Building preview

[Dazzray]

On rel 4.10, I'm finding it almost impossible to effectively edit because just about any clip or sequence I try to play constantly gives me "Building Preview". It wasn't this bad when I first started using VP. This is occurring with HD 1080p clips.

 

I'm using a Dell Inspiron desktop with four I-5 Intel 3.10 GHz processors, a 7200 rpm HDD, and 8GB ram (no special graphics card).

 

Why is this editor so slow now? Can I expect 4.11 to be faster?

[c_major]

"Building Preview" often happens while loading long videos. It take sometime to generates the cache. After caching is finished the performance should back to normal.

 

We constantly improving VP for each new release. You can try out and compare.

 

We also did some major speed optimizations for the upcoming release (in testing now).

 

 

Best Regards,

[Dazzray]

I'm using 4.11.

 

To test what you said about building the cache, I loaded a clip into the preview, waited several seconds, and played it in the preview. At 9 seconds into the clip, I got the "building preview" message. I restarted the playback from the beginning, and at 9 seconds I got the message again. Again I restarted playback from the beginning, same results. No matter how many times I restarted from the beginning of the clip, I get the message at 9 seconds.

 

So it doesn't seem that VP is loading the entire clip into cache, but apparently just some fixed amount. Is there a way I can increase the cache size, or make some other adjustment to resolve this? It's very frustrating!

[c_major]

We'll release the next version as soon as the testing is finished. We've done quite a few improvements to speed up the video processing pipeline.

 

I just tried loading a 1080p video and also preview at 1080p on my computer here. It is the same as yours (i5 3.1GHz). The new version runs much more smoother then v4.11. None of the versions got "building preview" though.

 

Maybe you can check if any background process (e.g. anti-virus) making the CPU busy?

[Dazzray]

Task Manager shows total CPU at 32%, Memory at 46% while the clip plays; CPU briefly jumps to 62% after "Building preview" appears, and Memory stays at 46%.

[daorus]

Task Manager shows total CPU at 32%, Memory at 46% while the clip plays; CPU briefly jumps to 62% after "Building preview" appears, and Memory stays at 46%.

 

Dazzray, CPU and memory does not affect your probjem.

I have E8400 and 4Gb RAM and Windows XP and use Videopad for about 1 year or a bit less.

There are 2 ways to increase edit speed

 

1) Options change Preview Resolution to Width 240 x Height 135

 

2) Use SSD Disk instead of HDD. You can store all files on HDD, but when you want to edit video, just copy files you want to edit and edit them. When you are done, copy result back to HDD. Using SSD will speed your edit to about 3-4 times. You will defintly see the speed gain. As for me, I use 500G HDD for storage and 16G SSD for Windows, Videpad and videofiles I currenlty edit. And I have very fast editing system as result.

[Dazzray]

Daorus,

 

You are a scholar! I had preview res set to 1920x1080... reduced it to 512x288 and much better playback. 4K videos playback better too, though still stutter. I'll look into an SSD.

Thank you!

[c_major]

Dazzray, CPU and memory does not affect your probjem.

I have E8400 and 4Gb RAM and Windows XP and use Videopad for about 1 year or a bit less.

There are 2 ways to increase edit speed

 

1) Options change Preview Resolution to Width 240 x Height 135

 

2) Use SSD Disk instead of HDD. You can store all files on HDD, but when you want to edit video, just copy files you want to edit and edit them. When you are done, copy result back to HDD. Using SSD will speed your edit to about 3-4 times. You will defintly see the speed gain. As for me, I use 500G HDD for storage and 16G SSD for Windows, Videpad and videofiles I currenlty edit. And I have very fast editing system as result.

 

Thanks for sharing the experience. I always thinking the CPU was the bottle neck. This is eye opening!

 

Task Manager shows total CPU at 32%, Memory at 46% while the clip plays; CPU briefly jumps to 62% after "Building preview" appears, and Memory stays at 46%.

 

The upcoming version will use multi-core for video processing. It will utilize more CPU and Memory resource and trade them for speed.

[Mach10]

I am a brand new user of VideoPad, as of today, Sept 30, 2015, version 4.11. I have put together a video using MP4 clips created by my Samsung Galaxy S6 phone and with that production, "Building Preview" hardly showed up.

 

A completely different story, however, for a second production, using m2t files generated by exporting video from a Sony HDR-HC7 camcorder, which records on digital tape. This production VERY FREQUENTLY (like every 5 seconds) throws up "Building Preview", blocking my editing screen. This makes editing a video for all intent and purposes an IMPOSSIBLE task.

 

It's nice to hear about things maybe being resolved in an "upcoming version", but I need the fix now. I've just bought the program and it is failing.

 

This is on a new ASUS laptop, with 8 Mb of RAM, an Intel Core i5 Fifth Generation processor on Windows 10 Home. I've got the preview resolution to the tiniest one in the program. There is absolutely no excuse for buggy software. Please fix this. Now.

 

Please help!

Thanks.

[c_major]

Hi Mach10,

 

Are you getting Building Preview when cache bar (the green bar on top of the clip) is filled up? The preview play back wound be much smoother when the cache bar is filled up. Sometime you need wait the cache finish to edit smoothly. Longer clips take longer to cache.

 

Could you also check if other application running in the background?

 

Best Regards,