After Effects 2019 Plays Back in Slow Motion

[jamesharker]

I'm just getting into graphics in After Effects for my advanced video production class at school. I've had a couple of issues with playback and haven't found any answers that work for me. The first one is that in one of my compositions, the graphics playback just fine in real time, but the audio track randomly changes pitch and sounds really weird. The other problem is that in another one of my compositions, the graphics animations playback in super slow motion. I've tried checking different preferences in the preview window and in normal preferences but nothing works. Nothing online helps these problems. I'd appreciate any help I can get! The computer I'm running After Effects on is a Dell Precision 5510, Intel i7 2.7 GHz, 32 GB ram. The OS is the newest version of Windows 10, and After Effects is up to date. Thanks!

[ManndarrPat]

After Effects really bad when it comes to playing audio and rendering at the same time

1) The best way is to render audio first by hitting . (del) key on the numeric keypad and then rendering the composition

Or if your animation is final and just required minor tweaks then

2) Importing those compositions into Premiere Pro using the dynamic link or simply drag and drop composition from AE to PR.  The dynamic link will allow you to make corrections in AE and once you hit Ctrl+S in AE it will be updated in PR.

Hope this helps, good luck.

Mandar       

[jamesharker]

Thanks for the tip! If I don't have a numeric keypad, what's the shortcut?

[ManndarrPat]

Go to Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts (Alt+Ctrl+') in the search bar type Audio Preview and change the shortcut and modify the same.

[jamesharker]

Ok, and what's the best way to render the comp?

[ManndarrPat]

Are you asking about final render settings?

I use QT ProRes 4444  with Audio and then convert it to mp4 through Media Encoder

[Andrew Yoole]

It sounds like your expectations of AE's preview process are misplaced.

Unlike a NLE like Premiere, AE has to render every frame it previews and store it in RAM.  Depending on the resolution of your comp and the complexity of your animation, this can be almost instant, or take minutes per frame.

The best way to work in AE is to preview small segments at a time, usually just a few seconds.  If you need a more complete preview of minutes of content, render a preview file using Adobe Media Encoder.

To start a preview, define your work area and hit the space bar.  Then wait for AE to render the entire timeline before it can play the entire preview smoothly.  It may attempt to play, with weird audio and slow frame rate, until the render is complete.  Once the coloured bar along the work area is all green, you know the content is rendered, and it should play smoothly.

[jamesharker]

I understand that After Effects just previews and it has to render each frame but even after the green bar is completely full, the compositions still play really slow and with weird sound. Is it possible that it's the computer?

[Rick Gerard]

To improve the previews set the magnification ratio to 50% or less and the composition panel resolution to auto. If that does not do it set the play back panel to skip one or two frames.

You need to spend some time with the user guide figuring out how the UI works.