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  1. Member
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    Hi there guys at VideoHelp,

    I'm Stijn, 29 years, from the South of the Netherlands.
    I've been editing video for four years now. Nothing professional, just having some fun and trying to capture the moment.
    I'm hooked to Adobe Premiere and haven't used anything else since version 6.0.
    I tried Vegas or other alternatives, but it doesn't really work for me. I like the Adobe logic.
    So far, I always managed to solve problems myself, but now there's a seriously annoying one I've been encountering for months now.

    I bought this PC a little over a year ago, to be able to edit full HD video.
    I acquired a Canon EOS 600D and all was well in Videoland.
    A couple of months ago my PC decided it wouldn't allow Premiere to run smooth anymore.
    Preview is chunky, especially ffwd/rew, and preview runs allright untll there's any editing done to the clip, transfers, speed changes, colour filters, whatever it is, the frame rate drops to under 1fps.

    Here's a little video, nevermind the pictures, it's a compact camera video I made this afternoon, to show ow our tent should be set up .



    I obviously tried turning cuda on and off, reinstalling the entire PC, installing Premiere 5.5 instead of 6.0, nothing helps.
    I can't think of anything I changed about my PC setup.
    Software can't be the issue, if I only have Premiere installed, the problem is already there.
    Otherwise my PC is running smooth as silk. Playback of 4k video on youtube is no issue at all, the newest computergames run as expected.
    I have no reason to believe that my hardware is errorneous, bit you never know.

    I've been googling on this problem, but couldn't find my specific problem and none of the solutions worked.

    I sure hope you can help me guys!

    Thanks in advance,

    Stijn.
    Last edited by stijnkraft; 6th Aug 2014 at 16:47.
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    Press the ENTER key to render the video and let the render complete before you play the timeline. I see a red line above the clip(s) in the timeline. The red line indicates that the timeline must be rendered before you can achieve smooth playback.

    Brainiac
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    I've never had to do that before, it worked without rendering.
    I did try it though, it obviously works, but since I never had to do it before and it takes up a lot of time, it's not really a solution.
    My computer should be able to do this real time, as it has done in the past, even with full HD video (this one is 720p, from a Panasonic DMC-T7)
    Also, rendering the sequence doesn't help the ffwd/rew problem I have in the preview window.

    Took some time to try some other software, just in case.
    Premiere CC, Corel X7 and PowerDirector all do about the same, altough powerdirector keeps saying 'rendering' every few seconds.
    I figured my HDD may be too slow (which doesn't make sense either, but you never know) so I set my SSD up as scratch disk. Didn't help.
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  4. aBigMeanie aedipuss's Avatar
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    laptop?
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    Obviously not .
    I'll copy the specs from my profile:

    Intel i5 3570 @ 3.4ghz
    16gb ram
    Windows 7 Pro x64
    Geforce GTX-650
    SSD
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  6. Can't find that exact camera model, (though there are some similar candidates.) Maybe post a mediainfo report about your files. Older point and shoot cameras had some odd compression schemes.

    It's also possible a windows update broke something.
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  7. But you were able to edit in premiere months ago without problems . Is this camera new? or were you able to edit footage from it smoothly before? It's not clear in your description but it implies you were editing footage from this camera without problems. Eitherway - That suggests something has changed on your computer. e.g. driver compatiblity issues (try rolling back your GPU drivers) , software issues (try re-installing premiere)

    If you can play games, do other tasks without issues, it's less likely you have some malware eating up CPU cycles, but you should have a look at taskmanager and CPU usage
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    How many hard drives do you have and what type(s)?

    Brainiac
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    You got to be kidding me...
    Just imported files from my 600D, all is fine.
    How I never saw the link between the camera and the problem, I don't know.
    Strange though. The files the camera makes are MTS files, premiere can't get audio from those (if anyone knows of a plugin, please to share!), so I used a little tool to transfer them to WMV files (may seem unlogical, but premiere usually has no problems editing WMV files and WMV transfers quickly, quality is not an issue with this camera).

    I do feel sort of stupid now.
    I already mailed the store that sold me the PC and was about to open it up, take out the soundcard (altough I'm pretty sure I had that before this issue arose, which turns out to be correct ) and one of my RAM strips.

    Sorry guys!

