as well. Are these 1920x1080i 60p clips or 60i?

If you are seeing a change in preview quality, then I am surprised that you aren't getting better preview rates. Do you get better preview performance for AVCHD (aside from the title)?

How did you create the title? Is it 3rd party?

For dynamic ram preview explanation, use the help function in the menu and do a search. It essentially helps with previewing clips that have trouble with real time previewing performance. Generally, you highlight the clip, title, etc.,., click the RAM preview button, it renders it (if it stops early it means that you don't have enough RAM allocated in the option tab). Then you can preview it within your movie. 200 MB likely won't be large enough for rendering a complex title sequence in HD.

For confirmation, "video properties are correctly set..." does that mean you used the match media function?
RobWS wrote on 3/16/2015, 6:27 PM
I work with 60 fps progressive.

I just pulled up a project from a year ago. 1920 x 1080 30 fps interlaced. During motion titles the rate dropped down as low as 7 fps but usually hung around 14 fps. I had forgotten how interlaced that looked on screen compared to my current project.

All titles I use are in the Media Generators tab. The (default) is a static title. The rest are motion titles. These are the Movie Studio stock titles. Nothing fancy.

Yes I use the Match Media Video Settings.

I would guess based upon my viewing of the 30i project from last year that this current project needs a more powerful computer. But that still does not sit right with me. Something seems wrong to have this much processing power and it's not being used. Windows Task Manager proves that. There shouldn't be any struggle unless the CPU Usage meter shows 100%.
musicvid10 wrote on 3/16/2015, 10:59 PM
Prerender your generated media and events with effects.
mmcswnavy24 wrote on 4/7/2015, 11:49 AM
Was browsing through the forums on my newly built rig, and saw this. I too previously had some issues with "choppy playback", but found out it was a bad hard drive. I looked at your profile, and noticed you did not have any drives listed. One of the best things I have found for editing, at least for me, is the use of at a minimum a good 7200 rpm hard drive that contains your raw footage, with an ssd even better! Hence, in the rig I use with Sony Vegas Pro 12, I have an LSI RAID card with 5 2TB WD Red's attached in RAID 5 for the raw footage, and I use that for editing from. Plus, I actually output to a separate SSD for the rendered movie, which then assists when I bring it into DVD Architect Pro (also have MSP 13 on that guy for smaller projects as well - more when I want to do shorter 25-40 minute ones).
You might want to check your hard drive out, or possibly add a dedicated one for Sony editing, apart from your "C:" drive.
astar wrote on 4/10/2015, 8:50 PM
The GTX600 series GPU is not likely adding much, or failing back to CPU mode. NVidia apparently does not work well with Vegas.

http://anandtech.com/show/7481/the-amd-radeon-r9-290-review/14

You can see that in the link the AMD 280X beats the GTX 700 series in Vegas compute. You could try moving to a GPU from that list, but make sure it is actually running at x16 speed with GPU-z. Verify GPU is actually being used with GPU-z while timeline is at speed. Gaussian blur on a clip is good way to check this.

There is nothing lesser about XDCAM-EX or HDCAM-SR-LT. AVC is a delivery codec and not an edit codec. Sure Vegas will do it, but clearly not well. Try converting your source AVC to XDCAM-ex and try a render test to sony AVC. I think also the MC .mp4 encoder does not support GPU render on GTX cards above 580.

You could try this workflow AVCHD -> XDCAM-EX.mxf -> Edit ->Render XDCAM-ex.mxf -> Handbrake to .mp4.

or

AVCHD -> XDCAM-EX.mxf -> Edit ->Render Sony AVC.mp4.

Mixing media types on the Vegas timeline is one of Vegas's greatest feature, but also can create stability issues and take more time in renders.