Sticky Realtime Playback

Simon Page wrote on 3/14/2006, 5:45 AM
Hi All,

Using 6.0d, 1TB drives, 2 GB Ram, Athlon 4000, Audigy 2

Until recently, all has been ok but now something has happened with Vegas and it's just really bugging me:
Whenever I playback from the timeline, the footage stutters slightly every few seconds Sometime only slightly, sometimes the pic will stick then release. This happens on ALL settings of preview quality, on DV preview and on second monitor preview.
This happens with ALL dv clips from anywhere and any drive, RAID, SATA etc.
There are no other tracks, transitions, etc. etc. Just straight playback.
NO stuttering is encountered when previewing from the Project Media Tab.
NO stuttering happens when playing the files from any other program.
I've changed sound cards and disabled cards.
Rollbacked display and sound drivers.
It's something to do with display the cursor line as it moves along the timeline I think . I've tried using one monitor, shrinking and growing track sizes, cutting out dynamic preview resources but always the same:
Whenever I realtime preview using the timeline I get tiny "sticking" points.
PLEASE, has anyone encounteretd this? It's driving me mad!

PS If I playback at 4x forward, I get a 20 FPS (talking PAL here) but in reverse, I get the proper 25. AARRGHHH!

Comments

FrigidNDEditing wrote on 3/14/2006, 6:25 AM
I'm just shooting in the dark here, but how full are your drives? - if they're VERY full, then you are possibly seeing a slowdown in datarates????? - like I said a shot in the dark, but beyond that, I'm not sure.

I'm assuming that you are turning off all extra system operations that may be sucking up rescources? - it seems to me like it's processor usage, because you're not having a problem previewing it, but once it's on the T/L then it's a problem. Also - make sure that you are not accidentally setting the track or something to slightly less than 100% opacity (this can easily happen if you have a volume interface and hit it while you're selected to a track). Just some additional notions that may all be far off, but you gotta start somewhere.

Dave
chrisconleyradio wrote on 3/14/2006, 6:28 AM
The only thing I can tell you is that from my experience....no matter what beast of a machine you have etc.....the more effects and elaborate your project is....the more you will have issues with real time play back.

For me its a "work through" issue. I render small parts at a time to see how it is all coming together.

CC
Simon Page wrote on 3/14/2006, 6:37 AM
Hi Dave,
Yes. I've been going through everything! Drives are all ok. Some more than 250gb left. Checked video master for motion blur, sampling etc. Checked 100% opactiy. All fine.
It's running at around 35%CPU usage which I thought was quite high for an Athlon64 4000+.
Also, these "blips" happen when even when I turn of the preview and sound! So I figure, as you say, the processor is trying to work at something on the T/L.
It also does it on a fresh project with no other files etc.
Maybe time for re-install if not. Thanks for all the shooting though :-)
johnmeyer wrote on 3/14/2006, 4:14 PM
Based on experience, and based on reading posts when people report similar problems and eventually report back on what solved them, here are things to try:

1. Make sure all background processes are disabled. Pay special attention to Indexing (a totally evil process). Anti-virus and adware software often causes problems, and can be worse at some times than others, depending on when it decides to wake up. Symantec/Norton is particularly bad. I personally don't use any anti-virus software.

2. Check the DMA settings on your disk(s). Of course, if these are screwed up, you'll be dropping frames like crazy when you capture, so this probably isn't it. Doesn't hurt to check.

3. Turn of videoscopes. If the videoscope is displayed, it will cause the video to be resampled which can slow down the frame rate.

In general, when things like this happen, I close all programs and then press Ctrl-Alt-Del to bring up the taskmanager. I then click on the processes tab and then sort on User Name. Look at all the tasks assigned to your user name. You should see explorer.exe, iexplorer.exe (or whatever your browser happens to be, and only if your browser is still open because you're reading this post), and taskmgr.exe. Pretty much everything else is not needed.

rmack350 wrote on 3/14/2006, 6:15 PM
A user on another forum reported that a similar problem went away after he set the audio playback buffer to zero.

Look for this on the Audio Device tab in prefs.

It's another shot in the dark but what the heck.

Rob Mack
Simon Page wrote on 3/15/2006, 5:34 AM
Nice try. But no good :-)
Here's something to think about... it even stutters when I have nothing on the video track and the audio is muted!
COME SONY... let's have some ideas here please.
rmack350 wrote on 3/15/2006, 7:41 AM
You are more likely to get Sony help by filing a support incident elsewhere on this site.

Gotta go get into morning traffic...

Rob Mack
jb mustang wrote on 3/27/2006, 5:58 AM
I'm getting the same issue and would love some help. Interestingly, I don't seem to get the issue in Sound Forge.

I have opened tickets with Sony and they have no solution for me at this time, except to reformat my hard drive. It is a bit extreme, and since there is no real guarentee or reason to do it, I am reluctant. Also interestingly, is that now when I go back to revision C I get the issue there as well.

JJKizak wrote on 3/27/2006, 6:10 AM
I had a similar problem involving sound/playback and it turned out to be a conflict between the motherboard/memory. Replaced the motherboard and the memory and no problems.

JJK
Simon Page wrote on 4/18/2006, 3:32 AM
Yep. I still have the problem and am just living with it but strongly suspect motherboard / chipset. Nothing "wrong" with them but some sort of compatibility problem. Maybe I'll just change the memory to rule that one out.
farss wrote on 4/18/2006, 3:49 AM
Simon,
I have the same problem at times on a dual Xeon system, disabling the network interfaces seems to fix it.
Bob.
Simon Page wrote on 9/8/2006, 10:24 AM
Hmm. Problem is still here although just managing to ignore it. However, clips play back fine once they have been played once. Like it's gone to RAM and not off the HDD. Strange. But just out of interest, which network interface have you disabled to get smooth realtime playback?

I'm open to any suggestions at the moment.

Simon.
Zulqar-Cheema wrote on 9/8/2006, 12:57 PM
Not an answer but mine has also started to do it recently, sometimes it is the hard drives as they have spun down, but not always.

I can hear sound but no picture moving fro a few seconds.