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Hi Nina. Thanks for your response. Thanks to the help of the helpful people on this forum I was able to resolve the issue with the lower thirds. Thanks for following up on that problem. I would still be appreciative for any advice some of you could share about why the edited video can't seem to keep up in the preview player. Thanks, Sam
My basic computer specs are in my signature. They are not fantanstic, but are better than yours. Depending on the number of tracks in use and the special effects added to the clips, my computer will struggle if I have the preview resolution set too high.
If you are trying to edit High Def. media files then your system will struggle with the preview. If you set your preview to a lower resolution you will take some of the load off the system as you view your edits.
When your computer plays a media file it has only to read the information for the frame and output to the screen and speakers.
Once you move the clip to the timeline, PD has to do the following steps 25/30/50/60 times per second depending on the frame rate of the source material. The higher the resolution of the media, the more information there is to read, edit, render and write.
1. Read the information for the frame. This includes the specifics for each pixel in the frame and the audio in the frame. Is this frame progressive or interlaced. etc. The number of pixels per frame: HD file at 1920X1080=2,073,600 pixels/SD file 720X480=345,600
2. Check the timelines/tracks for any effects, audio, and other edits that you have done/added. Then add these edits to the frame, pixel by pixel
3. Combine all the tracks into one picture, pixel by pixel, combine the audio tracks (if more than one used)
4. Render the frame to the specification that it uses for the preview at the resolution you have set. Pixel by pixel
5. Output the resulting render to the screen and the speakers. Pixel by pixel.
6. Repeat steps 1 through 5 at the frame rate in use.
The above is a simplified version of what happens when the clips hit the timeline. But, it does illustrate the amount of work a computer must do when editing a video clip. The thing to remember is that the system, software and hardware, has a lot of work to do once the clip hits the timeline. Even if the clip has no edits done and no effects added, the software must go through the basic steps 1 - 5 for each frame in the clip.
Every computer has a limit to what it can handle once the editing starts. To smooth out the preview you will likely have to lower your preview resolution or pre-render the section you want to view.
Hal
OS - Win11 Pro, Alienware R13, CPU - Intel Core I7-12700KF 12 CPUs), 16g DDR5 4400 RAM, Video - Geeforce RTX 3080ti 12g, PD11 & PD365
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