Jerky video playback in the Preview monitor is usually caused by a under-performing computer CPU. Apart from DV-AVI, which requires very little processing power, most video codecs are requiring increasing CPU power to process. In the case of HDV MPEG 2, a dual core system equivalent to 2.5ghz is necessary to get smooth playback. AVCHD requires an even faster CPU. Playback smoothness will also depend on the effects applied to the object/clip. Effects, depending on their nature, require extra performance to process and may result in jerky playback when the original clip played smoothly.

There are a some things that can be done to improve playback performance:

• Set up your computer for best performance. See the setup tips here.

• Create (or Re-create) an MPEG/AVCHD file's frametable by right-clicking on the video object on the timeline, then choosing Create Frametable.

• Experiment with the Video Playback settings (File>Settings>Program settings or similar, depending on version) to find the one that produces best playback performance.

• In the Audio Playback settings, set the Driver Selection to Wave Driver. Experiment by increasing the audio buffer number and size by a factor of 2 or 3. There will be slighly longer preloading times when you hit playback though (thanks Scenestealer).

Help has a reasonable explanation on the Playback screen: Search for "cache".

• Lower the Preview resolution:

Note that I have had trouble exporting a cropped video with other than "Full Resolution" checked: the resulting video had additional cropping applied.

For more info on this screen, search Magix On-line Help for "Video/Audio".

• Try different Video Mode settings in the Display Options dialogue:



Compatibility Mode (VideoForWindows)

Provides good performance for HDV (eg 1440x1080i) files. MEP uses the CPU.

Hardware Acceleration (Direct 3D)

• "Acceleration for High res MPEG files" ticked: CPU useage is quite low, implying that the GPU of the graphics card is being used. Users have reported that this improves performance with lower speed computers with a dedicated graphics card. However, this setting has caused problems when exporting HDV2 MPEGs: they cannot be re-imported into MEP - the video is black.
• "Acceleration for High res MPEG files" not ticked: CPU useage is quite high, implying that the GPU is not being used. With my i5 computer, this is my preferred setting.

 

Back to MEP Problems

MEP Home