Choppy videos LR6

[pata1pata]

Hi,

My mp4 videos are choppy in updated Lightroom 6. MacBook Pro 11,3 Late 2013. Playback in Quicktime is no problem. Graphic Processor disabled or enabled: no difference.

Thank you!

[johnrellis · Accepted solution]

Many people have complained over the years about choppy video playback, and there haven't been any solutions posted that reliably work.  Playback on my Macbook Pro 15" mid-2015 is sometimes fine, sometimes choppy.

I don't bother trying to use LR to play cataloged video any more.  Instead, I use the Quicktime player.  You can right-click a video, choose Show In Finder, and then double-click the video to launch Quicktime.  A little klutzy and inconvenient.  (I use the Open command of my Any File plugin, which does that with a single keyboard shortcut.)

[pata1pata]

OK. I have to accept this, but with LR 5 I did not have the problem. I "upgraded" to LR 6 and now I can not play video out of LR. What a pitty.

[lonelyspeck]

I find it laughable that the "correct answer" for this problem is basically all of us accepting that Lightroom's video playback sucks and there's nothing that can be done about it. That's not a solution.

[Just Shoot Me]

Right. But LR was never intended for Videos.

It is a Photographers probram not a Videographers program. Try Premiere Pro or Elemnets and or the many other programs designed for working with Video files.

And honestly you are replying to a discussion that is 2+ years old

[lonelyspeck]

If Lightroom wasn't intended for videos, why are there a whole suite of video cataloguing features and editing features? It imports videos by default from camera SD cards. You can filter for them specifically in the catalog. You can use quick develop to adjust exposure, white balance, vibrance, and even apply basic presets. You can create still clips from videos and even export videos in alternative codec formats like DPX and H.264. Lightroom is arguably more full featured a video program than Quicktime. The cataloguing of videos along side stills is one of Lightroom's most valuable features for content creators as it allows quick organization of both still and motion content within one database. If only it could playback videos consistently. 

Saying that Lightroom was never intended for videos is like saying that Photoshop was never intended for videos. Photoshop actually has a complete suite of non-linear video editing tools that allow for complex layered composites and other video content creation and those tools actually work.

The fact that this post is 2+ years old and Adobe has yet to address something as basic as video playback in Lightroom is even more in support of my point. We need a real fix.

Premiere is a project based NLE. It has no robust cataloguing or asset management capabilities, which Lightroom does offer. The only other alternative to asset management is Adobe Bridge, but it has the same playback issues as Lightroom. 

[alexskunz]

I am having the same problem every since Lightroom 6.7 (2015.7). Video playback is INSTANT and without any problem in Lightroom 6.6.1, and versions since are just plain horrible, with delays, stuttering, and when I stop playback Lightroom needs a couple of seconds to "recover itself".

Quicktime is not an option - I'm on a Windows system and QT isn't actively developed for Windows anymore (in fact, it is recommended to uninstall it because it has too many unfixed security issues).

Something quite significant must have changed under the hood between LR 6.6.1 and LR 6.7. It doesn't affect just video, but that's a different story (and I'm still using LR 6.6.1 for that reason - remind me again why I pay for the CC subscription every month...?)