My footage won't playback in real time...

[Speedvark0]

I'm new at AE. I have AE 7 pro and think I may have gotten more than I bargained for. My footage won't play back at regular frame rate (and/or in real time) unless I cut resolution by 50%. Is this due to a lack of memory on my computer? If so, is it possible to work at 50% resolution and accomplish everything you would at full resolution?

[Matt Grunau]

Since I don't know what you were wanting, I can't say that you got more than you bargained for. Think of AE as Photoshop for video, and that will begin to get your head around it.

AE never plays back footage in real time like programs like Premiere, Vegas, and such. Those programs take and use the video file's codec to play smoothly, something AE does not. Also, if you are working with interlaced footage (You didn't specify, but I am imagining you are) AE by default recognizes your footage as (if NTSC DV) interlaced with Lower field first. When you play something in a composition in AE, you will notice there are no interlaced lines. This is AE creating non-interlaced (not to be confused with progressive, though there are similarities) frames to give you the highest available quality when you work on your footage, mostly with things like rotation, scaling and whatnot.

All that deinterlacing takes processing power, as does any effect you apply to you footage, as does the frame size and fps of the footage itself. I've used some very powerful machines running AE, and I've yet to have one playback in realtime, even with no effects at all.

So it's not a problem with your footage, or with the program. It's the nature of what is under AE"s hood.

Seeing things in real time is what the RAM preview is for.

There is a sticky at the top of this forum with tutorials out the wazoo in it, I suggest your start reading up. AE is not something you are going to master in a few days, even a few weeks. It is used for so many different purposes, Motion Graphics, 3D Compositing, 2D Compositing, Green Screen Compositing, Video Manipulation, Visual Effects creation, and has so many tools, built in effects, filters, presets and utilites that is takes a good long time get get a handle on most of them.

Good luck.

Do a search in this forum for suggested books and reading, and think seriously about getting some of them.

[Speedvark0]

thanks for the info. I have a Lynda.com tutorial and they did not mention anything about AE not playing back in real time, maybe they assume someone with more experience will be viewing it. It appeared in the tutorial that their footage was playing back in real time but I guess they were ram previewing it. i know that AE is vast in it's abilities and that it will take some time to even get the basics down. thanks again for taking the time to help me out.

[Beat Takeshi]

You have to make ram previews to play back in real time but you need at least a gig of ram to get a decent amount of frames loaded to play back enough to see what you are doing.