Quote: I used PD quite a bit a few years ago, but haven't used it in quite a while until now. I just upgraded to PD 12, and am trying to edit a movie. I am seeing major skips when previewing clips. It will play for a bit, then freeze for several seconds, and then start up again at a later time in the clip. It is doing this a lot - maybe once every 5-10 seconds. It's making it very difficult to edit!
Any ideas what's going on? I am probably leaving out some key information, feel free to ask for clarification.
Thanks!
- Dave

Hi Dave

Try some of these:

Set the Preview window to High Quality (rectangle in a rectangle)

Do you FXs/enchancements applied? If so disable

What type are the source files?

Where are the source files (on hard drive or external drive)?

What is your computer set up? See start of Forum for dxdiag file.

Have you got the latest patch installed?

Have you got the latest version of Quicktime?

Have you Shadow Edit Files turned off?

These are just a few ideas

Thanks for the quick reply!

Ok, to answer your suggestions:

* I have the preview window set to "High Preview Resolution". Is that what you mean by high quality?

* I'm a little rusty in PD, so am not even sure what you mean by FXs/enhancements, but since I'm just starting with raw video imported from a camcorder, I'm going to answer "no".

* The source files are "m2ts" files (AVCHD) imported from a Sony HD Camcorder.

* The source files are on my local (SSD) hard drive.

* DXDiags are attached.

* I think I have the latest patch installed. I'm on 12.0.2420.0.

* Not sure about Quicktime, but I just reinstalled it and it didn't help.

* What are shadow edit files and how do I turn them off?

Thanks for the help!!

- Dave

Hi

High resolution is what I meant.

You can make adjustments to the clips using Fix/Enhance and there are hundreds of other FX's that can be used. The more that are used the slower your computer becomes.

The Shadow Edit files are found in the Preferences area (wheel cog).

I cannot open your ZIP file - do not know why Happing editing

Best Regards

Neil
CubbyHouseFilms
My Youtube Channel
My Vimeo Channel
PD3.5, 5, 6 & 7. Computer: Dell Dimension 5150, Intel Pen. 2.80 GHz, 2GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT 256MB, Windows XP Pro!!
PD8 Ultra v3022. Computer: Dell Studio 1747, Intel, i7 Q740 1.73 GHz, 8GB RAM, ATI Mob. Radeon HD 560v 1GB, Windows 7 Ult. 64
PD10 Ultra v2023. Computer: HP Pavilion dv7, Intel, i7 2630 2.00 GHz, 8GB RAM, ATI Mob. Radeon HD 6770 2GB, Windows 7 Pre. 64
PD12 Ultra v2930. Computer: HP Pavilion dv7, Intel, i7 2630 2.00 GHz, 8GB RAM, ATI Mob. Radeon HD 6770 2GB, Windows 7 Pre. 64
PD13 Ultim v3516. Computer: HP Pavilion dv7, Intel, i7 2630 2.00 GHz, 8GB RAM, ATI Mob. Radeon HD 6770 2GB, Windows 7 Pre. 64
PD16 Live v2101 Computer: HP Pavilion dv7, Intel, i7 2630 2.00 GHz, 16GB RAM, ATI Mob.Radeon HD 6770 2GB, Windows 7 Pre. 64
Director Suite 6: PowerDirector 16 Live, PhotoDirector 9, ColorDirector 6, AudioDirector 8

Cameras: Sony(s) HXR-NX5P, HXR-NX70P, NEX-VG10E, a6300 4k, HDR TG5E, GoPro 4 Black, Canon 6D DSLR

Visit PDtoots. PowerDirector Tutorials, tips, free resources & more. Subscribe!
Full linked Tutorial Catalog - PDtoots happily supports fellow PowerDirector users!

Quote: I cannot open your ZIP file - do not know why

Plain text file, drill down to "DaveT64DxDiag.txt" and DaveTDxDiag.txt." No need to unzip. Echoing your thoughts to Dave...

That's a capable system. Consider updating the NVidia driver to the latest - http://geforce.com/drivers - and also implement the latest PD patch, if you haven't done so, as linked in the "sticky" at the top of this forum.

