Preview is slow/choppy/laggy

[TroyTheTech]

After playing with the Trial for a while, I decided to purchase x8 and support this great product. I have been almost totally happy with it (minus some small things of course, but noone is perfect ) - the only glaring issue for me is the Preview Window/Area. It is always 'choppy', not lagging behind the audio, but definitely dropping frames upon playback...

The materials are all the same as the Project Settings:
MPEG-4 Part 10 (H.264/AVC) 1920x1080p at 60fps.

I tried Enabling all of the Acceleration options, but it did not make any difference (it does not seem to be 'accelerated' with the Project Preview, but it does with the Clip Preview mode).
I also tried the Proxy, but even after taking the long time to do so, it still displays the Preview (in Project Mode) as a choppy slideshow.

I perused this and other Forums, and it seems that it is a negative point that comes up often against an otherwise feature-full and easy-to-use-yet-powerful program. The thing is, I also see people that say they do not have this issue

I had upgraded to Windows 10, so I rolled-back to Windows 8.1 and set up a Dual-Boot, to test with both. In both OS's, the Preview is the same way: "choppy".
I even tried to make a Proxy setting that was 320x240 but this still did not play smoothly in the Preview area in Project mode.

Something must be amiss, as it utilizes GPU acceleration for the Preview display in Clip mode, but not in Project playback mode...
And I could have sworn that the Trial did not have this 'choppy-ness' to it...

Just wondering if there is something else I am missing, some setting perhaps, or some workflow step that I am not doing here - since others seem to have no problem with it

Thanks for any ideas!

[Ken Berry]

Do you match the Project Properties to those of the video? This is easy to do in case you don't: just tick the box in Preferences > General beside 'Show message when inserting first video clip'. Note that this only works at the start of a new project. But when you insert the first clip you should get a message asking if you want the Project Properties to match. Say OK. I do this all the time with my own footage from my GoPro Hero 3 which has identical properties to your mp4 apart from the frame rate which in my case if PAL 50 fps. And I am one of the lucky ones that don't have jerky playback in Project mode when I do this, even on a relatively weak i3 with 8 GB RAM.

[TroyTheTech]

Do you match the Project Properties to those of the video? This is easy to do in case you don't: just tick the box in Preferences > General beside 'Show message when inserting first video clip'. Note that this only works at the start of a new project. But when you insert the first clip you should get a message asking if you want the Project Properties to match. Say OK. I do this all the time with my own footage from my GoPro Hero 3 which has identical properties to your mp4 apart from the frame rate which in my case if PAL 50 fps. And I am one of the lucky ones that don't have jerky playback in Project mode when I do this, even on a relatively weak i3 with 8 GB RAM.

Wow, thanks for such a speedy (and helpful) reply!

I in fact wasn't checking that or using that option, but after resetting the option and trying it out, it unfortunately made no difference.
I also tried the Proxy feature again, but letting it choose 'automatically' a Proxy format. It was still choppy, sadly.

If it assists in figuring out what I might be missing, it seems to play a few frames very smoothly, then goes 'choppy' after that.
It also does not have this problem in Clip playback mode, only Project playback mode (even if there is only one unedited and unaltered clip on the Timeline).

An odd and perplexing issue...

[dpack4]

I have weird issues when my source files were MP4 format including the choppy video whether I have CVS create a proxy file or use the native file. I changed the format of my recordings from an MP4 to an M2TS file and import those. Suddenly, I have no more issues. I recommend you try a different source file format. It's been my experience CVS is a little quirky with imported MP4 files. Once I am done editing the M2TS, I render to an MP4 and it comes out just fine.

[TroyTheTech]

I have weird issues when my source files were MP4 format including the choppy video whether I have CVS create a proxy file or use the native file. I changed the format of my recordings from an MP4 to an M2TS file and import those. Suddenly, I have no more issues. I recommend you try a different source file format. It's been my experience CVS is a little quirky with imported MP4 files. Once I am done editing the M2TS, I render to an MP4 and it comes out just fine.

Thank you for your input - I was just about to come back and say that I think I figured it out...

• It seems that VideoStudio is a little 'finicky' about what formats are imported/edited (is it considered a NLE? I read that many Non-Linear Editors are fussy about formats/codecs):
  
  - if I use 7.1 audio (8 channels) it does not like it; Stereo is the most compatible but 5.1 works too
  - if I use MJPEG (with PCM audio) it is slightly 'choppy' but works; interesting because this is an older and very compatible codec for video editing applications normally (and it must be Stereo or 5.1 audio and not 7.1)
  - if I use MPEG-1 it works wonderfully; VideoStudio seems to LOVE this codec (I haven't tried MPEG-2 (M2TS) but judging from what dpack4 found out, it likes it too)
  - if I use XviD or similar codecs (h.263/ASP) it does not seem to like it; this is where it is very choppy upon playback
  - if I use MPEG-4 (h.264/AVC) it needs to be in a specific range of attributes or it does not like it; for instance, a low GOP and CFR (not VFR, Variable Frame Rate) and other more standard settings, or else it gets choppy (but it will work); not known if this is related to using AMDAPP/AMDVCE or MPEG4, or just the non-standard settings I was using
  
  Perhaps these last two were the issue for me, as I was using mainly h.264/AVC with a bit of h.264/ASP - and non-standard settings in both cases...
  
