Decklink Slow or just stops with HD playback

Hi All,

I am using Adobe Premiere CS5 with a Decklink 4K Extreme card. When I load an HD sequence using either an AVI or TGA sequence, whether it's rendered or not it either won't playback at all or if I check "turn off dropped frame warning" plays back very slowly.

My computer set up is as follows:

Intel Core i7 880@ 3.07GHz
RAM 16GB
64bit Operating system

Video runs off separate drive to projects :
NTFS 1TB drive primary partition 36% free space - Hitachi HDS723020BLA642 ATA

Any suggestions please?

Cheers
Dave

[Albert Chu]

Hello Dave,

What resolution, frame rate and codec are these HD clips?

If you are trying to play back uncompressed 8 or 10 bit HD and do not have a RAID or fast SSD, playback may not happen or may be choppy as that Hitachi may not sustain the required read/write speed.

We bundle an application called the Disk Speed Test. You can run this on your drive to see what expected capture/playback it is capable of handling.

When playing back a sequence of stills, this may be a bit more difficult for NLEs to handle. Usually, you will want to wrap these stills in a movie container, which should be easier for editing, compared to a bunch of stills.

Definitely sounds like a drive speed issue. Same thing happens to me with uncompressed HD, though I expect it to happen. Once you export your final project to a more compressed format, it'll play fine.

Thanks guys,

It is very frustrating because it has played fine before on other projects. The resolution is 1920 x 1080p. I may have to invest in a new RAID!

Cheers
Dave

Ok, something is telling me here that's it's not my drives and probably the card! I've just rendered out a 1920 x 1080 TGA sequence in Premiere Pro CS5, but using a AVCHD sequence instead of a Blackmagic option and it plays fine!!??? Ok, obviously I can't see it on my external monitor because I'm not using the card, so surely his must be a card issue? I've tried reinstalling the drivers but to no avail, I'll throw this back out to the floor!!!!

Any answers gratefully received!

Cheers
Dave