Preview can be scaled back to NORMAL, as a test. Click the icon just to the right of the "camera" - under the preview window. Then click on PREVIEW QUALITY.

It won't hurt to clear the cache files either, under EDIT|PREFERENCES|GENERAL tab, just in case there's corruption. Click "Manually DELETE" button, if it's the same as in PD 11. You can also disable HD Video Processing (shadow files) while there. That should not be needed on your PC.

Ok. I updated the video drivers. I think I already had the latest - updating the driver from Device Manager said I had the latest, but I ran the "auto update" on the NVidia site and it installed what it thought it needed to.

According to help:about, I was already on the latest patch - 2420, but I reinstalled it anyway.

Now here's the funny thing - I tried setting preview to "Normal" and that didn't hiccup. I then set it back to full HD and that didn't hiccup anymore either! What's up with that?? So now PD seems ok in preview.

But there's another issue - if I play the m2ts files directly in Windows Media Player, they are also hiccupy. So there is still a problem, but it's not isolated to PD. Any thoughts? Do I have a codec problem? As Cubby said, this is a pretty high performance system, so it should be able to play HD files fine. Something is wrong...

Quote: Ok. I updated the video drivers. I think I already had the latest - updating the driver from Device Manager said I had the latest, but I ran the "auto update" on the NVidia site and it installed what it thought it needed to.
According to help:about, I was already on the latest patch - 2420, but I reinstalled it anyway.
Now here's the funny thing - I tried setting preview to "Normal" and that didn't hiccup. I then set it back to full HD and that didn't hiccup anymore either! What's up with that?? So now PD seems ok in preview.
But there's another issue - if I play the m2ts files directly in Windows Media Player, they are also hiccupy. So there is still a problem, but it's not isolated to PD. Any thoughts? Do I have a codec problem? As Cubby said, this is a pretty high performance system, so it should be able to play HD files fine. Something is wrong...

Great work, it's a process of elimination

Do you have the latest WMP?

Why not post a raw 5 sec clip so others can test.

I am away from the computer now, but will check later if I have the latest WMP, and will also see if the issue is isolated to this clip. If so, I will post a 5 second sample.

However, I suspect I will find that this issue happens with any clip, and with any video playback software.

Can anyone tell me how to check my codecs? And how I could uninstall/reinstall the latest and greatest codecs - just to make sure I am up of date?

Where are the source video files located?

The issue appears to be with your graphic card or data transfer rates.... or a clash with a software. It's a question of elimination and seeing what might have changed on a working system.

I recently located an issue for a gamer using GeForce Experience ShadowPlay which caused a stuttering on the track regardless of the preview player setting. Removal of the software eliminated the problem on my testing set up.

This isn't a codec issue - if you can open the file and see it, it isn't a display codec. An mts shouldn't need any codec's added for it to play if you have WMP and PDR installed.

I think this is normal for this program. My computer, while not the most powerful machine on the planet, has enough power to do almost anything else, but it does the same thing when editing videos with PD12. I think, especially if you've applied lots of effects, that there is no avoiding this. However, I learned how to deal with it from this post:
http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/31557.page
The way I do it, after I do all my editing but before I do any cutting I preview render about 20 seconds, making sure I have some closeups of people talking to check my audio/visual synchronization. Then after I've done all the cutting I want and right before I render the video I preview render another 20 seconds close to the end to make sure it's still in sync. I get good results using this method. Dell Precision 7510 Laptop
Windows 7 Pro 64-bit | Intel(R) XEON(R) CPU E3-1505M v5 @2.80 GHz
RAM: 32 GB
Windows Experience Index 7.5

Dafydd - the source files are on my local hard drive, which is three SATA3 SSDs in RAID 0. My data transfer rates are screamingly fast (as verified by several benchmarks, such as CrystalDisk), so I don't think that's it. But the drives are new, so if you want to know what's changed - that is one thing.

Regarding codecs - aren't codecs always involved to convert the data from what's in the video file to what is sent to the graphics card? I vaguely remember installing a new codec in the recent past, so that might be something that's changed as well. I thought an uninstall/refresh of my video codecs might be worth a try.

