Premiere 6.5 Play/Preview Problem

[Namie]

The clips that I have are 352x240 MPEG 1 (VCD).

I have added several of these clips in the timeline but when I try to play/preview it on the "Program" side of the video window, it skips and lags a lot. Even though it plays smoothly on the "Source" side.

Does anyone know which settings I need to configure in order to edit/play properly on the "Source" side?

[pchan]

Set your preview frame rate higher.

[Namie]

Set your preview frame rate higher.

Where can I find that option at? Sorry, I'm a Premiere newbie.

[pchan]

Go to your Monitor window and right-click. Select Monitor Window Options and you should select the proper timecode.

For PAL, you should select 25 fps Timecode.

[Namie]

Go to your Monitor window and right-click. Select Monitor Window Options and you should select the proper timecode.

For PAL, you should select 25 fps Timecode.

I selected different Timecodes but it didn't change anything on the "Program" side. Unfortunately, it still skips.

[Namie]

Could it be because the clips are compressed as MPEG1?

I heard Premiere is really slow working with compressed video files. ???

[mojo2185]

That could be the problem. You might want to find a way to convert the mpeg to an AVI file.
Have you tried rendering the work area before previewing?

[lordsmurf]

Preview only works well with low or uncompressed AVI
Premiere Pro has a MainConcept plugin that can be bought, but not sure if it helps

[Namie]

That could be the problem. You might want to find a way to convert the mpeg to an AVI file.
Have you tried rendering the work area before previewing?

Even "Rendering the work area" didn't change anything. And it took a really long time too.

Preview only works well with low or uncompressed AVI
Premiere Pro has a MainConcept plugin that can be bought, but not sure if it helps

Does Premiere Pro have the problem handling MPEG files as well?

So basically it's impossible to edit MPEG files with Premiere? I'm a bit disappointed. That's strange because the MPEG1 file is pretty low quality and yet it has trouble handling it. But I guess it was designed to smoothly preview/edit AVI that are gigs.

I guess the only option for me is to convert the mpeg files to AVI with TMPGEnc and then edit from there. It would be a bit time consuming to encode back and forth though.

[lordsmurf]

Do not capture MPEG if you want to edit. If you have an MPEG card only, then you need to buy an AVI card.

[pchan]

I use Premiere 6.5 exclusively for my video editing. I have no problem editing MGEG1/2 and Divx files. Of couse, I have all the encoder install. As for your case, I notice that your video clip is 352 x 240 so it's NTSC. Set all your frame rate to 30 fps.

Another area to look at is the Clip Speed setting. Go to your project folder and click on one of the clips. Press Control + Shift + R. A Clip Speed window will pop out. If the New Rate is not 100%... set it to 100%. (Less than 100% will slow down the clip, >100% will speed up the clip and negative will reverse the clip)

One more thing to do is to make you have all the frame rate setting at 30 fps. Go to Project > Setting Viewer. In the Frame Rate row, you should see all 30 fps.

[Namie]

Do not capture MPEG if you want to edit. If you have an MPEG card only, then you need to buy an AVI card.

Well, my capture card does AVI only. These clips that I wanted to edit, I had converted to MPEG because the AVI files were taking up so much space. And I thought I would able to edit the compressed MPEG files (I didn't really care about quality) with Premiere. I guess I'll need to buy lots and lots of hard space since Premiere works well only with uncompressed video files.

[Namie]

I use Premiere 6.5 exclusively for my video editing. I have no problem editing MGEG1/2 and Divx files. Of couse, I have all the encoder install. As for your case, I notice that your video clip is 352 x 240 so it's NTSC. Set all your frame rate to 30 fps.

Another area to look at is the Clip Speed setting. Go to your project folder and click on one of the clips. Press Control + Shift + R. A Clip Speed window will pop out. If the New Rate is not 100%... set it to 100%. (Less than 100% will slow down the clip, >100% will speed up the clip and negative will reverse the clip)

One more thing to do is to make you have all the frame rate setting at 30 fps. Go to Project > Setting Viewer. In the Frame Rate row, you should see all 30 fps.

Wow, even DivX files?
It was already set as 100%. And actually the MPEG files are 29.97 FPS. I played around with different frame rates but it's still the same.

[pchan]

Yes, Divx too. I have a PVR (PC + TVcard + Showshifter) and all clips are capture in DIVX format.

One more thing to check. Go to your Project window and right click and select properties. All your clips show 29.97 fps ?

[Namie]

One more thing to check. Go to your Project window and right click and select properties. All your clips show 29.97 fps ?

Yeah.

-
File Size: 184.49MB bytes
Total Duration: 0;18;28;18
Average Data Rate: 170.42KB per second
Image Size: 352 x 240
Pixel Depth: 0 bits
Frame Rate: 29.97 fps

Audio: 44100 Hz - 16 bit - Stereo
-

[pchan]

OK. Go to your device manager and check if the DMA for the IDE drives are turn on.

[Namie]

OK. Go to your device manager and check if the DMA for the IDE drives are turn on.

I think so. It's set as "DMA if available" and says Ultra DMA Mode 2 for primary IDE channel. Just wondering, what does this have to do with it?

[pchan]

Just my personal experience that if the DMA is not turn on. The video playback will be jerky. It looks like all that need to be checked has beed checked. Just a note. When you start Premiere, you select DV-NTSC in the Load Project Setting Window I suppose.

By the way, you are using Premiere 6.5 I suppose. There is a slightly different setting in Premiere 6.0. If you are using Premiere 6.5, then you can export your timelines to VCD and see if it's OK.

Here is how you export the Timelines.
File > Export Timelines > Adobe MPEG Encoder. Select the proper setting for NTSC VCD and go for a TV break or something. If your output file plays OK, then it's OK.

It's Saturday morning in my area. Got to bring my kids out. Have fun !

[Namie]

Actually, I already tried exporting the timeline and it skipped a lot just like the preview.

[pchan]

Please check again your project setting. It must all be the same Frame Rate i.e. 29.97. If all the same, then I suggest you grab a clip from any VCD disk and try out the whole process again. I still suspect that your video clip source may be the problem.