  - the Preview slows down/gets choppy with Filters/Effects/Text applied, the more there are, the slower it gets; but this is to be expected I suppose, the processing and previewing of these (in other video editing suites (that I won't name here) the same occurs but not as badly as with VideoStudio, but I can accept it, as it is still workable), as long as the above adjustments are made...

So for me, I must use a far more 'Standard' MPEG-4 configuration or MPEG-1 as a video codec; and use either Stereo or 5.1 audio for the audio codec (I was using Xvid or MJPEG or very non-standard MPEG4 settings with Quad Channel and sometimes 7.1 audio) - perhaps this is why many other people I saw here and in other forums, were having trouble - maybe leaving this up here will help others, too


Thanks again for the suggestions and info

[Ken Berry]

Unfortunately mpeg-1 is a very old, very low quality (well, pretty low quality) format, especially when compared to many others, including MJPEG which may be even a little older. MPEG-2 was the codec used for VCDs, which is now a largely forgotten type of disc burned to CDs. So I would caution you against expecting too much of mpeg-1.

As for XVid, I assume you have the XVid codec on your computer? It does not come as part of any other program, including Video Studio, as far as I am aware. That being said, when properly installed and configured properly, XVid is capable of some very high quality video, including in VS.

[TroyTheTech]

Unfortunately mpeg-1 is a very old, very low quality (well, pretty low quality) format, especially when compared to many others, including MJPEG which may be even a little older. MPEG-2 was the codec used for VCDs, which is now a largely forgotten type of disc burned to CDs. So I would caution you against expecting too much of mpeg-1.

As for XVid, I assume you have the XVid codec on your computer? It does not come as part of any other program, including Video Studio, as far as I am aware. That being said, when properly installed and configured properly, XVid is capable of some very high quality video, including in VS.

Hi Ken,

I assume you meant "MPEG-1 was the codec used for VCDs", since it's 'HeyDay' of usage was around then... However, it is still being used today sporadically, as it is capable of 4K resolution recording (4095×4095 at 12-bit depth) and bitrates up to 100 Mbps - although I personally don't use it at that high of a resolution. You are correct though, for the most part, MPEG-1 was used in Production for VCDs and dropped out of mainstream use as MPEG-2 (DVDs, etc) and succeeding codecs came into view.

The version of MPEG-1 that I have, was included with the game and desktop recording program called "Bandicam", which seems to have it's own customized and optimized version of MPEG-1, that gets installed with it.
It has configuration for using it as VBR and CBR (Variable BitRate and Constant BitRate), VFR and CFR if needed (the Constant Frame Rate for compatibility with Non-Linear Editors) - and it looks very high quality at 100% VBR settings, if I may say so without any animus meant. Here is a frame extraction from a video I recorded at 2K with it:
http://i.imgur.com/yR2Xa68.jpg (posted on Imgur, as it can then be seen in full resolution)

I agree that Xvid is a powerful codec and it is capable of even more (at higher performance) being MPEG-4; which is probably why it is also included in that recording application. Most people utilize Xvid with this program it seems (judging from their Forums), but I was testing GPU-accelerated MPEG-4 and h.264/AVC with non-standard settings at the time (x264 Video For Windows and OpenCL Video For Windows interfaces for customization of the codec). VSPro seems to not like 'very-out-of-standard' settings (which is understandable). Thanks for reminding me that Xvid would be better to utilize, though.

[I should note that I am not affiliated with, nor work for, Bandisoft (the developers of Bandicam) in any degree - I am merely an enthusiastic user of the application]

I usually do not use MPEG-1 nor Xvid, I was merely listing those codecs as I was testing many of the codecs that are available in that program (and other game recording programs, such as MSI's Afterburner and AMD's Gaming Evolved/Raptr), to see how compatible they were with VSPro and if it would help in its' performance. I was having trouble with MPEG-4/AVC material (which is what I was usually recording in). I was merely surprised at how fast/smooth the Preview was when importing MPEG-1 material - VSPro was drooling all over it! I assume its' high compatibility is due to, as you remarked, it being such an older codec/standard. (Even with their customizations, it has poorer performance at higher resolutions than MPEG-4 at the same resolution).

It seems that I have it working for the most part now, using either MPEG-1 with Stereo Audio or a more standard configuration of MPEG-4 (h.264/AVC) with Stereo or 5.1 audio - both of those seem to allow the Preview to be faster/smoother than any of the other codecs... It still gets 'choppy' when there are a bunch of filters or effects applied; but again, that is understandable.
I just had to find out what VSP "preferred" - and hopefully the information above will help others that record their gameplay and use VSPro to edit their recordings for sharing