Any other suggestions would be much appreciated!

Thanks.

- Dave

Still banging my head against the wall on this. Playing any m2ts file gives very choppy playback.

Any thoughts about what might be causing this, or how to diagnose the root cause?

Help!

- Dave

I can't give much help but I can say I'm running into a similar and frustrating issue. Same file type as you.. I've actually been using these for a few complex videos now with zero issue on high preview quality. Now all of a sudden I just started a project with nothing even done to it yet.. and it can't even play on lowest preview quality. Switching to any of my other projects and zero issues.. but this project alone will not work. Don't know if we're having same issue or different, but..

Quote: However, I suspect I will find that this issue happens with any clip, and with any video playback software.

I would be curious if Media Player Classic freeware improves playback of m2ts files. Consider giving it a try...
Note under its options that there are many built-in codecs that can be en/disabled. http://mpc-hc.org/

Ok, I tried Media Player Classic. It also doesn't work, but it's different. Whereas Media Player playback is jerky, MPC playback is in slow motion. Yikes!

Quote: Ok, I tried Media Player Classic. It also doesn't work, but it's different. Whereas Media Player playback is jerky, MPC playback is in slow motion. Yikes!

Indeed. Something is afoul here. Please attach a short clip so folks can see what you see.

Hi Dave

Let me get this correct.

Your clips now play OK in PowerDirector but not in the Windows Media Player. Yes?

You mentioned earlier about a 'bunch' of codecs that might help you.

Here's a link to ffdshow that some members use. Note I do not use these so I cannot verify their performance

http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow/

What camera have you got? And can you post a 5 sec clip unedited clip so others can test. Happing editing

Best Regards

Neil
CubbyHouseFilms
My Youtube Channel
My Vimeo Channel
PD3.5, 5, 6 & 7. Computer: Dell Dimension 5150, Intel Pen. 2.80 GHz, 2GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT 256MB, Windows XP Pro!!
PD8 Ultra v3022. Computer: Dell Studio 1747, Intel, i7 Q740 1.73 GHz, 8GB RAM, ATI Mob. Radeon HD 560v 1GB, Windows 7 Ult. 64
PD10 Ultra v2023. Computer: HP Pavilion dv7, Intel, i7 2630 2.00 GHz, 8GB RAM, ATI Mob. Radeon HD 6770 2GB, Windows 7 Pre. 64
PD12 Ultra v2930. Computer: HP Pavilion dv7, Intel, i7 2630 2.00 GHz, 8GB RAM, ATI Mob. Radeon HD 6770 2GB, Windows 7 Pre. 64
PD13 Ultim v3516. Computer: HP Pavilion dv7, Intel, i7 2630 2.00 GHz, 8GB RAM, ATI Mob. Radeon HD 6770 2GB, Windows 7 Pre. 64
PD16 Live v2101 Computer: HP Pavilion dv7, Intel, i7 2630 2.00 GHz, 16GB RAM, ATI Mob.Radeon HD 6770 2GB, Windows 7 Pre. 64
Director Suite 6: PowerDirector 16 Live, PhotoDirector 9, ColorDirector 6, AudioDirector 8

Cameras: Sony(s) HXR-NX5P, HXR-NX70P, NEX-VG10E, a6300 4k, HDR TG5E, GoPro 4 Black, Canon 6D DSLR

Visit PDtoots. PowerDirector Tutorials, tips, free resources & more. Subscribe!
Full linked Tutorial Catalog - PDtoots happily supports fellow PowerDirector users!

Thanks. The camera is a Sony HDR-CX350V. Since clips from it used to play fine, I suspect the issue is with the computer and not the specific clips. I will test first with some clips that didn't come from my camera. Can anyone suggest where I could download sample avchd files for testing?

https://shedworx.com/shedworx-samples

Thanks!

So I downloaded the AVCHD samples, and a few others I found and they all skip/stutter - whatever you want to call it...

Any suggestions as to next steps?

- Dave