Video playback is choppy

PowderBud wrote on 1/24/2012, 4:23 PM

I am using Magix Movie Edit Pro 16 HD and have never been able to use this SW to produce anything worth looking at. I admit, I'm a novice but a friend of mine bought a Mac recently and within days was producing great videos from our ski footage, adding music tracks and titles etc with ease and in a very short time, like an hour. He has no more knowledge or experience than I have, just he has a Mac that came with SW that seems to be a lot easier to use than what I paid for to use on my PC.

I am unable to get MP3 tracks to play though the track appears in the editing window. I also am having problems just playing the video track. At first play, it does so smoothly and the audio also plays in sync, however then Magix MEP 16 "disables" hardware acceleration for some reason (I got a message pop up) and then the video plays very jerky, the audio isn't synced and I can't for the life of me figure out how to correct this! I am so mad that I wasted money on this SW but sitting here cussing and yelling at my computer hasn't provided me any positive solution. I've watched the training videos. They don't address the issues I'm having. I've requested support help from Magix and get nothing except an email asking if anyone has helped me yet. I said "no, but I would really love to hear from somebody who can help me." Never heard from them again. Needless to say I won't be buying anymore Magix products, but I'd still like to figure out how to do something with what I've already wasted my money on. I see all these great, professionally produced videos on the Magix web site and I think this must be smoke & mirrors!

I'm using an HP PC with an Intel E2200 dual-core 2.4Ghz processor, 8GB RAM, 1.2TB storage, and Win Vista Home Premium 64 OS. Yes, I have the latest updates. This was well within the system requirements of the SW, and because the video plays smoothly at first I believe my system should have no problem handling this SW and my videos. I'm capturing from a ContourGPS HD helmet cam at 30fps and at 60fps. The video clips play fine in other applications such as Contour's preview SW and Windows Media Player.

The jerky playback seems to occur after Magix MEP disables HW acceleration but I can't find where I can turn that back on. Can anyone please help me out?

Comments

johnebaker wrote on 1/24/2012, 6:28 PM

Assuming you are using the Contour at full resolution at 30fps and reduced resolution at 60fps, then I think your computer is underpowered for working with HD. See the minimum spec requirements for HD on Magix website.

You need a Quad core processor, preferably an i5 or i7 with a minimum of 4Gb RAM, 8 -12 Gb is better, 64bit Windows and big hard drive(s) if you paln to store a lot of video. I have very little problem with playback from my Contour 1080p video, recorded at full 1080p, with MEP.

Also use the search on the right - you will find many suggestions/tips for getting the most out of your PC for playback.

John

Coastman wrote on 1/25/2012, 3:14 PM

Hi. As far as enabling your Hardware Acceleration,try the following routine: Go to File/SettingsProgram,or File/Program Settings at the top left of your Toolbar. When you have the Program Settings window open,look to the top right and select Display Options. Then,about midway down on the left,select Video Mode/Hardware Acceleration. Click 'OK'. Close your prog. completely,then re-open it and test if that has worked for you. Good luck! Ray

Coastman wrote on 1/25/2012, 3:24 PM

PS: Incidentally,I have the newest and best version(Premium) of this software. If I add a high-resolution video file to the timeline,the prog. advises me to 'play at half resolution',as it may cause playback issues! The thing is,I have Windows7(64Bit),with 6Gb memory,4xcore i5 CPU @ 2.8Ghz and a 1.5Tb harddrive! Must admit,I'm not entirely convinced about the capabilities of these progs. to handle HD... But I LOVE Magix software!

johnebaker wrote on 1/25/2012, 4:10 PM

Just to add to Coastman's comment about Hardware Acceleration -

I find that HWA is turned off when I use another program which is not Windows Aero compatible/aware.

Win 7 switches to Basic mode on starting such a program and back to Aero when returning to MEP .

On returning to MEP I found the acceleration has often been turned off.

John

nevilleswartz1980 wrote on 12/30/2012, 9:14 AM

I believe that this is in fact a Magix problem. The reason why i say this is:

1) You dont need a super computer to playback a video file.
2) If you just play a file, even before adding it to the project or the timeline... it also plays back choppy...
3) If you add the video to the timeline, and you move the orange slider in the timeline with your mouse, your video is rendered very smoothly and very fast without being choppy albeit without sound.
4) A short clip let's say 60 seconds of a particular resolution plays fine but a long clip of say 1 hour of the same resolution is choppy.
5) Resource monitors reveal that resources are not a problem because only a fraction of it is being used.

I have choppy playback even of 720x480 29.97fps material that is more than just a few minutes long.
I think it is a caching problem of video. I would not mind having to wait a few seconds to cach 500MB of video into memory so that we might have smooth playback and perhaps scratch the surface of available system memory.

Magix, please fix this.
Dissapointed legal owner of MEP 17 HD Plus.

nevilleswartz1980 wrote on 12/30/2012, 9:26 AM

Let's get real...

If your computer can render lifelike 3d graphics smoothly in run time but it cannot playback a video in MEP, i'm not even talking of HD here, then the problem is with the software. Period. Since when do you have to lower settings to play a video file in a monitor that is one eight or less the size of your screen? It's not like we are trying to play back HD video in full screen here... It's in a tiny box up in the corner of the screen... How will you ever do lip sincing like this?