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Adding Transitions freezes and stutters playback in Preview.

I'm posting this as a new issue. Since I've narrowed down my "stuttering/freezing on playback" problem while in Preview/Edit mode.

This begins to happen as SOON as I add a transition. Whether I add it automatically, or manually.

The clips play fine without transitions in the project and the Event window. These are clips from a Kodak Zi6, I believe shot HD at 60fps, and I'm using NTSC 30fps to create the project. When I "get info" on my clips, the codecs listed are H.264 and AAC, dimensions 1280x720.

When the Movie Project is exported & viewed in QuickTime, it plays smoothly.

Any ideas are greatly appreciated, as I'd like to preview my work as I go!
This movie is LESS than one minute long!

IMac 3.06 4GG, 1TB, Mac OS X (10.5.6), Kodak Zi6, Casio EXZ850

Posted on Mar 24, 2009 7:56 AM

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31 replies

Mar 24, 2009 11:18 AM in response to JBK

Just got off the phone with Apple Support. We figured out that this problem most likely pertains to my *Kodak Zi6* movie clips.

Wondering what other users of this camera do, that might be different. When I "get info" on my Kodak clips, the codecs listed are: H.264 & AAC. The Apple Genius and I wondered if it would matter if I used MPEG Streamclip to convert these files to say, MPEG 4, or just one of the others listed, and not both, and then import them into Imovie.

Any insight would be appreciated! As I love the ease of this camera.

Mar 24, 2009 11:55 AM in response to JBK

I've been following these threads with interest. I too have a Zi6 which I love and have the same problem of stuttering playback in project window, not in event browser - even before adding transitions! I've only shot at 30 fps to make files smaller and import into iMovie 09. It is incredibly frustrating as I love the updated features of 09. No one on these threads seems to be able to help in any way yet... and like you it is all fine when exported to mobileme or quicktime.

Also updating from 08 to 09 messed up the timing on old 08 projects and they were only shot on photobooth.

Please, please someone must know why this stutter happens??

Mar 24, 2009 12:07 PM in response to tjworld

Well, at least I'm not the only one! I hope we get a solution!

I'm in the process of trying the MPEG Streamclip and converting the files to Apple Intermediary Codec (AIC) to see if that helps.

However, I hate to have ANOTHER step in creating a movie- since Imovie '09 is such a snap!

Also, I don't want to have duplicate files on my computer, once I convert the original,as I believe it keeps the original as well as makes a copy with the new codec.

I'm sort of considering this issue more of a "bug" than anything...as at least I can view the clips in the Event Pane properly, and can export to QuickTime to have a quick look-see. Annoying, but workable,as long as the final movies to IDVD aren't affected!
Joan

Mar 24, 2009 1:12 PM in response to JBK

Well..here's an update. I have good news & bad news. The good news is, if I convert the Zi6 .mov files to the MPEG 4 format through MPEG Streamclip, and put it in a new project, it doesn't appear to stutter. That's good.

The bad news, is that my 23 second clip went from 33MB to 277 MB, assuming that I did the conversion correctly, I chose the 100% quality on the MPEG-4 Export. Also, I think the clip looks sharper & less "noisy", which is nice.

So....not sure I'll do this for ALL my Kodak Zi6 clips, maybe just the movie projects.

Did I do this right for the Streamclip. Put the .mov file in the window, then chose export to MPEG-4, at 100% quality, keeping all other presets the same.

Mar 24, 2009 1:39 PM in response to JBK

UPDATE * Well...after ALL of that...it STILL stutters & freezes when I add TRANSITIONS! The quality of the clips looks better with the conversion, but still the SAME problem.
Back to the drawing board.

I think I'll be living with the stutter...as long as it keeps moving, I'm okay. Maybe Apple will address this with an update, let's hope!

Mar 24, 2009 2:22 PM in response to JBK

****...see, it must be some kinda bug - lots of others have posted the same problems and not just using the Zi6 - if you go back thru the posts you'll see them under "freezing" , questions wondering if their computer has enough power etc.

Maybe you need a faster processor for imovie 09, but apple has never mentioned this anywhere as far as I can see...and this has been going on for a couple of months now and Ive never seen a satisfactory reason or solution posted on any forum yet...

Is there something Apple is not telling us...? but Ive never known this before where standard software needs a minimum processor requirement..

Anyone... help!!!?

keep me posted JBK if you figure it out.. I'm editing a music video and its like doing it blind having to keep checking it via quicktime! (I just bought final cut express but the manual is a boring read......)

Mar 24, 2009 5:19 PM in response to JBK

**UPDATE, UPDATE * Okay....I got it working....I used *MPEG Streamclip*, and this time, I exported them out as "*Export to QuickTime*" files with the compression as "AIC" (Apple Intermediate Codec), Quality 100%, all other presets stayed the same, and then made a movie project, complete with TRANSITIONS, and (fingers crossed), all seems SMOOTH.


So..last time I exported them as MPEG-4, and not the Quicktime with the AIC, so that helped. I just tried the Streamclip, so if anyone knows how to do it better, I'm all ears. It does greatly inflate the size of my clips, without any obvious improvement in quality. So that's not great!

Mar 25, 2009 5:36 AM in response to JBK

UPDATE - A workaround?

after what you posted about converting the file to the apple codec AIC - it occurred to me to try this.

Put a clip in the project browser - it starts stuttering - with or without transitions.

click on clip and select "clip adjustments". Now when you need to run slow mo you click the "convert clip" button. Do this even though you don't need to slomo the clip and it will come up with "converting whole clip" - this can take a while if the clip/event the clip is from is quite long. Hang in there. Click done. ......and......

all works perfectly.

It seems like the converter converts the whole event because if you now choose other clips from the event they too work with no problems! So looks like... before you start run the conversion on a clip from all the events you are about to use and then you can work normally...


I've run a test project and now transistions/ green screen/ PiP all work smooth. IS this the workaround we needed?

Do you know if the convertion to AiC changes size or quality? I cant tell at the moment. But it works! (well so far.....)

Please let me know if this works for you too - if so it might be worth starting another thread as so many people are having the stutter problem and i've not seen a workaround yet that's easy to do.

Anyone?

Apple - we should not need to do this!

Mar 25, 2009 6:42 AM in response to tjworld

tjworld,
*Well, that sounds brilliant!* I just tried it and GUESS WHAT, it actually changes the clip's codec to the AIC (Apple Intermediate Codec, INteger (Little Endian) as well as changing the file to a *"QuickTime Movie."*

This is EXACTLY what I was doing with the EXTRA program MPEG streamclip.

So this is genius! Great Job!!!!!!

I'm assuming that I have to convert every clip that I use in the movie project???

Adding Transitions freezes and stutters playback in Preview.

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