VS X5: Video Preview Choppy

[NeoScyther]

Hello, new to the forums but have been using VideoStudio Pro X5 Ultimate for a couple months now. Occasionally I'll have an issue where when I preview my video in the editor, the playback is incredibly choppy. It's not all the time and not for the entire video, but enough to where if I'm trying to time where to insert clips down to the second and try to play it back to see if the timing's correct, it's too choppy to figure out. On the upside, when I actually create the video file, it turns out just fine, it's just the preview is choppy as all get out.

For the record, my PC is running Win7 Ultimate, 8GB of RAM, 1.7Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo processor. I did email tech support and their suggestion was to pretty much go into Win7's optimization settings and turn off everything. In other words, optimize my PC for performance, which makes everything look like Windows 95. I really don't think that should be required on my PC just to preview a video. Also, for the record I have had Smart Proxy enabled and disabled, turned off clip animations, enabled 60p/50p editing and disabled it, the whole nine yards.

Thanks for any assistance, it's greatly appreciated.

[canuck]

Your 1.7Ghz CPU is just too slow to handle video (even though it is a 2 core CPU). and that is why you were told to shut off everything.

[Ken Berry]

Would I be correct if I guess that the video you are editing is AVCHD high definition mpeg-4? If so, then I would have to say that your CPU is at the lower end of what can play AVCHD smoothly. I have a 2.2 GHz Core 2 Duo and Quad 6600, in addition to my new i7, and those first two also struggle at times.

The only real way of getting around this -- apart from upgrading your computer/CPU -- is to use SmartProxy in X5. In case you are not aware, with that enabled, then standard def copies your high def video are made, and you do your edits on those. Being standard def, they should also play smoothly in preview. Then when you finish your edits, they are applied to the high def originals.

[NeoScyther]

The video files are .avi. Might try to convert them to .WMVs or something.

Also, didn't know that even though it's a dual core that my processor would still be the problem. I've been thinking about upgrading it recently, so it might be about time to do that. Thanks again for the info.

[pvreditor]

The video files are .avi. Might try to convert them to .WMVs or something.

Also, didn't know that even though it's a dual core that my processor would still be the problem. I've been thinking about upgrading it recently, so it might be about time to do that. Thanks again for the info.

I second Ken's suggestion about using VideoStudio's Smart Proxy feature. It will make your editing MUCH smoother, especially when you do transitions. If you can't figure out how to turn on and use Smart Proxy, let us know and we can give you step-by-step instructions.

Otherwise, converting from one file format to another will probably not make things better. Unless you downconvert your files to standard definition.

Bob Kovacs
http://www.bobkovacs.com

[canuck]

NeoScyther mentioned in his first post that he had tried with SmartProxy enabled.

[pvreditor]

NeoScyther mentioned in his first post that he had tried with SmartProxy enabled.

Yes, however enabling Smart Proxy is not the same as generating Smart Proxy files. NeoScyther may not realize that he has to do more than simply turning on Smart Proxy. He then has to tell VS to create the proxy files.

Bob Kovacs
http://www.bobkovacs.com

[Ken Berry]

Moreover, though he has identified the files as .avi, as we know that is just a wrapper extension with many widely different video formats using it. So could NeoScyther please right click on one of the clips, either in the timeline or library window of VS, and copy ALL its Properties here? It could, in fact, be DivX/XVid HD footage, which is highly compressed mpeg-4 but using the .avi extension...