Laggy When Previewing

andrew991116 wrote on 8/28/2012, 10:20 PM

Hi, when I preview, the preview screen lags alot. It's bothering me and affecting the quality of my videos. Is there anyway to solve it, or is it natural?
I use Sony Vegas Movie Studio 11 and I have an ASUS K52JT laptop.
Here are my specs:
Intel® Core™ i5 460M/480M/560M/580M Processor
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium
Intel® HM55 Express Chipset
DDR3 1066 MHz SDRAM
AMD Radeon® HD 6370M 1GB DDR3 VRAM

Comments

Steve Grisetti wrote on 8/29/2012, 7:42 AM

You don't say what type of video you are editing -- but AVCHD, for instance, is particularly intensive video and your i5 may be just a bit underpowered for editing it.

You can improve performance somewhat by selecting project properties that match your video specs as closely as possible when you set up your project. You can also improve playback somewhat by reducing the quality of the playback in your Preview window. (This won't affect the quality of your actual video. It just relieves the program of having to work extra hard to provide a high quality preview.)

You may also need to render segments of your timeline if they're using several layers of video or intensive effects.

But, as I said, if you're editing AVCHD or even video from cell phones, you can only do so much. Optimizing your project properties to match your video will do the most for your performance. But an i5 laptop can only go so far in editing this type of video.

AlanADale wrote on 8/29/2012, 9:41 AM

Another way around it is to do what is termed 'proxy editing'. In short you kid the programme into thinking it's editing large files when in reality you're only editing small proxies and then flipping back to the originals just prior to rendering out. Here's a couple of videos that explain it much better with one method involving using another small application to create the proxy files called Media Converter. Don't worry, your original files are never touched.

(using Media Converter)

andrew991116 wrote on 8/30/2012, 10:15 PM

@Steve Grisetti
I'm using MP4 and MP3 files, but how do you change the quality of your playback?

andrew991116 wrote on 8/30/2012, 10:28 PM

@Boy Atlantis:
I'll try that next time as that my current project is almost done, thank you for the suggestion.

Steve Grisetti wrote on 8/31/2012, 7:14 AM

You change your playback quality by right-clicking on the Preview window. For best performance, select lowest quality.

In your case, you'll want to squeeze as much power out of your system as possible. I don't know what model of camcorder your video came from, but you may be a bit challenged editing hi-def on a dual-core i5.

It will also help if your project properties match your video specs as closely as possible. When you first started your project, did you select the options to Match Media?