Premier Pro Video Playback Choppy and Laggy

[tomb47630321]

Hi,

I cannot get Adobe Premiere Pro to play my video smoothly.

I have made a video to explain it and show what happens, here it is:

Adobe Premier Pro CS6 Video Laggy and Choppy - YouTube

Have a look...

Looking forward for some help.

Kind regards

[Moderator note: moved to best forum]

[Peru Bob]

What is your hard drive setup (how many, what kind, what size, how full, and what is on each)?

What is your media file type and codec?

[tomb47630321]

I am not sure if you have seen the video.

but here some answers:

I have my c: drive which is a Samsung EVO 850 250GB. The programm is running from here. (20% free)

The drive I have the video on is a Samsung EVO 840 1TB with +-100 GB free.

Here some data about the file:

DJI_0020.MOV

Format	: MPEG-4
Format profile	: QuickTime
Codec ID	: qt   2014.02 (qt  )
File size	: 3.91 GiB
Duration	: 9 min 20 s
Overall bit rate mode	: Variable
Overall bit rate	: 59.9 Mb/s
Encoded date	: UTC 2017-04-12 14:58:12
Tagged date	: UTC 2017-04-18 07:05:17
Comment	: 0.9.142
©xyz	: +39.563989+2.656481+2.400
©xsp	: -0.50
©ysp	: +0.10
©zsp	: +0.00
©fpt	: +7.30
©fyw	: +156.30
©frl	: +0.60
©gpt	: -1.20
©gyw	: +156.20
©grl	: +0.00

Video

ID	: 1
Format	: AVC
Format/Info	: Advanced Video Codec
Format profile	: High@L5.1
Format settings, CABAC	: Yes

Format settings, ReFrames   : 1 frame

Format settings, GOP	: M=1, N=8
Codec ID	: avc1
Codec ID/Info	: Advanced Video Coding
Duration	: 9 min 20 s
Bit rate mode	: Variable
Bit rate	: 60.0 Mb/s
Width	: 4 096 pixels
Height	: 2 160 pixels
Display aspect ratio	: 1.896
Frame rate mode	: Constant
Frame rate	: 23.976 (24000/1001) FPS
Color space	: YUV
Chroma subsampling	: 4:2:0
Bit depth	: 8 bits
Scan type	: Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)	: 0.283
Stream size	: 3.91 GiB (100%)
Title	: DJI.AVC
Language	: English
Encoded date	: UTC 2017-04-12 14:58:12
Tagged date	: UTC 2017-04-12 14:58:12
Color range	: Limited
Color primaries	: BT.709
Transfer characteristics	: BT.709
Matrix coefficients	: BT.709

[tomb47630321]

Nobody got any idea or any help on this problem?

[TacoRye]

I am having the same issue with XAVC codec on 12core Mac Pro.  It doesn't like the XAVC. 

What GPU are you using?

[RjL190365]

Have you watched the video that's linked to in the first post? You see, his system is equipped with an i7-6700K CPU, 32GB of RAM and a GeForce GTX 1080.

[RjL190365]

I just watched your video, and discovered that your system may be a bit too weak on the CPU to smoothly edit 4K source material. That i7-6700K has only four cores and eight threads, while 4K editing really needs an eight-core, 16-thread CPU in order to edit or play back smoothly.

And your choice of a GTX 1080 does not improve matters one bit. You see, Premiere really needs a balanced hardware configuration in order to work well. But the i7-6700K is severely overmatched by that GTX 1080. As such, you have just wasted your money on such a GPU that's been overqualified for your CPU. In other words, you had expected a powerful GPU to more than compensate for a weakling (relatively speaking) CPU when it doesn't even come close to doing so in real life.

Just as I have cautioned other people, buying an overkill GPU for gaming is one matter. Buying a GPU for content creation (which includes video editing) is completely different. You see, games use much less CPU than it does GPU. Video editing software, on the other hand, stresses the CPU more heavily than the GPU.

Oh, one more thing: You have two GTX 1080's in an SLI configuration. SLI has been known to cause severe problems with video editing software. And that's not to mention that SLI is the cause of a lot of the stuttering in games. Premiere Pro can utilize multiple GPUs for GPU acceleration, but it will not run properly if those cards are linked together (as in an SLI configuration).

[TacoRye]

Thanks for your comment and insight.

I don't believe his processor is weak or underpowered for 4k.

My 2013 12-core 2.7ghz MP is doing the same thing with XAVC material. 

My other system, i7 4770k (3.7ghz quad) with Titan X, plays the XAVC much better then my 12-core dual d500. 

I am not convinced it is the resolution as much as it is the codec.  Why can my 12-core play back 6k R3Ds realtime (1/2 res), yet stutter on XAVC 4k (1/4 res) from FS7/F55?

As far as GPUs go.  In my experience, strong GPUs are important for content creation.  Using programs like Davinci Resolve for finishing, a good GPU is extremely important.  A GTX 1080 will be very beneficial in that regard.  (So don't get rid of it )

[RjL190365]

It's the SLI, then, that's causing the stuttery, choppy playback. You see, Adobe's Mercury Playback Engine does not like electrically linked multi-GPU setups, such as SLI, at all. It can work with multiple GPUs as long as they are not linked at all with one another.