    Well, while we're at the subject; converting MTS files for use in premiere.
    Any ideas?
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  10. CS6 can edit files from the 600D (a.k.a Canon EOS600D or "T3i" which are MOV, not MTS) natively, audio and video . I think you're confused or misreporting something.
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    Premiere does playback the MTS files, without audio. They are also chunky.
    What could it be that makes the original file and the converted file cause the same problems with all sorts of editing suites?
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    Originally Posted by poisondeathray View Post
    CS6 can edit files from the 600D (a.k.a Canon EOS600D or "T3i" which are MOV, not MTS) natively, audio and video . I think you're confused or misreporting something.
    The MTS files are from the Panasonic DMC-TZ7, the 600D files work absolutely fine.
    That's what I reported, right?
    Probably should have mentioned the Panasonic again.
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  13. You didn't mention the Panasonic until post #3 so maybe we got confused?
    Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence -Carl Sagan
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    That's because you guys made me realize it could be the problem. Thanks for that!
    I didn't even realize the Canon didn't have those problems. Not sure how that happened.

    So, my PC seems fine.
    I still need to find a way to edit these MTS files.
    The Panasconic can also make simple mov's, but the sound quality of those files is far, far worse than that of the MTS files.
    Since I bought the camera to film concerts, sound quality is fairly important, I bought this camera for it's pretty impressive built in microphones.
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  15. aBigMeanie aedipuss's Avatar
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    your video card is not on the supported list for pp video acceleration. a better card might help.
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    I just looked at the manual for the Panasonic camera and discovered it utilizes AVCHD Lite scheme. AVCHD Lite supposedly is not fully supported in Premiere Pro CS6. Suggestions were to convert footage to a format Premiere is known to fully support.

    Brainiac
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    @ Aedipuss: It works fine, it's just not in the list. But that problem is already solved

    @ Brainiac: I did that by converting it to WMV, but the problem remained. I just converted it to MOV and that worked, but the conversion (didn't really pay attention) turned out to be in 320x240. I set it to a higher quality and now premiere keeps telling me the file has no audio or video streams which makes no sense, as VLC plays it just fine. Apparently not supported.

    Any tips on converters or file formats? Using AVS Video Converter now, but I'm sure there's better software out there.
    Last edited by stijnkraft; 6th Aug 2014 at 19:49.
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    Strange. Tried various Conversion to MOV settings, all looked awful. Loads of artifacts.
    Tried AVI, same bitrate, looks perfect, but premiere starts running chunky again.

    Shall I open a new topic about converting MTS files to a more premiere-friendly format?
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    Just keeping you up to date;
    Converting it to uncompressed H.264 AVI works fine.
    Pity it makes files of 8gb a minute. Not practical.
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  20. aBigMeanie aedipuss's Avatar
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    the reason your video card is not on the list is that it's too slow to do any good. minimum get a gtx570.
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  21. Member turk690's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by Brainiac View Post
    How many hard drives do you have and what type(s)?
    @ stijnkraft, this is very, very important. You have so far not been clear about what you have regarding hard drives. Adobe Premiere projects should ideally never reside in the system drive. They should be in a separate, fast (7200rpm), SATA drive, along with the files that came from the Canon (or better yet in yet another local hard drive). I suppose your system drive is SSD, and by default Adobe will put conformed audio files, media cache files, etc, in Users/"user"/AppData/Roaming/Adobe/Common/Media Cache Files. These files can total tens if not hundreds of GB and overwhelm your small SSD. With nowhere to cache preview files in, playback gradually becomes clunky. You also have no audio, not because there is anything wrong with the Canon files, but because Premiere will mute it on playing back a timeline whose audio has not been conformed yet. If you leave it alone for a while, sound may come. But as I said two sentences back, I don't know how Adobe reacts with nowhere to put conformed files in. There are settings in Premiere that can be changed as to where these files can be put. Of course you can only have this luxury if you have hard drives galore. IMHO, buttery smooth Premiere Pro NLE tasks are best if you have at least three local conventional (non-SSD), fast big hard drives (all SATA, no USB); one for projects and source files, one for cache and scratch, and the last for output and rendered files (at least 1TB each). The last time I cleaned out the Premiere media cache folder in my NLE computer, I excised about 200GB of stuff from it! Juxtapose that against your SSD, which is, what, 120GB? 240GB?
    Premiere Pro can play back some file types without rendering, such as AVCHD. But for this to happen, a recognized VGA card should be installed so that the GPU can assist in the task. You will know this to be the case because "mercury engine" can be enabled, if you choose to. If it's greyed out then no. Adobe specifies some nVidia cards to be used for this, but depending on some trickery in changing the Premiere config files, other nVidia cards can also be used. Dedicated sites on the web discuss this issue more & better. I'm still using an ancient GTS450, and I'm not experiencing clunkiness in scrubbing timelines. I can immediately cut and edit the AVCHD as is without using an intermediate. So, have you configured your nVidia card such that "mercury engine" is enabled?
    This brings us to the next topic. As sweet as Premiere can playback AVCHD and other files of the same ilk directly, there are times when it can still come off second best and clunky despite the latest fastest i7, untold amounts of system memory, several HDDs, on top of a well-managed malware-free computer. This is where you use an intermediate codec, which is where files created by your camera get converted to, freeing up all resources needed to decode it on the fly. I use Cineform, which is a very efficient VfW codec and lends itself well to buttery smooth Premiere NLE. Again, converting input files pre-NLE to intermediate will balloon their sizes anywhere from 2x to 10x, necessitating again, a big fast local HDD (right back to where we started). You are just damaging your files converting to those MOVs, WMVs, and h264 AVIs.
    Lastly, check your computer behaviour. Like, make very sure it's malware and virus-free. Remove all bloat and trashware that gets installed especially if that is a branded computer. During NLE, don't connect to the internet if you can help it. Take out all USB devices, with the probable exception of keyboard, mouse, and the camera where the files are to be taken from (then disconnected again). Avoid using USB audio devices (USB headphones, etc). Turn off all wi-fi, blutut, etc. Run msconfig and note what programs are loaded and TSRd. If they are not really needed, uncheck them. This includes stuff like printer monitors, some services, etc., and some well-meaning but aggressive anti-virus programs (which leaves you unprotected, that's why you have to disconnect from the internet during editing).
    For the nth time, with the possible exception of certain Intel processors, I don't have/ever owned anything whose name starts with "i".
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    Good points turk690. Forgot about conforming.
    In order to change location of cache files, go to EDIT->PREFERENCES->MEDIA.

