Troubleshoot digital video playback (Adobe Premiere Elements 4)

• Before you begin
• Beginning troubleshooting
• Intermediate troubleshooting
• Advanced troubleshooting

When you play or export digital video from the Timeline in Adobe Premiere Elements to an IEEE1394 (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digital video device (for example, a camera), video or audio play may stutter or play too fast if you use outdated DirectX and IEEE 1394 components.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occur if system components aren't optimized or don't meet the requirements for digital video, or if device drivers are outdated.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.

The tasks in this section can help you resolve the most common installation problems. If the problem recurs after you complete the tasks in this section, proceed to the next section in this document.

Video may not play back correctly on a system that doesn't meet the following requirements:

• Intel Pentium 4 or Celeron 1.3 GHz (or compatible) processor; Pentium 4 3.0 GHz processor required for HD or Blu-ray
• Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 2 or Windows Vista
• For Windows XP: 512MB of RAM (1 GB required for HD or Blu-ray)
• For Windows Vista: 1GB of RAM (2 GB required for HD or Blu-ray)
• 4.5 GB of available hard-disk space
• Color monitor with 16-bit color video card
• 1,024x768 monitor resolution at 96 dpi or less
• Microsoft DirectX 9 or 10 compatible sound and display driver
• DVD-ROM drive (compatible DVD burner required to burn DVDs; compatible Blu-ray burner required to burn Blu-ray Discs)
• DV/i.LINK/FireWire/IEEE 1394 interface to connect a Digital 8 or DV camcorder, or a USB2 interface to connect a DV-via-USB-compatible DV camcorder (other video devices supported via the Media Downloader)

Note: To check basic system information, such as processor speed and how much RAM is installed, choose Start > Control Panel > System.

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.

Adobe Premiere Elements 4 is designed to take advantage of display cards with accelerated GPUs. If you are having playback issues, 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:

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.

Note: Video overlay is not available for HDV projects.

To disable overlay options in Adobe Premiere Elements:

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.

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--preferably the fastest disk;as the project file.

To change the scratch disk setting in Adobe Premiere Elements, choose Edit > Preferences > Scratch Disks. See the Adobe Premiere Elements User Guide for more information.

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 website 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.

Note: DVIO works only with DV (standard definition digital video cameras and footage) and was designed for Windows XP. It may or may not work on Windows Vista. For Windows Vista, try Microsoft Movie Maker, which is included with the operating system.

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 "Error occurs or no video appears when you try to capture DV (Adobe Premiere 6.x on Windows)" (TechNote 321276).

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.

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 card manufacturer for an updated driver, or download one from the manufacturer's website. (To determine the manufacturer of a video card, view the card's properties in Device Manager.)

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:

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 start Windows in a simplified mode:

Then, try to re-create the problem:

• If the problem no longer occurs, one of the startup items conflicts with Adobe Premiere Elements. Re-enable 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 re-enable them.

To re-enable startup items:

Connect an external device to the computer (such as a DV camcorder via Firewire) and test the playback of your project. If playback stutters on the external device, the graphics card is the most likely cause. Contact the manufacturer of the graphics card to find out if there are updated drivers available or known issues with your device.

Note: Not all external devices can display incoming DV signals. With those that can, you may need to adjust the camera's settings to display the signal. Check the product manual or contact the manufacturer to find out if and how your camera works with incoming DV signals.

To test playback on an external device:

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.

For playback of DV media:

• 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.)

For playback of HDV media:

• Two or more 7200 RPM UDMA 133 IDE 80GB SATA drives in Zero Raid configuration (recommended)

or

• A dedicated large capacity 7200 RPM UDMA 133 IDE/SATA or SCSI hard disk capable of sustained rates up to 20 MB/s

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:

• 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.

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 may result in poor or stuttered playback.

To render and export the project:

You can see if other Adobe customers have a similar problem by visiting the User to User Forums at www.adobeforums.com. If other users have experienced the same problem, then Adobe Technical Support may be able duplicate and research the problem.

Reformat the hard disk, and then install only Windows and Adobe Premiere Elements 4 from the original installation media. Reformatting a disk erases all files it contains, so be sure to back up all personal files first. Also make sure that you have all application and system disks and necessary serial numbers.

Note: Don't install additional software or hardware until you're sure that the problem is resolved. Don't back up the hard disk and restore Windows and Adobe Premiere Elements 4 instead of reinstalling them; if the problem is caused by an application or Windows, and either is restored instead of reinstalled, the problem may recur.

After you reformat the hard disk and reinstall Windows, try to re-create the problem. Then do one of the following:

• If the problem no longer occurs, install other applications one at a time and try to re-create the problem after each installation. If the problem occurs after an installation, the recently installed application may be the cause.
• If the problem occurs when only Windows and Adobe Premiere Elements 4 are installed, the cause is hardware-related, and you should contact the hardware manufacturer or an authorized reseller for assistance.

If none of the above steps has resolved the installation problem that you are experiencing with Premiere Elements, then you should contact Adobe Technical Support. You can find the support options at the Adobe Support Center.