Performance issues in PP 6.5/1.5

[robo3687]

Hi I've just captured the first lot of filming for a feature I'm working on and thought I would have a bit of a fiddle with a rough edit.

I captured the footage and then converted the raw *.avi's into mpeg2 files that have an average data rate of 836kb/s.

The clips play fine (full res & framerate, audio fine) in these situations:

- in quicktime
- in media player
- in the preview window in 'project'
- when double clicked and played
- in the source view

But when I put the clips into a sequence and try and view them in the 'program' section they stutter and jump and stall and the audio clips in and out, basically it is unwatchable and thus uneditable.

Even switching the display mode to draft doesn't help. The uncompressed AVI files were able to play at full speed but these MPEG's can't.

I checked the CPU performance when playing a clip and the CPU consistently spikes up to 100% and stays there....

The specs of my machine are:

AMD Athlon64 2800+ 1.8ghz
512MB ram
128MB ATi Radeon 9600SE
300GB 7200rpm External hard drive (where the clips are)

could this be why I can't play the clips in real time?

This occurs in both Premiere Pro 6.5 and 1.5.

-----

as a side note to this post I hope to be getting a laptop soon (within a month i'd say) to work on this project it will have the following specs:

Intel Core Duo 280 1.83ghz
1GB ram
256MB ATi X1400
80GB hard drive (system drive)
300GB 7200rpm External hard drive (same drive as above)

should that give me a better hope of working with the footage?

or could anyone suggest a better format to put my clips in other than the uncompressed AVI's (i'm trying to conserve as much space as i can on my new drive)?

hope some of that made sense....lol....

:dankk2:

[Averdahl]

I captured the footage and then converted the raw *.avi's into mpeg2 files that have an average data rate of 836kb/s.
The mpeg2's are the problem.

PPro are not designed to edit mpeg2 or any other compressed format. If you really to edit mpeg2-material take a look at this plug in: http://www.mainconcept.com/mpeg_pro.shtml
Even with that plug in you will indeed have performance problems on a 1.8 Ghz computer, guaranteed.

If you want to edit without problem, use DV AVI's. Hard disks are quite cheap today, so if you have the money, buy more hard drives. If you want to continue to edit mpeg2's, prepare yourself for headache.. ;)

[robo3687]

*slaps head*

lol... oh well...

i'll start over tomorrow....didn't have anything all that organised today so i'll spend tonight organising everything then re-capture tomorrow (stupid me I deleted the raw avi's....lol)

thanks for that.....

PS: whats your opinion on the laptop i'm getting?....it should be right for SD work shouldn't it?

[Baluardo]

yes, alwyas use avi dv files for editing.

i think the laptop should be ok for video editing. but for regular professional activity, a desktop is way better.

Andrea

[d54321r]

I notice that you are buying a computer with an ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 card. Did you get it yet? If so how is it working?
I have a Dell 1505 with the Intel Duo Core T1400 processor and the ATI X1400 card and it won't work with Avid Xpress Pro HD. You are using Premiere right? Is it working with Premiere?

I am thinking about switching to Premiere any comments?

Jay