Hello,

a customer using Pinnacle Studio 24 has complained about a very slow and freezing preview. If he adds a clip to the timeline, the brown bar stays there for more than a minute and even if finished, the video is not playing without hangs. The CPU is occupied by Pinnacle and the background renderer. It's only a small clip, about 5 minutes. Even if he just adds two JPGs, it takes almost a minute to render.

He is using a HP Mobile Workstation with an 8th Gen i7, 32 GB RAM and of course SSD. There a two graphics cards available: Intel UHD 620 and Radeon Pro WX 3100.

What I have tried:

- All options regarding hardware acceleration. ("Automatic" selected "AMD", but the other options did not make a difference.)
- Update Windows 10 and all drivers.
- Setting the display options so that Pinnacle and the background renderer always run on the Radeon.

Is there a known problem with systems with more than one GPU? What else could I try?

Thank you!

Hi and welcome to this forum.

If you turn off background rendering, is editing smooth enough ?

Hi saby,

yes, I have tried that. It makes no difference if background rendering is enabled or not.

One thing to add: even if I wait for the "brown bar" to turn green, playback is not running smooth and the sound has dropouts.

Weird !

Once background rendering finished, the preview is using basic Mpeg2 files. Any modern, even low end computer, should be able to read it easily.

BTW, how does the sample project behave ?

Other users with multiple different brand GPU's had this same issue.  Seems mostly on laptops.  Seem like the bios disables one or the other depending on the bios revision.  You can right click on the desktop, go to display settings and select which GPU to use for each program.  If you see only one GPU choice, not both Intel & AMD in your case, then you need a bios and or driver update.

Studio does not use GPU to playback Mpeg2 => GPU can't be the culprit when background rendering is enabled and render is finished.

Someone on the forum experienced something like this because PS was using the Intel CPU for playback, but the GPU portions of the chip were disabled by the bios because there was another GPU in the laptop.

Also, playback stutters and skips if not on the library tab.

MWK,

What are the video clip properties being used (eg 4k)? How many frames per second (fps)? And you mentioned adding two jpegs. What happens with just one jpeg? Any jpeg? Also, what are the properties of your timeline? Does it match the clip's properties or is it different?

I'm having a similar issue. The preview is very sluggish. The nvidia overlay shows me getting 1 FPS. I have a 3080 and turning hardware acceleration on or off has no effect, nor does jiggling many of the other settings.

water_bear:

I'm having a similar issue. The preview is very sluggish. The nvidia overlay shows me getting 1 FPS. I have a 3080 and turning hardware acceleration on or off has no effect, nor does jiggling many of the other settings.

You haven't filled out your user profile with important information, like your computer specs. See mine below as an example. You also failed to give what type of files you are editing, what the timeline and Export and Preview settings are, and if you are talking about waiting for the timeline to render.

Tony P:

water_bear:

I'm having a similar issue. The preview is very sluggish. The nvidia overlay shows me getting 1 FPS. I have a 3080 and turning hardware acceleration on or off has no effect, nor does jiggling many of the other settings.

You haven't filled out your user profile with important information, like your computer specs. See mine below as an example. You also failed to give what type of files you are editing, what the timeline and Export and Preview settings are, and if you are talking about waiting for the timeline to render.

Specs are pretty similar to yours. 

• AMD Ryzen 5 3600X 6-Core, 3.80 GHz
  
• Windows 10 pro
• 16 GB RAM, 3600 OC
• Zotac 3080 AMP Holo
  

Question. Are you playing back the clips as soon as you place them on the timeline, or are you letting the timeline render completely. Also, Optimization is set to 100 which will cause your timeline to constantly render. Change it to something like 50.

If you can upload a sample of your GoPro video to the cloud, I will download and test on my computer.

Tony P:

Question. Are you playing back the clips as soon as you place them on the timeline, or are you letting the timeline render completely. Also, Optimization is set to 100 which will cause your timeline to constantly render. Change it to something like 50.

If you can upload a sample of your GoPro video to the cloud, I will download and test on my computer.

Well now it's playing somewhat smoothly. It sounds like I need to wait for it to render before playing. I'm a beginner so still learning how this works.

