Skip to main content
insanewolf
Participant
April 6, 2026
Question

Why my phone video looks and playing good without glitch, in my phone and laptop preview/vlc but it starts fluctuate in premiere pro.

  • April 6, 2026
  • 2 replies
  • 35 views

File properties inside premiere pro:
 

File Path: /Users/wolf/Documents/Edits/Footages/VID20260218113233.mp4

Type: MPEG Movie

File Size: 103.34 MB

Image Size: 3840 x 2160

Field Type: Progressive

Frame Rate: 60.10

Source Audio Format: 48000 Hz - Compressed - Stereo

Project Audio Format: 48000 Hz - 32 bit floating point - Stereo

Total Duration: 00:00:10:44

Pixel Aspect Ratio: 1.0

Alpha: None

Color Space: Rec. 2100 HLG

Color Space Override: Off

Input LUT: None

Video Codec Type: HEVC 10 bit 4:2:0

Variable Frame Rate Detected

    2 replies

    R Neil Haugen
    Legend
    April 6, 2026

    As John points out, that is clearly VFR ... variable frame rate video. Note the framerate, 60.10? That’s not one that would ever  be set by any video capture device encoding CFR ... constant framerate ... files.

     

    What’s VFR? It means that depending on the ‘brains’ of the capture device, the set framerate is only a suggestion relating to amount of movement detail to be allowed. So ... if there’s not much movement of either the camera or subject, it will slow down how many frames it actually writes to card/disc. If a lot, it records more but only for that moment.

     

    So throughout the file, the number of frames per second varies every flipping second. For that “60.10fps” file, the first second may start there, might be 58 frames the next, 57 after that, 60 the next, and 62 frames the second after that.

     

    While audio is captured and written straight according to the time of the device. The are therefore actually not recorded quite ... synced. But you don’t notice any of this in playback in most basic video players.

     

    NLEs like Premiere/Avid/Resolve must write, and also work best with, CFR ... where there are always a set number of frames per second period end of story.

     

    Premiere/Avid/Resolve all now have some capabilities of working with accepting long-GOP VFR media, but ... it’s not “perfect”. 

     

    The complete fix is a conversion to CFR in either Handbrake or ShutterEncoder before importing the clip into Premiere. Sometimes, you can ‘cut’ a clip into short segments, by sub-clipping in Premiere, and problematic clips might work better when added to the sequence as subclips.

    Everyone's mileage always varies ...
    John T Smith
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    April 6, 2026

    I never use variable frame rate video, but I have read that it causes problems

    use https://handbrake.fr/ open source transcoder/converter to convert to Constant Frame Rate
    Handbrake tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlvxgVREX-Y&t=34s