AVI stutters and is jerky

[1commander]

I am not sure how to describe it besides stuttering or jerkyness (dont know if there is a difference), but the audio also stutters along with the video. This is uncompressed avi and it's size is about 1gb to 5gb - there are several files, and they all stutter now. I am not sure what caused this. They worked fine until 2 days ago. Any suggestions? This video is EXTREMELY important to me (not anime, so I cant get it back) so all suggestions are welcome.

No codecs involved. At first I thought it was a problem with premiere but the video works the sameway outside of it in MPC and windows media player, winamp, etc.

Sorry if this isnt in the correct forum, I dont know if it is hardware or software so general it was.

[Kai Stromler]

I am not sure how to describe it besides stuttering or jerkyness (dont know if there is a difference), but the audio also stutters along with the video. This is uncompressed avi and it's size is about 1gb to 5gb - there are several files, and they all stutter now. I am not sure what caused this.

That it formerly worked is what is surprising, that it stutters now is not. Trying to play back uncompressed video usually causes this problem, because the amount of data per time unit (bitrate) is way, way, way too high for your system to handle. Try compressing it with something (xvid, MPEG2, whatever) en bloc and see if the resulting version stutters -- it probably shouldn't if you're able to play other files that are in that format, at approximately the same bitrate, without problems.

hth,

--K

[Keeper of Hellfire]

Trying to play back uncompressed video usually causes this problem, because the amount of data per time unit (bitrate) is way, way, way too high for your system to handle. Try compressing it with something (xvid, MPEG2, whatever) en bloc and see if the resulting version stutters -- it probably shouldn't if you're able to play other files that are in that format, at approximately the same bitrate, without problems.

hth,

--K

Here you are wrong. The amount of data to handle for the system depends on resolution, framerate and color depth. Compressed files regularly are more difficult to handle for the system, since they cause a much higher processor load. There is one exception from this rule - you have a graphic card with acceleration for the used codec, for example MPEG2 or MPEG4. Probably he has installed something what conflicts with the media playback.

[Kai Stromler]

Here you are wrong. The amount of data to handle for the system depends on resolution, framerate and color depth. Compressed files regularly are more difficult to handle for the system, since they cause a much higher processor load. There is one exception from this rule - you have a graphic card with acceleration for the used codec, for example MPEG2 or MPEG4. Probably he has installed something what conflicts with the media playback.

This is half right, as I was half wrong. Processor speed, currently, is not the bottleneck that data bandwidth is; on my current system, I can play back Lagarith files (which require a lot of CPU to decompress) without a hitch, but playing uncompressed .avi files (at the same resolution and framerate, but RGB) causes all kinds of stutter and lag. Normally the culprit is disk bandwidth, but if it worked before, but not now, it may be something else in main memory that is cutting down on the available memory bandwidth.

--K

[Keeper of Hellfire]

Processor speed, currently, is not the bottleneck that data bandwidth is;

Yeah, disc bandwith can get an issue with uncompressed files. I forgot about that. But processor speed still can be too, especially in combination with poorly written programs like WMP. On my machine WMP played back my last DivX encoded AMV with less than 19 fps, causing that way a heavy desynch between audio and video, while the same vid as HuffyYUV played fine. But the DivX file played well too in different players. Not to assume intention from M$.

But since he said it was fine before and that all programs are affected, you probably are right and it's a matter of disc bandwith. I still think 1commander has installed something. Maybe a virus scanner or something else what slows down the data stream.

[bum]

Processor speed, currently, is not the bottleneck that data bandwidth is;

Yeah, disc bandwith can get an issue with uncompressed files.

iRAM. It has 4 DIMM's. Stick a few 1gig sticks in their and bobs your rocket charged faster than lightning mofo of an uncle. Think a year or two in the future. 2GB sticks exist, and they're afordable. Each board could theirfor hold 8gigs of storage that can be read almost instantanously. Ok so the more sticks on the board the slower its going to go, but even at 1/4 of standard pci express speed (considering 4 sticks are installed) itl still be lightning compared to mechanical disks.

[1commander]

Hi everyone,

I did install something and I am sorry I forgot to mention it. I have a Radeon 9800 video card and had the drivers from 1.3 version of catalyst I believe, which is ATI's driver software. I upgraded to the most recent version and that is when most of this happpened. However, I downgraded back to 1.3 from my original CD's and the effect remained.

According to the file info, the bit rate is 1536. I am not sure if that meets your expectations for too much, but my comp specs are 3ghz, 1gb ram, 250gb harddrive, ATI Radeon 9800... and anything else I can list, if you ask.

How would I go about compressing them or encoding them? I have Premiere Pro 1.5 but I figure there must be a better option than that for splitting the file and encoding.

[1commander]

Sorry to double post, I couldnt find the edit button in my post. But what do you mean when you say 'Disk Bandwidth' by the way?

[1commander]

Sorry I am triple posting now, but I found out something that might be useful:

Whatever skippy part of the AVI I watch, and then rewatch, it gets significantly better (althoguh I dont believe perfect). I am not familiar with caching and such systems, but it seems as if it is not buffering the video somehow... or something like that.

In sum, if I watch the AVI's first 2 min or so, and then rewatch the first 2 min (and first 2 min only) yields less skipping until after the 2min mark.

[Qyot27]

According to the file info, the bit rate is 1536. I am not sure if that meets your expectations for too much, but my comp specs are 3ghz, 1gb ram, 250gb harddrive, ATI Radeon 9800... and anything else I can list, if you ask.

Windows doesn't display it correctly for certain types of video, uncompressed included. That bitrate is the audio bitrate, and from the number (1536) it appears to be Uncompressed 48kHz PCM.

How would I go about compressing them or encoding them? I have Premiere Pro 1.5 but I figure there must be a better option than that for splitting the file and encoding.

http://www.animemusicvideos.org/guides/avtech/xvid.html