Probably put your settings under the Wrench menu of the program monitor to High Quality Playback and both paused and playback resolution to full. I've not seen those help anyone with a problem similar to yours.
Give us some hardware hints, other than 'more than adequate'. PC, Mac, etc... It will give you time to glue your hair back while you give us your hardware info. Also, what type of media? From a phone, camera, etc.. h.264/5? Give us some specifics of things to go with...
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