Premiere Elements 12 trial version won't play clip

Oh, you're in Quick View! That's why you don't see the render line!

Switch over the Expert View and see if you see the render line above the clip.

My guess is that you will since the clips on your Quick View timeline have a watermark bar running through them.

Do you see a render line above the clip on your timeline? If this is a new project, you should not see one. (I don't know what "The line renders blue" means. I just need to know if there is any render line above the top of the timeline.)

If you go to the Edit menu in the program, what is listed on the General page of Project Settings.

You haven't said whether you see a render line above the clip when you first add it to your timeline.

But WMV files don't make the best source files for Premiere Elements.

If you convert it to an MP4 using the free download Handbrake, does the playback improve?

https://handbrake.fr/

What model of camcorder is your video clip coming from and what is the video's format and resolution?

When you first add the clip to the timeline of a new project, do you see a yellow orange "render" line above the clip? If so, that is an indication that the program is not able to recognize or match the specs of the clip to its project settings.

Also note that version 12 requires Quicktime as part of its system requirements.

QuickTime 7.6 for Windows