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Aidan Bell
Aidan Bell
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Infuriating playback delay

Mar 6, 2009 11:07 AM

I edit theatre shows, therefore my standard edit will be a 3-camera shoot edited in multicam; so three video tracks and one audio, timeline length approx 75 minutes. I use almost only simple cuts, with occasional fades and cross-fades, and almost no effects; or where I do use effects I don't believe they form part of the following problem anyway.

When editing in the multicam window I'm happy with performance. But in the Program sequence window there is always a delay of between a quarter of a second and sometimes even one or two seconds before playback begins. Quite often playback does not begin for several seconds, so I hit the space bar again to cancel playback and then immediately press it again to re-start, and that second time it usually plays, again with around a quarter-second's pause first (once playback starts it's fine, smooth, perfect).

I've just replaced my computer because on my last machine (dual core, good specs) this problem was so severe that it made editing impossible (I also couldn't get smooth playback in the multicam window either). My new machine arrived this week and is a quad-core HP workstation xw6600 running Win XP x64 (yes, I know, don't start, I just don't want Vista!).

My question is this; is what I'm experiencing a PPro CS4 quirk that I just have to live with, or is something at issue here?

I would add that I'm still waiting for the graphics card for my new machine (NVIDIA Quadro NVS 450), and am making do at the moment with a VGA512 POFV/XPERT 8600GT, however even that is a decent card and therefore I don't believe it could be solely responsible for my problem.

I certainly don't regret getting the new machine even if this problem isn't solvable, however if it is I'd be really grateful to know the fix.

Cheers,

Aidan
652 Views   6 Replies   Latest reply: Bill Hunt, Jul 27, 2009 12:30 PM
 
Replies
  • Chuck A. McIntyre
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    1. Chuck A. McIntyre,
    Mar 6, 2009 11:55 AM   in reply to Aidan Bell
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    CS4 is a huge and heavy program. Things may have changed slightly, but I believe that Premiere CS4 mainly relies on the processor. We use Intel q6600 processors at work, and CS4 often seems sluggish. particularly Encore. Encore program windows get that strained "transparent" look as they take several seconds to open. Premiere sometimes goes "white" as if the program crashed, then snaps back after a few seconds.

    I would take a look at cost/performance advantages of an expensive graphics card. They can get very expensive and I believe they provide little to no benefit for Premiere users. They are designed to improve performance for 3d programs like Maya.

    Tom's has a recent article on one of the new high end cards:
    http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-firepro-v8700,2154.html
     
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  • Aidan Bell
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    2. Aidan Bell,
    Mar 6, 2009 12:19 PM   in reply to Aidan Bell
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    Thanks for that, Charles. I've also experienced the things you mention and agree that it does seem that CS is quite a hungry beast in its latest form. I'm looking at increasing my memory tomorrow (I currently have 2Gb and can upgrade tomorrow to 8!), however that 8 is coming from the old machine that was affected even worse by the "problem", so I'm not expecting such an easy fix. I have also decided that I will go with the expensive graphics card. I do agre with you that it may not make a huge difference, but it's already paid for and besides, if a job's worth doing ....
     
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  • Jim Simon
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    3. Jim Simon,
    Mar 6, 2009 1:24 PM   in reply to Aidan Bell
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    I haven't noticed any delays of this type with my own multicamera work.
     
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  • Bob Ramage
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    4. Bob Ramage,
    Mar 6, 2009 5:04 PM   in reply to Aidan Bell
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    I had a similar problem once and it was related to audio settings. Changing them fixed it. Might not be the same in your case, but I'd check the audio hardware preferences and make sure something hasn't been set incorrectly. I believe that "built in line output" with a buffer size of 512 is the default.
     
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  • GospelJohn001
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    5. GospelJohn001,
    Jul 27, 2009 11:10 AM   in reply to Aidan Bell
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    I am getting the exact same thing - only my playback delay is closer to 3 seconds.

     

    I'm editing a lecture which is about 1:21:00 long. When I play the Sync Timeline (the source of the mutli cam sequence) the play response is immediate. When I'm in Multicam Mode I have to wait at least 3 seconds before playback begins. And my machine is pretty beefy.


    Then I discovered what the problem was!

     

    I was working with an M2T file and an MXF file. The audio from my lecture was embedded on the M2T file. If I rendered the audio as a Windows Waveform (DV settings: 48K, 16 bit stereo), the response goes from 3 seconds down to not even half a second - something that "feels" like I can do work again.

     

    So if you're experiencing playback delay - try re-encoding your audio into something that the computer will have an easier time with.

     
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  • Bill Hunt
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    6. Bill Hunt,
    Jul 27, 2009 12:30 PM   in reply to GospelJohn001
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    GospelJohn,

     

    Welcome to the forum and thanks for posting that.

     

    Question: were you able to use Render/Replace on your encoded Audio to convert it to a PCM/WAV and then replace the encoded Audio on the Timeline? Note: this only does the Replace on the instance in the Timeline, and not in the original source Clips in the Project Panel.

     

    Just curious.

     

    Hunt

     

    PS Edit in Audition (or Soundbooth) basically does the same thing. Render/Replace does it without openeing either of those programs.

     
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