For what it's worth, the "crappy P product" has offered real-time previews since version 6.5.

Regardless of the fact that "the crappy P product" has offered real-time previews since when ever - it is still a crappy P product.

The CPU and/or Codec issue is more so to the point.

You may also want to check/switch your preview mode to draft - it should play much nicer. All-in-all VV (as with any good application) it will take a bit of playing around to see which mode and or setting is good for you and the product you are working on.

I too had wondered why some preview was smooth and some was very jerky blah blah blah. I typically preview in draft mode (looks good to me) and I can get all the real-time viewing that I need for edits and such.

When the CPU is working entirely too much and some transistions don't play the like I know they should, I just send that part to a RAM and veiw and all is well with the world.

As for the crappy P product....they can keep it.

Hi BillyBoy,

Thanks for the response...but I think you misunderstood me. The real-time preview is wonderful, it's what I want. But that feature is supposed to mean that frames that have effects or are otherwise altered in some way can be recompressed on-the-fly and output to your video monitor. Of course, most effects are fairly expensive in terms of processing power, so you would expect a slow down when processing those.

But in my case, as I said, I start a new project and drag the clip onto the timeline and hit play. No modifications, effects, pan/crop or anything whatsoever. When I play, the message is that the frames are recompressed, which is wrong-wrong-wrong.

My machine is a Pentium 4 at 2.4 GHz...the video plays smooooothly from the media bin window (i.e. only playing the clip, not monkeying around with it at all.) Machine speed is not the issue.

Heck, if I could even turn off real-time previewing and get clips to play back on my video monitor essentially the same as Premiere does, I'd much rather have that than a bunch of clips that play back shakier than Katherine Hepburn in a helicopter. :-) But when I turn off that switch, as I said, it simply refuses to send ANYTHING to my external display.

-John

I didn't misunderstand what you asked. I've answered this question about a hundred times and so have many others.

Playing from the media bin ONLY plays the file much like Microsoft's Media Player would. Playing from the timeline is totally different because it CAN includes whatever changes you make to the project many of which can slow down playback. Even if you to nothing do a MPEG file, it gets recompressed.

If you capture back to your digital camera and play that from the timeline as long as you don't alter anything in that situtation Vegas will playit back at its true frame rate because it is a flavor of AVI.

Hint: My current machine is a P4 too that I overclocked to 3.3GHz. Guess what... it still plays back some portions of the timeline at a slower frame rate. Machine speed IS the issue. Actualy one of several. You can accept or ignore my over twenty years PC experience and my using Vegas for about two years and answering well over a thousand questions in this form.

If you're new to Vegas (obviously you are) and familiar with that "P" thing, the best favor you can do for yoursellf is set aside how things work in "P" and trying to compare because much of what Vegas does it does different and frequently better than "P".

As a Premiere user I feel your pain. LOL...ok, seriously though - in VV "Frames Recompressed" is the only way to get "real time" preview out via firewire as far as I can tell...and I mean "only way" relative to project settings and RAM and effects. When you have it checked anything will play out via firewire, "real time" being relative to all I said. When it is unchecked you more or less will only get output via firewire on material that is formated for DV playback and has little or no effects. (ie - the slo and fast motion will play back fine on my system but any other effect will not) This would also include and mis-matched DV/AVI material such as 24p/30i on the same timeline based on your project settings. If I am doing a DV project at the default NTSC settings and I drop in a 24p DV file the frame recompress happens. I have found some issues with a PTT if I have project at "progressive" and individual clips at "lower field." Dunno if that is the issue but you might check that as well.

In Premiere it is sort of the same as turning on the "real time preview" settings in Verison 6.5. One of the main differances is that in Premiere you can play the time line, with sound, out via firewire without having to do a PTT. Also you can render effects, or sections that need rendering, as a temp file and have those too play out in very real time from the timelime. For frame by frame you can, and could, just scrub the timeline and get firewire out. Premiere has the "red X" on scenes/shots than need to be rendered, VV will either just leave the last good frame on the firewire out and auto switch to the monitor if you have the frame recompression off and if you have it on it will drop the frame rate on the firewire out while the monitor reads "Frames Recompressed."

Once you figure it out you just sort of live with it.

Perhaps it would be constructive if we asked Jobie what type of clips he's using on the timeline. If they're straight DV .avi files then we have a problem with his installation that needs to be fixed. If not, then obviously Vegas has to do a lot of work to convert the files into a DV stream for external previewing.

BillyBoy, I'm not questioning your guru status...I myself am a software engineer with 20 years experience, primarily in video games...I'm not a neophyte. I agree that Vegas is superior in terms of workflow to "that P thing", but doggone it I'm just trying to get my installation sorted out so maybe I can evangelize it with equal zeal.

The clips are not MPEG...nowhere did I say they were MPEG...I expect stills, MPEGs, etc. to be recompressed, but not DV-encoded AVI files. As Chienworks touches on in the following message, the clips that I'm experiencing problems with are DV-encoded AVI's.

-John