[Horshack]

The issue is two-fold. First, your 4K footage looks like it's from a drone. DJI uses very long GOP lengths for its H.264 video, which produces great image quality for a given bitrate but makes editing and navigation slower because it requires playback to reference a large number of reference frames to render each frame. I show an analysis of this here:

Re: 4K Choppy playback - unable to edit

The second and more material issue is that Premiere's pre-rendered playback is only minimally optimized to use the H.264 automation features of modern video cards. This is based on an analysis I did using Nvidia's Visual Profiler, which is a GPU performance profiler made for developers. This minimal use is likely due to Adobe having its render pipeline entirely in CPU code.

The best solution is to use Proxy editing.

[tomb47630321]

Thanks guys for the insight I will review all of this over the next weekend and see the result.

[Guest]

Very helpful tips from Horshack above about proxy editing.  Which, BTW, was the solution to the problems I was having editing DJI MOV footage, like the OP.  Thank you! 

[kentw81093237]

What is Proxy editing?

[R Neil Haugen]

Using clips transcoded from the original media but in an edit/CPU friendly codec to view the clips during playback. PrPro has an automated system for doing this and it can dramatically improve playback while editing.

I'm on my phone or I'd give a link. Just look up proxy in the PrPro help system.

Neil

[Bill_Gehrke]

If you want to test your configuration you could run my hardware evaluation tool Premiere Pro BenchMark (PPBM) and we can see how well your hardware performs.

[TacoRye]

I think your best option is to convert the footage to an edit friendly codec.  ProRes, DNx, etc.     Transcode, edit, online, send.

[Guest]

I have a very similar setup ( i7-6800k, 32 GB RAM, GTX 1070 GPU, with Intel 750 and 600p NVME drives for C and D respectively) and CS6 PP is laggy as well, but in my case it lags everywhere - in the timeline, and in the media player. And the lagging only occurs with DJI 4K drone footage - all other 4K footage (DMC-LX100 and even various phones) PP plays smoothly.

Did you resolve your issue? Please update.

[R Neil Haugen]

Please look at Horshack's excellent response a couple above yours ... informative and correct in all respects to your question.

Neil

[Guest]

Neil,

thank you for your quick response. I guess it has become standard to assume that no one reads the full thread, but, I did, including the post you pointed to and the thread (among many others) the post references. How is that post, and linked thread, "correct in all aspects of your question"? What does that even mean? My question was to the OP: "Did you resolve your issue?" - so, how is the explanation of why DJI footage is hard to edit, "correct in all aspect of MY question"?

I have yet to read a single post with a solution. There are tons of typical replies "your CPU is inadequate", "you need more RAM", "you need faster storage", etc. There are a few posts describing a similar problem on 1 PC but complete smooth operation on another (DJI Phantom 4 footage cannot be seen in media browser ) - which means that it's not the footage. I'm not disputing that DJI footage is hard on CPU and GPU, highly compressed, with wide i-frames and GOP - not at all, but if that footage can be smoothly viewed and edited on one PC but not another - it's not the footage.

Hopefully there is a solution.

[Horshack]

The thread you linked described a different set of problems, which also include laggy playback. Citing that thread as proof that the footage is not the problem isn't convincing.

The problem is a combination of heavily compressed footage in tandem with Premiere's non-optimized playback. This is why a heavily-compressed H.264 file can be played in a third-party viewer like MPC-HC without lag and CPU utilization of < 5% whereas Premiere chokes on the same file.

[Guest]

But there are reports of 4K footage from DJI devices being played and edited with no lag, often on less capable system than OP or mine - what gives?

[YOmedia]

Chances are, you have the playback set a full resolution. Drop it 1/2 or maybe even 1/4.

[stephenc59620438]

Hey man, today is 03.18.2019. I'm new to Adobe Premiere. I also thought I had a powerful enough laptop to handle it. However, my first issue was that my laptop wasn't powerful enough to handle Premiere Pro CC 2019, so I had to download Premiere Pro CC 2018. My first couple of practice clips rolled along pretty well, but then (just a short while ago) my video clips were playing all choppy. I naturally googled my issue and found no answer that would solve my dilemma right here and now. So I went back to the (choppy project), looked around, fiddled, and found a way to get rid of the choppiness. This is what I did: If you look at the main window where your video is shown, you will see at the bottom (right) a little open ended wrench icon. To the left of that is a little window that reads FULL. Hit the elevator and you will see some options. First I tried 1/2, but it was still choppy. Then I tried 1/4 and all of my choppiness disappeared. I hope this helps you. It sure seems to have helped me.

[denniscallan]

I found a solution for jerky timeline playback that worked for me: make sure your monitor is connected to the computer with the best cable pathway.  I found this out yesterday after months of trouble-shooting, by replacing my hdmi connecting cable with a display port cable, using a wire with thunderbolt on one end to connect to the macpro, and display port on the other connecting to the monitor.  Problem solved!

I am running 5 monitors off my macpro and never had problems playing back HD video, but in the past year my various 4K files, especially from the iPhone 10, were frustrating, jerky even when using proxies and half quality on the program playback window.  It was the cable.