footage skipping within project

[annikap31880205]

I haven't found anything that has answered my question so far, and I really want to get this problem fixed. When I'm trying to edit the video that I'm working on, the footage is skipping, but the audio is fine. I have already updated my laptop, deleted premiere, reinstalled it, and restarted my computer. I have more than 45 GB of storage left, and the footage is coming from an external hard drive. The specs of my macbook are: MacBook Pro (Retina, 13", early 2015), Processor 2.7 GHz intel core i5, Memory 8GB 1867 MHz2 DDR3 

[Ann Bens]

Post screenshot of the footage you are using in Mediainfo in Treeview.

MediaInfo

[annikap31880205]

I'm not using mediainfo, is it worth getting?

[Peru Bob]

annikap31880205  wrote

I'm not using mediainfo, is it worth getting?

Yes.  It will help us to know the specifics of your media.

It is free.

[annikap31880205]

additionally, this is happening with all the projects that I'm working on, not just one

[annikap31880205]

Is this what you were talking about? I only have one clip in there at the moment because I was trying to figure this whole thing out.

[Ann Bens]

Run a clip not the project file in this program: MediaInfo Mac

[annikap31880205]

this is just one of the many clips for my project and I ran it in the program and hopefully this helps

[Bill_Gehrke]

What is the interface of the external hard disk drive, rotational speed and how full is it.

[annikap31880205]

It's a Lacie hard drive that has 170.41 GB available of 900 GB, USB 3.0 interface, USB 3.0 : 5 Gb/s (I think that's the rotational speed though I'm not certain)

[Bill_Gehrke]

I suspect that it is related to your external drive.  170/900 = ~ 80% full which is bad on a hard disk drive, give us the model number of the Lacie drive and we can find out if the drive is 5400 rpm or 7200 rpm.

I would suggest you get a Samsung T3 USB 3 portable SSD  that will give you a minimum of 3 times faster access to that high bit rate media.

[annikap31880205]

That sounds reasonable, but will the drive being samsung be in conflict with the fact that I have a mac?

[Bill_Gehrke]

From the T3 manual on page five

http://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/downloads/document/Portable_SSD_T3_Manual_Full_Des...

[Ashley7]

Did this project ever work? I haven't seen you mention trying to clear your caches or preview files... this may not be helpful here but whenever I see weird errors like this which others don't seem to be having... I will try clearing my caches and preview files to re-create all temp or replaceable items. My steps are listed in the following forum post... https://forums.adobe.com/thread/2353754#9683751 As with any diag steps always ensure you project is backed up first before you try things out.

[annikap31880205]

this project specifically hasn't worked, but several projects previously have. I tried all of your steps and it's still skipping unfortunately

[Jim_Simon]

Try Step 2b below.  Report back.

Unofficial Premiere Pro Troubleshooting Guide

[annikap31880205]

the format that I'm using for this particular project it mp4, and I tried mov and that seemed to work better, but there was a consistent place where it skipped in one clip and it stayed with adding more mov clips. I added a mp4 clip to that same project and it was still skipping so mov is better, but it's still not completely solved. Should I just convert all my clips to mov and see if that helps?

[Ashley7]

In short... you should do whatever leads you to success.  If the problem is only when playing back the sections of your timeline (during editing) which are sourced from an mp4 clip, and other .mov clips have no issues... or mp4s converted to mov work... then Yes, I would definitely recommend trying to convert the troubled clips to a mezzanine or intermediate format. This is not uncommon for video editing to get clips into a common format for many reasons, one being editing speed/reliability.

I use either DNxHD or CineForm myself (per recommendations here)... you're on Mac so I believe ProRes is a popular intermediate.

I don't know Macs well in terms of typical specs for video editing but from a PC standpoint 8GB RAM seems small and your hard drive seems 80%+ full... you could have a combination of things, such as fragmentation and memory and CPU usage that stresses the playback of the mp4s (which require more work to decompress for playback than a good intermediate codec).

If you really want to try testing more to get the mp4s to work, have you tried creating a new separate test project just to start minimally with the problematic footage to see if the skipping is the same right off the bat? (See 2e in Jim's article.) If it's fine, when specifically does it go bad? Etc.

I've learned that these products and related variables will likely always have imperfections given the immense complexity... but often there's a mix of things a user can reasonably do to work around issues... an intermediate codec is often an excellent "go to" to get around mp4 reading issues.

[Ashley7]

...and I cannot stress enough the number of posts I've seen on this forum where folks are using slightly older to very old hardware with native mp4 footage, where the recommendation is to improve the quality of the older hardware by making things easier for it through using an intermediate (aka mezzanine) format/codec. The fact that you say mp4 sources cause issues, but mov sources do not, without even knowing the specific format of the mov sources, I can see there's a decoding perf or other issue with the mp4s. You're apparently getting around it with the mov format. Can you use the mp4s directly with success? ... well, maybe, but it will require technical analysis given data and attempts to try things... regarding the former, I think that's why Ann wanted to see specifics about your mp4 formats ... there may be a clue in that info that helps offer you direction. etc. etc. hope that makes sense!

[annikap31880205]

unfortunately after everything, I tried to convert the problem clips to .mov, they skipped too (in a new project)

[annikap31880205]

also I looked at prores in the app store and there are 3 different versions of it, do you have a specific one to recommend?

[annikap31880205]

I tried a new project and I have also tried a new project with the files in .mov and that didn't help, now .mov is skipping just as much as the mp4 was before. The clips are fine for a second and then it starts skipping and it does that for the rest of the clip for all the clips.

[Jim_Simon]

I tried mov and that seemed to work better

OK.

What source is creating the MP4 media?  The MOV media?  What make and model camera is being used here?

[annikap31880205]

My camera for the mp4 clips is a Panasonic Lumix ZS60 and that has a setting that creates the clips as mp4s. For the mov clips I used a different camera (different instance I was just looking for mov clips) which is a Canon EOS Rebel T1i EOS 500D which also creates the clips as the mov format

[annikap31880205]

many apologies to all the people who have been trying to help me out. I really appreciate it, and I didn't intentionally disappear for a long time, I was just travelling and didn't have access to this. I'm going to try to get back to everyone within today and the next and will continue to try and work this out.