I have it set to 70 here. I adjust to the point where transitions and effects will render on the timeline (brown bar to green, and then disappear) if I want to see what the effect looks like. Otherwise, you can put it at "0" and you should have smooth playback.

What is the resolution of the GoPro files? 

 

Hello all,

thank you for your responses!

I also think the problem could be related to the fact that the notebook has two graphics cards. But BIOS and drivers are updated and I can see both in Windows and select them per application.

The GoPro video files are in 4K with 90fps. I have converted them to 30fps with VLC for a test. The customer is also using videos from an iPad which does not have specs this high.

It's also not working with only one jpeg. The sound is "freezing" to.

I will try to change the optimization and disable the internal GPU in BIOS.

4K at 90fps? On my computer spec'ed below, I can work with 4K at 50P.

So, you are using different resolutions and frame rates on the timeline? 

I've never had anything go wrong with displaying a jpeg image, and I work with them all the time. 

 

I have found a slightly stupid "solution" to this, as discussed in this topic: http://forums.pinnaclesys.com/forums/thread/812794.aspx

Basically you convert your input to lower resolution (I did half of FullHD) versions and use those for editing, then, when it's time to render, just replace them with originals. Sounds inefficient, but in my case the whole conversion process took less time than sitting and waiting for PS24 to wake up after every couple of seconds of playing a preview. And you can run it while doing something else.

Used this tool: https://handbrake.fr/ with the "Production proxy 540p" preset, at the bottom of the selection tree, with lowered bitrate (it is very generous to quality otherwise, the "temp" files come out several times bigger than originals). You basically give it a folder with the files (or load a single file), give an output folder (or not, it will just rename the output files and then you can copy/rename things around) pick the settings and then do Add to Queue - Add All and press Start Encode. Done.

What you are doing is in a way, creating lower resolution proxy files for easier timeline editing. It would be nice if Pinnacle could do that without you having to resort to this.

If you have ever used the Multicam Editor, that is what it does. Creates proxy files for easier multicam editing. 

I personally have not had initial performance issues with my computer. What I have been thinking of doing though, and I am sure, those with bigger brain pans will correct me if I am wrong, but placing 4k videos on the timeline, and then change the timeline setting to a much lower resolution, along with changing Quality in Export and Preview, to Fastest.

Then when time to Export, change the settings there to reflect the real resolution of the file. 

I haven't tried it yet, too much other work, but want to...

That is what i do.  I use 1080p timeline settings for all my 4k projects.  You don't need to change the timeline to 4k before export, just export at 4k.

Tony P:

Then when time to Export, change the settings there to reflect the real resolution of the file. 

I haven't tried it yet, too much other work, but want to...

Just purchased an DJI Osmo Action camera. If I get a chance this weekend, I'll shoot some 4k and test your suggested workflow.

acsscott:

That is what i do.  I use 1080p timeline settings for all my 4k projects.  You don't need to change the timeline to 4k before export, just export at 4k.

Interesting acsscott. I wonder if there is some re-rendering or up-scaling issue with your method. I'll give it a go and compare the output results for the following scenarios:

1. 4k file on 4k timeline; apply some edits; render 4k
2. 4k file on 1080p timeline, convert back to 4k timeline after edit; render 4k
3. 4k file on 1080p timeline; apply some edits; render 4k
   

The timeline settings have nothing to do with the output resolution or quality of the export.  As long as the export aspect ratio is the same as the timeline aspect ratio, you're good.

acsscott:

The timeline settings have nothing to do with the output resolution or quality of the export.  As long as the export aspect ratio is the same as the timeline aspect ratio, you're good.

Hi acsscott. Just a little confused with your last statement. Do you actually mean; "As long as the export aspect ratio is the same as the original clip ratio." Because if my export is the same as my timeline and my time line is 1920x1080 then I wouldn't be rendering a 4k video with the aspect ratio of 3840x2160 (4k UHD). Typo? 

A different timeline aspect ratio than export ratio will make changes to titles and effects.

 I have no issues between 4k and 1080p. 

Hmm, output resolution may make the preview generation faster, but it will still happen every single time you mildly change something. From my experience so far making reasonably low resolution temporary files allows to turn previews off completely and enjoy some smooth sailing from there.

It may not be the most efficient way, but it does provide results.