TechNote (Archived)

Troubleshoot digital video playback (Adobe Premiere Elements 2.0)

When you play or export digital video from the Timeline in Adobe Premiere Elements to an IEEE 1394 (FireWire/i.LINK) digital video device (for example, a camera), video or audio play may stutter or play too fast if you use outdated DirectX and IEEE 1394 components. These problems can also occur if system components aren't optimized or don't meet the requirements for digital video, or if device drivers are outdated. Microsoft system components provide digital video support in Adobe Premiere Elements; the interaction among these components and with the system determines the quality of digital video playback. Although playback problems may occur in Adobe Premiere Elements, Adobe Premiere Elements may not be the cause of the problem.

Work through these tasks if video plays too fast, stutters, or appears to drop frames when you attempt export to a digital video device or play from the Timeline. After you complete each task, export or play the rendered digital video from the Premiere Elements Timeline to determine if the problem is resolved. If the problem recurs after you complete the tasks in this section, proceed to the next section in this document.

1. Render all effects, transitions, and titles in the Timeline.

Media files may need to be rendered before smooth playback is possible. Adobe Premiere Elements attempts to play all effects, transitions, titles, and other unrendered elements in real time without first rendering them. The real-time playback capabilities of your system depend upon the CPU and other available system resources. By rendering the unrendered media elements of the Timeline, you greatly reduce the dependence on the available system resources.

2. Make sure thatthe system meets the requirements for digital video.

Video may not play correctly if your system doesn't meet the following requirements:

-- Intel Pentium 4, M, D, Extreme Edition or AMD AthlonXP, XP-M, Opteron, Athlon64 (required SSE2 support)

-- Windows XP Home, XP Professional and XP Media Center, XP64 OS

-- DVD-ROM, DVD burner required for DVD burning

-- Microsoft DirectX 9 compatible sound and display drivers

-- 256 MB RAM minimum, 512 MB recommended for DVD burning

-- 4 GB hard disk space

-- DV/i.LINK/FireWire/IEEE 1394 interface to connect a Digital 8 or DV camcorder or USB2 interface with a compatible DV via USB DV camcorder

3. Check for device driver problems.

Device drivers are files that enable Windows to communicate with devices such as video display adapters, SCSI and IDE controller cards, and mainboard BIOS and chipsets. Contact the computer or device manufacturer for the latest device drivers.

To check for device driver problems:

1. Choose Start > Settings > Control Panel.

2. Double-click System, click the Hardware tab, and then click Device Manager.

3. Click the plus sign (+) to the left of each device type.

4. If a device appears with a black exclamation mark in a yellow circle, double-click that device.

5. Click the General tab, and check the properties for the device:

-- Check the Device Status: If the device isn't working properly, information in this field can help you troubleshoot the problem.

-- If the Properties dialog box has a Driver tab, click it. If the Driver tab doesn't indicate the driver provider, click Driver Details. If Microsoft is the provider, you probably have a generic driver and should obtain the most recent driver provided by the device manufacturer.

4. Update video display card drivers.

Outdated or flawed video display card drivers may incorrectly display motion video and textures, or incorrectly report their ability to display motion video or textures to Adobe Premiere Elements. Contact the video display card manufacturer for the latest display drivers and driver information.

5. Switch the Desktop Display Mode.

Adobe Premiere Elements 2.0 is designed to take advantage of display cards with accelerated GPUs. If you are having playback issues, then make sure you use the correct Desktop Display Mode that corresponds with your display card.

-- Compatible: The setting offers the lowest performance but is appropriate for display cards that do not fully support Direct 3D.

-- Standard: The default setting and appropriate for most video cards on the market today.

-- Accelerated GPU Effects: The setting if you have a GPU-accelerated display card.

To switch the Desktop Display Mode:

1. Choose Project > Project Settings > General.

2. Click Playback Settings.

3. Select the appropriate option for Desktop Display Settings and click OK.

4. Click OK to close the Project Settings window.

6. Disable video overlay in Adobe Premiere Elements.

Video overlay enables Adobe Premiere Elements to play video on the desktop (from the Monitor window) and on a digital video device at the same time. If you disable playback on the desktop, video is more likely to play smoothly on a digital video device.

To disable overlay options in Adobe Premiere Elements:

1. Choose Project > Project Settings > General.

2. Click Playback Settings.

3. Specify a Realtime Playback setting:

-- To play video on a DV device only:

a. Deselect Desktop Video.

b. Select the External Device Settings: DV 29.97i (720x 480) for NTSC projects; DV 25i (720x576) for PAL projects.

c. Click OK.

-- To play video on the desktop only:

a. Ensure that Desktop Video is selected.

b. Select None from the External Device settings.

c. Click OK to close the Playback Settings window.

4. Click OK to close the Project Settings window.

7. Optimize the project settings.

Verify that all clip properties, such as frame rate, data rate, and compressor, match the project settings. In addition, clips and previews should be on the same hard disk as the project file, preferably the fastest disk.

To change the scratch disk setting in Adobe Premiere Elements, choose Edit > Preferences > Scratch Disks.

8. Disable nonessential startup items and services.

Antivirus software, firewall software, anticrash software or other applications and services that are typically loaded when Windows starts may cause conflicts with Premiere Elements or compete for system resources. You can temporarily disable nonessential startup items and services from loading by using the Windows System Configuration Utility.

To disable startup items and services:

1. Quit all applications.

2. Choose Start > Run, type msconfig in the Open box, and then click OK.

3. Click the Startup tab, and select Disable All.

4. Select startup items that are essential for testing the problem. If you are unsure if an item is essential, leave it selected.

