I would test another NLE like Vegas (trial) and then see if the same problems occur. If not, I doubt it could be your system. I have a Intel Core 2 DUO 2.4Ghz, 2GB PC6400, GeForce 7900GS and 3x a Seagate Barrucada 320GB (of which 2 are in a RAID 0 setup and one is a system disk).
And for me, the program is fast without any hiccups and slowdown.

Is Premiere on the same disk as where your project (files) are located?

It turns out this is a problem only when you tell Premiere Pro to display the output full screen to a second or third monitor. If I disable this feature and stretch Premiere Pro manual across both monitors and resize the preview window to fill most of the second screen it plays fine. Smooth as silk.

So can someone test and verify that the full screen preview is choppy for them also? You need to have at least 2 monitors hooked up. Go into Premiere settings and choose general and then playback settings.

There is an option for full screen preview and you can choose which of your monitors you'd like to show you project on full screen. Select one (preferably not your main one as it would obscure your timeline). Exit. Now when scrubbing or previewing see if it plays smoothly. Thanks!

Oh yeah....Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Works for me
 

Marty:

Works for me. I set it up as you indicated, and I had smooth playback by dropping an unedited m2t file on the time line. I have a 256 mgb generic video card (ATI X700), and played it off of a 7200 rpm harddrive, connected by IDE. I have a 3800+ Dual Core AMD motherboard set up, self built as with yours. Sounds to me like you have a video card issue (download latest drivers), or perhaps you need to be sure, since you just built the system, that you have latest bios for the board, and have installed the motherboard to the system using the motherboard install disk.

I don't think you indicated what the system you built had on board....

NVIDIA 7600GS 256MB PCI-X LAtest drivers
Just updated the bios to the DFI Motherboard.

The only other thing is that I have 2 video cards in my system. One drives the LCD screen and feed the HDTV via the component out and the other feeds the 2nd LCD screen for my dual desktop. So I actually have 3 displays simultaneously.

Hmmm......wonder what could be causing this. Maybe I'll try an ATI card. What a pain this stuff is! I haven't built a new PC in 3 years! Arghh!

Thanks.

Marty

What processor ? Remember, playing HDV is processor intensive, as well as putting more on the video card...

Core 2 DUO @ 2.8 GHZ.

When streaming from timeline CPU utilizations is less than 50%. I doubt that is it.

I've always had these kinds of problems with premiere - running DV & HD.

Sometimes it stutters and chops - and sometimes after a while everything works perfect and smooth. I've never been able to pinpoint the problem. However - often the problem goes away when I restart PPro(without rebooting the computer)

// Lazze

Marty,

Have you by any chance had any scopes displayed in PPro?

I don't know if this will help your particular problem, but I was playing a 30F clip in full screen on display #2, while running both the "Source Monitor" and "Program Monitor" windows on display #1. It ran smooth as silk while displaying composite video on the active window (either the Source Monitor or Program Monitor window) on display #1, but when the active window was switched to show any/all scopes rather than composite video, it caused the full screen image on display #2 to stutter severely. It looks like the scopes in the Source Monitor or Program Monitor windows will bring PPro to its knees because they are trying to keep up in real time.

I think a partial work-around for scopes is to create a new reference monitor and put your scopes in there, making sure that "Gang to Program Monitor" is checked in the ref monitor's menu. The scopes won't update while the timeline is playing, but will automatically refresh whenever you pause, and are live for scrubbing. And as far as I can see, no way to use a ref monitor to do scopes on the the source; only the program. No issue for me, but maybe it'll bother someone else's workflow.

Fingers crossed that this solves the stutter riddle. But even if not, it is good to know about this limitation.

EDIT: No, don't go buy a new video card. nVidia is specifically partnered with Adobe in their OpenHD program, and I'm seeing smooth playback with a 7800GTX in an AMD X2 4800+.

Well I picked up an ATI Radeon 1950 Card and installed it. The stutter is now gone completely on full screen playback! Yay!

However tried to install my ATIRadeon 9250 PCI card also to drive my 2nd LCD desktop monitor and the darn PC will not boot at all! I have had 2 ATI cards in my older PC for almost a year....an agp and a PCI. Now I have a PCI-X and and a PCI and it will not work! I have tried every setting in the bios and switching cards around inside the PC to see if that would help and nothing works. So I am back to having smoth playback on my HDTV but I can only use 1 desktop monitor.

Frustrating! I bought the ATI because I knew I already had a good working ATI PCI that is "supposed" to be compatible with it. Now I may be forced to buy a "newer" ATI PCI-X card to pair with it! ANd who knows if that will work! Argh! Will it never end?

The bottom line is I have 2 Nvidia PCI-X cards that will work together to allow me to have 3 displays simultaneously. But the playback from Premiere is choppy.

The ATI card will give me great playback but I can't seem to get 3 displays to work. The PC just doesn't want to boot with an extra PCI card in there.

I'll let you know how it all turns out in the end!

Thanks!

Hey Marty, this is good I checked this out cause I was planing the EXACT same setup with 2 7600's

However, have yo utried the HDTV through an HDMI-DVI connection as a monitor?

Why don't you just buy one graphics card that's meant for video editing and drives three displays like a Matrox card? I have a Parhelia APVe and use dual screens with another component out to an HDTV I use for previewing and it works great.

Marty,

Do you mean your motherboard and cards are long-in-the-tooth PCI-X or the newer industry standard PCIe (also written PCI-E)?

Is this a "latest, greatest" PCIe motherboard that is specifically advertised as supporting Core 2 Duo, or an older LGA 775? An "older" board could pose limitations...might help others help you to know the exact model number of your motherboard and other components.

No PPro vectorscopes or waveform scopes being displayed?

Yeah, I could use this information. My comp has to go in this week, as I just bought the XHA1. I am planning on an Asus SLI board and 2 7600 GT's which are PCIe

Ben: How much is a matrox card? Compaible with all NLEs?

I think you guys are placing WAY too much emphasis on the video card for editting in Premiere Pro. A $150 video card will do you just as good as a professional $1k card within Premiere. The ability to playback smoothly, even across dual monitors, has all to do with the cpu/HDDs/RAM... and barely anything to do with the video card. Now, I never shoot interlaced footage, so I don't know if video cards are taxed with any de-interlacing you guys might be doing, but if you are shooting progressive like me, it is all about the CPU. I have a cheap video card and the new quad-core and it runs flawlessly.

I'm jealous -- I'm ready to build a quad core, but the processor isn't in stock at my usual vendors yet.

I agree that having a latest, greatest video card isn't necessary to play a simple timeline even in HDV, but since Adobe specifically says they make use of OpenGL shaders and such, having a recent, fast card is probably of some benefit for complex work, especially in AE (try doing the Timewarp effect in HD if you want to see your system work for a living!). Supposedly the extra OpenGL capability is what makes the nVidia Quadro line so good for editing and compositing.

In any case, my point wasn't about the video card per se, but Marty's mention of the almost-defunct PCI-X made me wonder whether he's piecing together a system with a mix of old and new parts, which would open the door for all manner of incompatibilities and bottlenecks.

Also, we still don't know if Marty had a vector/waveform scope open. At least on my system, it happens. That reminds me...would appreciate if others would check to see if they get the same stutter when a scope is up as I described earlier?