    Brainiac
    Last edited by Brainiac; 7th Aug 2014 at 09:35. Reason: clarity
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  23. Those are important points, but if he can play 1080p h.264 MOV's from the T3i fine, and only has problems with the lower resolution , lower bitrate 720p MTS, chances are it's an issue with reading AVCHD Lite , not an I/O problem or anything else

    Instead of using uncompressed, you can use lossy compression or other digital intermediates like cineform. ffmbc can batch re-encode to some formats as well eg. maybe high bitrate mpeg2 . Many programs have problems with the frame repeat flag in AVCHD lite, ffmbc is able to read it correctly (ignoring the flag) and will give you 720p29.97 with unique frames
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  24. Did Mercury Playback GPU enabled in New project?
    If not, enabled you video card in Premiere
    by adding string Geforce GTX 650 to file cuda_supported_cards.txt that exist in Premiere folder

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    Last edited by roma_turok; 7th Aug 2014 at 10:40.
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    Wow... Guys... Err...
    I really appreciate the help and time you take, I do!
    But is really seems like not many of you actually read what has been posted, whether it's the opening post, or the rest of the topic.

    The problem has been resolved yesterday, it was the AVCHD codec my newest camera used that caused the problem, and you just keep giving me tips, despite my having already asked my next question many postings ago (which codec to convert the files to to avoid the problem).

    My video card is a 650GTX, so why should I 'at least' want a 570GTX?
    My PC edited video fine until recently, so why should my harddisk or any choice of hardware suddenly become an issue?
    I also mentioned having already tried with and without cuda, and changing scratch disks... Haha, incredible! You collectively point out things that have already passed.

    I don't mind at all, and once more, I thank you for the time you take to answer me, but you are really wasting a lot of your own time just because you didn't read what was already said.

    Nevertheless, thanks for all the answers, whether they are useful or not so much .

    I do have an answer to this issue though.
    If you have a camera that does AVCHD and you want to transfer it to be usable in premiere, here's your solution:


    Turns out transferring AVCHD MTS files to IBM MJpeg works just fine, no visible quality loss, audio is fine (you could choose uncompressed, but it's just a built in mike, Mp3 in a high bitrate will do just fine).
    All other options either wouldn't work in premiere, create insanely big files or cause immediately visible quality loss.

    Hope some of you find this information useful .

    Thanks for all the help, especially for Poisondeathray, who suspected the camera was the issue.
    He was completely right. And I should have known .
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  26. Member turk690's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by stijnkraft View Post
    The problem has been resolved yesterday, it was the AVCHD codec my newest camera used that caused the problem....
    The problem didn't have anything to do with hard drive space at all, it seems, which means I have to learn something new from you. I may be overdoing my hard drive schemes, so can you tell me exactly what hard drives you have, how they are connected, and what you put in each? I want to emulate that arrangement because it certainly means less hardware, at least where Premiere and AVCHDlite is concerned.
    For the nth time, with the possible exception of certain Intel processors, I don't have/ever owned anything whose name starts with "i".
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