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Poor performance and stuttering

Posted: Wed Mar 29, 2006 11:05 am
by MattW
Gentlemen:
I have had performance problems with Multiquence. I have read the Help section, FAQ, and Forums but I am still experiencing poor performance.

Specifically: when previewing in the editor the clips will “stutter”, repeating about 3 seconds then moving forward and stuttering again. I will receive the warning message in the status bar indicating that I have insufficient system resources.

Circumstances: I have this problem after performing an edit, e.g. splitting or cutting to beginning. This will happen with only one (1) video and one (1) audio track (5 minutes) loaded in Multiquence. I have tried to lighten the load on the system by shrinking the size or even muting the video. The problem will resolve if I exit and restart Multiquence. Then will reoccur after the next edit.

Paradox: When I view my system information, Task Manager indicates that I am only using 20% of my CPU and about 250MB of 512MB memory.

Things I have tried: I have changed my performance settings for both video and audio cards, ended other system process to run a “clean” machine.

Question: Other than my sound card the system would be considered “high performance”, e.g. Dell Dimension 8100 XPS. I am using a cheap audio card (SB live). If the sound card is the problem I don’t mind replacing it; however if it is not the problem I do not wish to waste the time and money.

I appreciate any insight you have.

Very truly,
Matt Walters
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Re: Poor performance and stuttering

Posted: Wed Mar 29, 2006 12:24 pm
by OKCBoy
MattW wrote:Specifically: when previewing in the editor the clips will “stutter”, repeating about 3 seconds then moving forward and stuttering again. I will receive the warning message in the status bar indicating that I have insufficient system resources.
I have similar problems, but I'm not processing video; audio only.

It occurs when I have several fader changes in multiple sections happen simultaneously (typically fade-outs). I've always just assumed my 1.5 Pentium IV with 512MB RAM was insufficient.

Posted: Fri Mar 31, 2006 2:22 pm
by Stiiv
What codec was used to create the original video file? Some of the newer codecs push P3/P4 processors really hard (like huffyUV, for instance). I have a 5-year-old P3 @ 933 with 512mb ram, & rarely, if ever, have that kind of problem in MQ.

Note also that, while cheap, the SBLive sound card does a pretty good job for a consumer card...especially with WDM (winME & above) drivers.

Re: Poor performance and stuttering

Posted: Fri Mar 31, 2006 5:34 pm
by GoldWave Inc.
If you are working with Apple Quicktime Movies (.MOV files) or MP4 files, then there is a problem with recent versions of Quicktime that causes audio to decode very slowly. Apple is working on it, but an alternative method of decoding will be implemented in a future version of Multiquence anyway.

Try saving the audio section as a 16 bit Wave file and replace that section in your project to see if that helps.

Chris

Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 11:37 am
by MattW
Format is AVI. I captured the video/audio from a Digital 8 cam using Movie Maker. I avoid Quicktime like th plague.

Thanks.

Posted: Wed Apr 05, 2006 4:47 pm
by GoldWave Inc.
If saving the audio track as an uncompressed 16 bit wave file does not solve the problem, it is most likely a problem with the sound driver.

Also try lowering the playback quality under Options | Playback to see if that makes any difference.

Chris

Posted: Thu Apr 06, 2006 12:15 pm
by MattW
Thanks Chris,

I had downloaded the latest drivers prior to my first posting. I also used 11K playback rate. Also, I had loaded the file and then saved as audio using 16bit, then created a new project using the 8bit track. I think that I am not taxing Multiquence at all.

This seems to be pointing to my audio card. Do you agree?

Thanks,
Matt

Posted: Fri Apr 07, 2006 9:09 pm
by GoldWave Inc.
If you have access to another computer with different sound hardware, then try installing the evaluation version of Multiquence and a copy of the AVI file to see how it performs.

Chris