Troubleshoot digital video playback | Adobe Premiere Elements 7

When use an outdated IEEE1394 digital video device (FireWire/i.LINK) with Adobe Premiere Elements 7, video or audio play can stutter or play too fast. These issues can occur when you play back video or export it from the Timeline. 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occur if system components aren't optimized or don't meet the requirements for digital video, or if device drivers are outdated.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 can occur in Adobe Premiere Elements, Adobe Premiere Elements isn't necessarily cause of the problem.

Work through these tasks if video plays too fast, stutters, or drops frames when you 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 Adobe Premiere Elements Timeline to determine if the problem is resolved.

The tasks in this section can assist you in resolving 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 doesn't 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. Dual Core processor required for AVCHD
• Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 2 or Windows Vista
• For Windows XP: 512 MB of RAM (1 GB required for HDV, AVCHD or Blu-ray)
• For Windows Vista: 1 GB 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
• 1,024 x 768 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)
• QuickTime

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

Media files sometimes require rendering 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 reduce the dependence on the available system resources.

Adobe Premiere Elements 7 is designed to take advantage of display cards with accelerated GPUs. If you are having playback issues, make sure that 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.

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.

Disable overlay options in Adobe Premiere Elements:

Peripheral devices that connect to the computer via USB, serial, SCSI, parallel, or FireWire ports can disrupt video playback when the device driver requests system resources. (Peripheral devices include printers, network cables, scanners, and modems.) 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, it's best when clips and previews are 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 to determine if the system can play digital video without problems. (You can use Private Entity DVIO, which you can download 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 doesn't always 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) (321276).

If clips stutter during playback, it's possible that your system configuration doesn't meet the requirements for digital video. Verify that the hardware and software configuration you use is compatible with digital video components. For more information, see Microsoft DirectX Frequently Asked Questions at www.microsoft.com/windows/directx/productinfo/faq/default.mspx.

Outdated or flawed video display card drivers sometimes incorrectly display motion video and textures in Adobe Premiere Elements. They can also 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, see the following documents:

• Verify that device drivers are compatible with Windows Vista (Windows Vista) (kb404887).
• Verify that device drivers are compatible with Windows XP (Windows XP) (kb404864).

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

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. 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.

Reenable 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 devices that can, you sometimes have 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.

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. These utitlies can 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, a straight graph line indicates consistent data rates. Peaks indicate speed variations, which cause poor playback.)

For playback of HDV media:

• Two or more 7200-RPM UDMA 133 IDE 80-GB 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. 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, 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. They are typically slower than data rates 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, and can 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 is sometimes able to duplicate and research the problem.

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