<p>Premiere's preview isn't simply a viewer and can't make as much use of caching as it needs to be able to scrub quickly in any direction.  Interframe compression also trips it up for the same reason.  I believe it also processes the entire amount of data.  The video size you are using is pretty large and bandwidth intensive, so unless you are working from very fast disks (solid state) (or a fast CPU if it is heavily compressed) and have fast RAM to deal with the rate of uncompressed data, it is easy for the playback to fall behind.</p>

<p>The related questions talk a bit more about methods of getting around this (such as letting Premiere finish generating conformed versions of the video or reducing the resolution of playback so that not all pixels have to be rendered).</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-03-11T20:22:09.510Z
Data rate is only 4MB/s. Also Windows Media Player plays it smoothly while Premiere preview is choppy even on 1/8 resolution
Poma
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-03-11T20:26:10.793Z
If your data rate is only 4MB/sec then you have to be using some seriously heavy compression.  Your uncompressed video is around 124 MB a second (which is what that video has to decode to).  Premiere will try to fully decode the stream which is going to be pretty CPU intensive for that much decoding.  How is your CPU and/or GPU utilization during playback?  I'm a bit surprised about the 1/8th still being a problem in that case, h.264 in general doesn't handle well in NLEs though, so conforming is still the best bet normally.
AJ Henderson
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-03-11T22:37:35.533Z
@Poma - It does seem like it is a performance issue, even without conforming, I was able to play back a GoPro 2.7k file on my rig in Premiere Pro with no issues.  I've got a 2.93ghz fist gen i7 with 12GB of high speed triple channel ram and a Radeon 6970 graphics card.  I tried playing it back in quicktime and it stuttered a bit, but playing it in Premiere was smoother.  There still was a little bit of bounciness, but my impression was that that was the original footage.  Even a 4k sample was ok.
AJ Henderson
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-03-11T23:01:38.460Z
looks like the cause of the problem was software rendering. In project settings I have only `Mercury Playback Engine Software Only`. Don't know how to fix it though.
Poma
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-03-11T23:04:41.977Z
@Poma - that's the only option I have as well, but it still runs fine.  That is just because you don't have CUDA support, however you could try one of the CUDA hacks to get the 650M to be recognized for CUDA support.  It may be that your 2.3ghz processor is too slow without CUDA support though.  There is a nice write up on enabling CUDA on non-officially supported NVidia cards [here](http://www.pointsinfocus.com/learning/digital-darkroom/enable-cuda-in-premier-pro-cs6-without-a-quadro/)
AJ Henderson
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-03-12T06:43:59.353Z
Just installed premiere updates that adds GeForce 650M support without hacks. Now everything works smoothly.
Poma
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-03-11T19:49:21.897Z
2014-03-11T20:28:49.753Z
2014-03-11T20:28:49.753Z
AJ Henderson
<p>Anyone who is still having poor playback issues with Adobe Premiere CC you need to go to Edit -> Preferences -> Audio Hardware -> and change your Default Input to "No Input". </p>

<p>Boom. </p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-03-20T01:46:34.577Z
Thank you so so much, there is no way I would figure this out myself within the next few hours if not your answer. I did not have the faintest idea that plugging it my headphones could result in such a *drastic* decrease in performance without changing this setting. Like really, I had a 480p rendered video stuttering. Thanks much!
Nicofisi
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-11-03T22:28:31.067Z
2015-11-03T22:28:31.067Z
Vaporizer Wizard
<p>I had this as well one time. Solution for me was to edit in the correct video mode and fps. Maybe you can try to create a sequence from a standard HD DSLR preset? Or first try to edit in that preset. Prem 6.0 was created with native h.264 support, so you shouldn't need any proxies. </p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-03-12T06:42:50.520Z
The problem was with *source* preview so it has nothing to do with the sequence. But I chose to match sequence format to source video anyway.
Poma
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-03-12T06:37:04.630Z
2014-03-12T06:37:04.630Z
user5683
<p>Video in source preview is lagging but it plays fine in video players. What may cause this? Why premiere is not using standard codecs for source preview?</p>

<p>Specs:
Video is: h264 2704x1536 @29.97fps (GoPro footage)
System is: Core i7 2.3, 8GB RAM, GeForce GT 650M (MacBook Pro, bootcamp)
Adobe Premiere CS 6</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-03-11T19:45:32.367Z
Possibly Related... http://video.stackexchange.com/questions/9976/editing-1440p-47-fps-in-premiere-pro-cs6
AJ Henderson
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-03-11T19:45:42.027Z
Also... http://video.stackexchange.com/questions/8133/adobe-premiere-preview-video-lagging
AJ Henderson
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-12-25T11:17:10.690Z
Anyone still having this problem ? Im using CS6, and my video preview is lagging. But when I play the video using windows player, the video was smooth. and I also tried with premiere CC, the video went smoothly. But why CS6 isn't ?
Hanzo
<video><video-editor><premiere>
Adobe premiere is lagging in preview window
Poma
# Adobe premiere is lagging in preview window

(Asked by: username_0 on 2014-03-11)

Video in source preview is lagging but it plays fine in video players. What may cause this? Why premiere is not using standard codecs for source preview?