5. Click the Services tab, select Hide All Microsoft Services, and then select Disable All.

6. Click OK, and then restart Windows.

7. Right-click to close or disable any items in the Notification Area (called the System Tray in earlier versions of Windows).

Then, try to re-create the problem:

-- If the problem no longer occurs, one of the startup items conflicts with Adobe Premiere Elements. Reenable startup items one at a time, testing each time until you determine which item conflicts with Adobe Premiere Elements. Contact that item's developer to see if an update is available.

-- If the problem recurs, startup items are not the cause of the problem and you can reenable them:

a. Choose Start > Run, type msconfig in the Open box, and then click OK.

b. Click the General tab, and then select Normal Startup.

c. Click OK, and then restart Windows.

9. Disconnect all peripheral devices except the digital video device.

Peripheral devices that connect to the computer via USB, serial, SCSI, parallel or FireWire ports (for example, printers, network cables, scanners, and modems) can disrupt video playback when the device driver requests system resources. Turn off or disconnect all peripheral devices to reduce system requests when playing video in Adobe Premiere Elements. Additionally, Adobe Premiere Elements doesn't support multiple devices on either a FireWire chain or a FireWire card.

Note:After you disconnect network cables, network protocols remain active until you restart the computer.

10. Optimize hard disks.

Optimize hard disks by defragmenting them, updating their drivers, and configuring the disk drives to improve playback speed and performance in Adobe Premiere Elements. For further assistance with these tasks, contact the hardware manufacturer or an authorized repair service facility.

-- Defragment hard disks by running the Disk Defragmenter utility included with Windows or a third-party disk utility, such as Symantec Norton Utilities. If you use external (non-system) disks for video, you can reformat them instead. Be aware that formatting erases all information on the disk. For instructions, see Windows Help or the documentation for the utility.

-- Update disk drivers to ensure that they aren't damaged or incompatible with the system. If a disk was formatted with a third-party disk utility, you must use the third-party disk utility for this procedure. For instructions, see the documentation that came with the utility.

-- Enable write-caching for the hard disk:

1. Choose Start > Settings > Control Panel.

2. Double-click System, click the Hardware tab, and then click Device Manager.

3. Click the plus sign (+) beside Disk Drives.

4. Double-click the hard-disk drive.

5. In the Disk Device Properties dialog box, click the Policies tab.

6. Select Enable Write Caching on the Disk.

-- If you use multiple IDE (or EIDE) disks for video-editing, connect them to the secondary controller. Because the system disk must be connected to the primary controller, connect all devices other than the IDE disks to the primary controller. If only IDE disks are connected to the secondary controller, data is transferred at a single, optimum rate. When other, slower devices are connected to the same controller, data rates conform to the maximum rates allowed by the slower devices and are typically slower than those for video-editing hard disks. For instructions to connect disks to a controller, see the documentation included with the computer.

11. Test the hard disk performance.

Test the hard disk with a third-party hard disk utility, such as TCD Labs HDTach or Canopus EZDVtest, to determine how the disk performs with the system configuration. Adobe recommends that hard disks meet the following specifications:

-- A seek time of 18 milliseconds or less (16 milliseconds recommended)

-- A read speed of 8 MB/second or greater (12 MB/second recommended)

-- A CPU utilization of 5% or less

-- An average data rate of 5 MB/second or greater (If the utility provides a graph to indicate data rate performance, the graph line should be straight, indicating consistent data rates; peaks indicate speed variations, which cause poor playback.)

12. Create an AVI file of the Adobe Premiere Elements project before exporting it to a device.

Render the project and export it to avoid stuttered playback from the Timeline. Playing several clips in the Timeline places more stress on the hard disk and IEEE 1394 bus than playing a single clip and results in poor or stuttered playback.

To render the project:

1. In Adobe Premiere Elements, choose File > Export > Movie.

2. Click Settings.

3. Choose General from the upper-left menu in the Export Movie Settings dialog box.

4. Choose File Type: Microsoft DV AVI, Range: Entire Timeline, and select Add to Project When Finished.

5. Choose Video from the upper-left menu in the Export Movie Settings dialog box.

6. Make sure that settings use the DV-NTSC compressor (or DV-PAL for PAL projects).

7. Choose Audio from the upper-left menu in the Export Movie Settings dialog box.

8. Choose Sample Rate: 48000 Hz, Sample Type: 16-bit, Channels: Stereo, Interleave: 1 second, and then click OK.

9. Name and save the file. The rendered movie will automatically be added to the current Adobe Premiere Elements project.

10. Double-click the file in the Media window to open the file in the Clip window (you can then export the rendered movie to a device).

13. Test digital video playback in a third-party digital video utility.

Capture and export digital video clips in a third-party digital video utility, such as Private Entity DVIO, to determine if the system can play digital video without problems. (You can download DVIO from the Carr Engineering Web site at www.carr-engineering.com/dvio.htm .) Capture and export clips with the same durations as the clips that have problems in Adobe Premiere Elements. For instructions, see the documentation included with the utility.

If you can't capture or play back the digital video using the third-party utility without problems, verify that the system is configured for digital video. For more information, see document 321276 , "Error occurs or no video appears when you try to capture DV (Adobe Premiere 6.x on Windows)."

If clips stutter during playback, your system configuration may not meet the requirements for digital video. Verify that the hardware and software configuration you use is compatible with digital video components by referring to Microsoft DirectX Frequently Asked Questions at www.microsoft.com/windows/directx/productinfo/faq/default.mspx .