After Effects Makes My Videos Lag

[WINT8EBEAR]

    I have been using Premiere Pro for a few weeks now and I wanted to try After Effects because I heard there are more options in terms of effects, graphics, etc. Every time I put a video on the timeline without even adding any effects or changing anything about it, the video and sound begin lagging. Both the video and the sound change speed. At first, I thought that maybe if I render it, it'll be fixed but that was not the case. If anyone has found a solution to this (someone must've because all of y'all have gotten to actually edit your videos) please share your solution with me. I want to build a better portfolio for the Motion Graphics program at my university and I really think using After Effects will allow me to showcase my creativity a bit more. Thank you in advance. 

[thepixelsmith]

Possible problems:

1. Your comp frame rate is different than your video's frame rate. 

Solution: Change your comp (Composition > Composition Settings) to match your video frame rate.

2. Your playback frame rate is different than the comps frame rate.

Solution: Expand teh Preview panel on the timeline and chck the playback frame rate there.

3. AE just doesn't playback in real time the way video editing programs do. This is actually when it sounds like you are describing.

AE builds a preview in RAM and plays back from there. The Green line at the top of the timeline that builds when you press spacebar or when you are just idle for awhile indicates that it has a real–time preview stored in RAM.
Solution: Lower the RAM load per layer. Once way to do this is to adjust the Resolution/Downsample Factor menu (The second one from the left at the bottom of the Comp panel) to a value lower than Full.

[nishu_kush]

Hi WINT8EBEAR,

Thanks for writing in.

Please check out the following article for more details on how preview work in After Effects: https://community.adobe.com/t5/after-effects-discussions/faq-why-doesn-t-after-effects-preview-in-re...

Thanks,

Nishu