Video freezes in project playback

[MikeA]

Earlier this week I used some old (1995) mpg files to make a video. All went according to plan. Today I am playing with VideoStudio and the video is freezing in project playback after a few seconds. This applies to .mpg, .mts, .mov, and actually with stills in the main project track. The sound comes through, whether from the music track or the video, but the video halts and the cursor moves on. If I stop it and restart I get a few more seconds and then it does it again. Basically the program is useless now. Very sad. I have used it for years and all has been good. Old projects no longer work. What could have gone wrong? I haven't done anything to the computer. There's been updates, including a Windows one today. I am using VS9. I have not been using the proxy manager and all was OK. I actually turned it on just now but nothing changed. I have Windows 7 64 bit.

[MikeA]

I should add that I have VS8 on the same computer. So I tried it out. Same problem. Has something happened with Windows that would do this? Thanks!

[MrJohnny]

Hi Mike

With Win 7 you have the means to restore your system to an earlier set up regime.

I suggest you create a restore point for now, then rewind your system to an earlier time - to a point you know VS worked. Does that work? If so, it has been a change to your system between the two dates that has caused the malfunction.

John

[MikeA]

OK - this is weird. I have tried various things, including uninstalling the most recent Windows updates. No good. I thought that maybe the background disk activity could be a problem and so waited until it all died down. No good. Then I tried the default VS layout - normally I have the project viewing window on a second monitor and the main window on another. With the default all VS windows are all on the same monitor. Results - it worked. So I tried viewing a video (not using VS) on the monitor I use to view my work. It worked fine. So then I put the whole VS program, with the default setting, onto my viewing monitor. No good. Then I moved the project view window onto my main monitor and left the VS program window on my original viewing monitory. It worked fine. Conclusion - the video output from VS is not getting to my second monitor properly. I get about 5 seconds and then it stops. What on earth could be causing that?

[aljimenez]

Very interesting experiment, thanks for sharing as I have three monitors. I am guessing the problem is the video display card, and the monitor speed. Some monitors are very high performance, some are not. Video cards may prefer one of the interfaces over another because of performance. You could see if there are new display drivers from the manufacturer of your video card.

In general, playing a project is very challenging, especially if you have lots of edits, filters, music, titles, etc. Even my very powerful pc (see it on the right) stutters in project playback if I do lots of edits and add lots of filters. Using Proxy files is pretty much the only way if your style is to use project playback. I tend to render the project and check it instead.