Problem with very slow video preview (and workaround solution!)

[smoefer]

Hello everyone,

I've been using Videopad for a couple of weeks and liked its simple use so much, I even decided to (finally) dump Windows 7 and install Windows 10 yesterday, figuring it was finally time to squeeze all the juice out of the desktop and use Videopad as efficiently as possible. I was horrified to find the preview window freezing even more than before, even with only one video playing. And it was constant, you could describe it as a preview video having a maximum of 5 FPS. Unusable!

I just got home from work to give it one last shot. Looking at options, changing resolution of the preview to like 500x something (I'm on a 4k monitor) changing FPS, again, nothing happened. On my way to the X in the top right of the window I saw a tiny (and I do mean tiny) button. Hovering over it, it says: UnDock the preview to a seperate window. Holy cow, the freezing is gone! All the video, text overlays, audio, everything in the sequence is as fluent as a finished, exported video! No joke, EVERY text, transition, smooth as silk.

So now I just have a floating window where the preview would normally be docked and I am a happy camper.

The reason for making an account and posting is this simple message is that I Googled this problem for an hour but nothing helped. So to everyone having problems with slow, freezing preview video: try undocking the window. It might be the miracle cure.

To NCH software: thank you for this great piece of free software. It's perfect for my simple, annual project.

Best regards,

Maarten

Ps: system specs i5 6600K, 16gb ram, Radeon 280X 3gb, raid0 2x250gb SSD. These specs are the reason in the end I just couldn't accept a freezing preview window!

 

[borate]

Interesting.  You might want to update the video driver to the latest - from the chip or card manufacturer's WEB site,

[eltonbuddha]

Hi Maarten,

I got excited when I read your post. I've been having the devil's own time with sequence preview since upgrading to VP 6.10.  I've tried every suggestion on this forum related to preview issues, to no avail.  But I hadn't tried undocking the preview window. It does indeed make things much better, but...  What actually is happening is export within VP (probably to the cache), rather than to an external file. Notice that if you change any of the clips in the sequence, the floating preview window rebuilds, and it does so as slowly as if you were exporting. So what this procedure actually does is give you a preview of a sequence export.  If your sequence has many clips and lots of effects, and you change anything, the floating preview starts all over and can take quite a while before it's ready to be played. Trying to play before it finishes this is really ugly.

I have to say, this is more convenient than actually doing an export and then pulling that file back into the project (which is what I've been doing for weeks), so I'm grateful you've discovered this trick and told us about it.

 

 

[eltonbuddha]

(Just a placeholder post. I forgot to enable notification of replies on the above.)

[eltonbuddha]

OOpps. Spoke too soon.  I just discovered that some changes will cause the floating preview to get the flu.  I duplicated a sequence that played fine in the undocked window, but applied sharpen to all the clips in the new sequence. Not only does preview start to falter at the clip boundaries (as regular preview always does) , but it actually plays differently each time. Maybe the boundary between the 2nd and 3rd clip causes a stutter, say, but if I restart the preview, the stuttering spreads to other clip boundaries, until after 6 or 7 replays, I'm almost back to my old friend: the impossible-to-watch preview.  Have you noticed this? 

[borate]

Video editing is resource intensive.  What are your PC's specs:  free space, CPU, video card, RAM, etc.?

If you'd like someone to check out the issue, here's how...

1.  In Videopad click the FILE menu, then SAVE PORTABLE PROJECT AS.  Save to any convenient folder.

2.  Open the folder that contains the saved files and ZIP them all.

3.  Upload the zip file to DropBox, Google Drive, MS OneDrive or the like.  It's free.

4.  Make the uploaded file public (share it) and copy the shared link.

5.  Paste the link into this forum.

[eltonbuddha]

Hi again Borate,

I'm the guy who started this thread last month: 

We went through all this back then, with no permanent solution, just a collection of suggestions to minimize the effects of the myriad bugs in sequence preview. I sent 2 or 3 small projects that you and a couple others worked with. There was nothing for it but suggestions on how to rebuild the project being careful to apply effects in specific order to avoid the land mines. None of those suggestions work in general.  No developers picked up on that thread so there's no real resolution so far.

But just to refresh, I'm running Windows 10, up to date video driver, VP cache in SSD, 16 GB RAM, 1TB hard drive, adjusting preview resolution constantly with varying results.  The product is just wildly unpredictable and unstable with video effects at clip boundaries.

[Nationalsolo]

Hi

You could try this method. It pretty well ensures I don't get any hangups with large projects on my old slowish Vista system......

MS Windows Vista Home Premium 32 bit SP2
Intel Core Duo CPU E4500 @ 2.20Ghz, 2.0GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GS

This is the general way I work when I have many (100+) clips to edit...

1. I convert the original 1920 x 1080 HD  MPEG4 clips to Low res MPEG2 clips of the same size. I use the free Any Video Converter to do this but NCH PRISM will also convert clips. The file size of the Mpeg2 can be further reduced in file size using the  AVC parameters to produce files of around 1/4 or even less than the original .(Don't think Prism will do this)
2. Put the original HD MPEG4 away in their own folder.
3. Put the converted MPEG2 clips in their own folder. Ensure that the names are identical to the original clips. (This is important since AVC, as well as producing .mpg files  also adds a further tag (which has to be removed) to the original name. If there are a lot of files to rename this can be a bit tedious but I use  Irfanview (also free) to do a batch rename in a few seconds.
4. Open VP and load the Low res MPEG2 clips to the clip bin
5. Under Tools/options/Display Set the Preview resolution to 512 x 288 (16:9)
6. Load ALL the clips to the timeline and wait for VP to load cache and index etc. I generally now clear the cache of unused files.
7. I then work along the timeline using the clip preview IN/OUT markers to trim the clips. There are no gaps to close this way. I  drag/drop clips along the timeline to change their order if necessary. VP does this with no stops or "Generating preview" messages.
8. I make regular vpj saves (Save project as) saving with incremental numbers each time.
9. When editing is finished I swap the MPEG2 files with the original MPEG4 files and load the last project .vpj save.
10. I Export

As the names are the same the project loads with the HD clips complete with all the edits and all effects and titles/texts etc..

Using low res clips and a low res preview screen markedly speeds up the caching etc. Unless you regularly undock the previews and use them enlarged the detail is OK for editing. No problems with adding effects or transitions. In fact with my current project with 92 clips (1/3 of the whole film) I have added crossfades to all the joins and I simply edit them out if needs be as I reach them. Crossfades are retained when the clips are trimmed with the IN/OUT markers and the whole thing works OK. Not tried this method however with multiple tracks.(3+) but it should be just as effective.  I don't like using the undocked preview overmuch as it does cover things unless reduced to near the size of the undocked window and even so can be subject to gliches.One advantage is that it can be moved about.

Nat

 

[Dezzick]

This literally solved my problem. Having 3 monitors makes this solution even better for me. Thank you so much.

 

 

Update: Still some lag but its no where near as bad as before. 

[borate]

Check out the 'sticky' post near the top of this forum:  Proxy Editing.