Specs:
Video is: h264 2704x1536 @29.97fps (GoPro footage)
System is: Core i7 2.3, 8GB RAM, GeForce GT 650M (MacBook Pro, bootcamp)
Adobe Premiere CS 6

**Tags:** video, video-editor, premiere

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Possibly Related... http://video.stackexchange.com/questions/9976/editing-1440p-47-fps-in-premiere-pro-cs6  
> **username_1**: Also... http://video.stackexchange.com/questions/8133/adobe-premiere-preview-video-lagging  
> **username_2**: Anyone still having this problem ? Im using CS6, and my video preview is lagging. But when I play the video using windows player, the video was smooth. and I also tried with premiere CC, the video went smoothly. But why CS6 isn't ?  

---

## 3 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2014-03-11. Score: 1 | Accepted answer

Premiere's preview isn't simply a viewer and can't make as much use of caching as it needs to be able to scrub quickly in any direction. Interframe compression also trips it up for the same reason. I believe it also processes the entire amount of data. The video size you are using is pretty large and bandwidth intensive, so unless you are working from very fast disks (solid state) (or a fast CPU if it is heavily compressed) and have fast RAM to deal with the rate of uncompressed data, it is easy for the playback to fall behind.

The related questions talk a bit more about methods of getting around this (such as letting Premiere finish generating conformed versions of the video or reducing the resolution of playback so that not all pixels have to be rendered).

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Data rate is only 4MB/s. Also Windows Media Player plays it smoothly while Premiere preview is choppy even on 1/8 resolution  
> **username_1**: If your data rate is only 4MB/sec then you have to be using some seriously heavy compression.  Your uncompressed video is around 124 MB a second (which is what that video has to decode to).  Premiere will try to fully decode the stream which is going to be pretty CPU intensive for that much decoding.  How is your CPU and/or GPU utilization during playback?  I'm a bit surprised about the 1/8th still being a problem in that case, h.264 in general doesn't handle well in NLEs though, so conforming is still the best bet normally.  
> **username_1**: @username_0 - It does seem like it is a performance issue, even without conforming, I was able to play back a GoPro 2.7k file on my rig in Premiere Pro with no issues.  I've got a 2.93ghz fist gen i7 with 12GB of high speed triple channel ram and a Radeon 6970 graphics card.  I tried playing it back in quicktime and it stuttered a bit, but playing it in Premiere was smoother.  There still was a little bit of bounciness, but my impression was that that was the original footage.  Even a 4k sample was ok.  
> **username_0**: looks like the cause of the problem was software rendering. In project settings I have only `Mercury Playback Engine Software Only`. Don't know how to fix it though.  
> **username_1**: @username_0 - that's the only option I have as well, but it still runs fine.  That is just because you don't have CUDA support, however you could try one of the CUDA hacks to get the 650M to be recognized for CUDA support.  It may be that your 2.3ghz processor is too slow without CUDA support though.  There is a nice write up on enabling CUDA on non-officially supported NVidia cards [here](http://www.pointsinfocus.com/learning/digital-darkroom/enable-cuda-in-premier-pro-cs6-without-a-quadro/)  
> **username_0**: Just installed premiere updates that adds GeForce 650M support without hacks. Now everything works smoothly.  

---

### Answer by username_3 on 2015-11-03. Score: 1

Anyone who is still having poor playback issues with Adobe Premiere CC you need to go to Edit -> Preferences -> Audio Hardware -> and change your Default Input to "No Input".

Boom.

> **Comments:**
> **username_4**: Thank you so so much, there is no way I would figure this out myself within the next few hours if not your answer. I did not have the faintest idea that plugging it my headphones could result in such a *drastic* decrease in performance without changing this setting. Like really, I had a 480p rendered video stuttering. Thanks much!  

---

### Answer by username_5 on 2014-03-12. Score: 0

I had this as well one time. Solution for me was to edit in the correct video mode and fps. Maybe you can try to create a sequence from a standard HD DSLR preset? Or first try to edit in that preset. Prem 6.0 was created with native h.264 support, so you shouldn't need any proxies.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: The problem was with *source* preview so it has nothing to do with the sequence. But I chose to match sequence format to source video anyway.  

---

