Playback issues when using multiple displays

[ari_kuchar]

Hi Guys,

I am having issues with video playback in Premiere when I have my displays extended (using 2 displays). I have an MSI laptop (specs below**) and am running the latest version of Premiere CC 2018 (but this has been happening ever since I purchased this laptop 2 years ago).

Basically, as long as I am extending my displays (via Windows 10 display options) using my laptop display and an HDMI-connected 24" HD Monitor, I get playback issues. This is even without using Mercury Transmit, I simply use Premiere on one display Everything starts out fine but then after 5 minutes or so the timeline and source monitor stop playback. Sound continues to come through and Premiere works fine otherwise (can access menu items, add effects etc). It just fails to play anything back with Source and Program monitors frozen on whatever was displaying at the time of the 'crash'.

When I enable Mercury Transmit, Premiere doesn't seem to respond to the change at all. And then everything freezes as above and the chosen display for the Transmit goes black. It remains black even when I turn Mercury Transmit off. Sometimes the app will eventually crash.

In both cases, when I exit out of Premiere, the app still seems to remain open in my background processes and I need to manually close it from the Task Manager.

This happens with any type of media, any codec, any size (duration or dimension). It also happens on brand new projects. Mercury Transmit also doesn't work for me in After Effects, however, I don't have playback issues using AE whilst the displays are extended.

I have good video card but I reckon this must be the source of the issue.

Also, the problem persists regardless of me using Software, CUDA or Open CL Renderer. And to be clear, the graphics card works when accelerating rendering in apps like Media Encoder (and I assume it works in Premiere but just not with playback).

Apologies for the long post. I just wanted to clearly outline the problem. Thanks in advance!

**I have an MSI laptop with the following specs:

GS40 6QE "PHANTOM"

i7-6700HQ CPU @ 2.6GHz

16GB DDR4-2133 RAM

GeForce® GTX 970M (GDDR5 3GB VRAM)

Intel(R) HD Graphics 530

256GB PCI-E GEN3x4 SSD

Windows 10 Home (64-bit)

*All hardware drivers are updated

[ari_kuchar]

Also, I have trashed my prefs!

[ari_kuchar]

Anyone? This issue is really affecting me. Thanks!

[rodneyb56060189]

I have a GeForce card in a laptop and desktop and isn't that NVidia ? I use the control panel of the NVidia to select whether I have one or 2 monitors, and don't think I ever used windows settings.  ??

try this maybe … you can right click windows screen and you'll see nvidia control panel thing

[rodneyb56060189]

whoops, forgot to give you link...

How to set up multiple monitors | NVIDIA

[rodneyb56060189]

more info that might help... on my desktop I have 2 ( via DVI ports ) computer monitors. Sometimes I also hook up an flatscreen TV via hdmi.  the TV is about 10-250 whereas the monitors are 0-255, so sometimes I like to see the TV thing (rarely though).

??

[ari_kuchar]

Thanks. I have actually used a Windows setting to give graphics priority to Premiere. Let's see if that makes a difference. So far, dual displays works (without Mercury Transmit). I'll test more tomorrow and check back with results. Thanks alot!

[ari_kuchar]

No fixes for this as yet. I am unable to set up dual display with NVIDIA as the display settings are controlled by the Intel GPU. So, I set up Dual Displays with the Intel app. I opened Premiere and enabled Mercury Transmit. Immediately the second display (which is actually the display on my Laptop) went black. This is an improvement on nothing happening at all but then everything stopped responding and the second display remained black and my Project window would not refresh when I moved the playhead on the timeline. Then, when I closed Premiere everything stopped responding and it eventually crashed. There doesn't seem to be a crash log for this instance either so I can't get more verbose information... Very frustrating.

When I reopen Premiere, the Mercury Transmit settings are enabled so I immediately get the second screen blacked out once I open the project and now the Project (and Source) windows are black. When I try to close the app - it freezes once again.

[ari_kuchar · Accepted solution]

I worked it out. It's about setting up your displays so that your primary screen (Monitor 1) is your native display (Laptop screen) and your secondary screen (Monitor 2) is your External Display. Once you have that then it will work. But, this is not great for me as I don't want my Laptop screen to be my Primary screen. But it's a fix nonetheless. For now...

[Kevin-Monahan]

It's about setting up your displays so that your primary screen (Monitor 1) is your native display (Laptop screen) and your secondary screen (Monitor 2) is your External Display. Once you have that then it will work. .

That sounds about right as this would probably generate the lowest overhead for playback. Your 3 GB VRAM GPU might be on the precipice of supporting what you are currently demanding of your rig. You might try transcoding or using proxies if the format is not a lightweight one, for example 4K H.264 files, which are terrible with performance.

Thanks for the report.

Thanks,
Kevin

[rodneyb56060189]

Good going !  You can mark this as answered ( by yourself , hehe ).  Yeah, laptop screens are small for doing stuff for many reasons. Hard to see the text for menus of program like PPro, photoshop, etc. at HD resolution. You probably already dragged most of your workspace to the 2nd monitor, and the laptop is probably a good place for the program monitor or whatever.

: )

The same is true on desktops, by the way. Best to have DVI 1 as primary and DVI 2 as secondary and HDMI just something to drag stuff into when you want to watch something like an export result or playing the timeline ( usually to a flatscreen TV or big monitor, often not 0-255 just to see different space …  But the desktop thing with discreet card will let NVidia totally control that, as it doesn't go through any onboard chip like laptop does.

[ari_kuchar]

Thanks Rodney, but that's the thing - I only want to use the Laptop display as my Mercury Transmit External Display. I usually leave it closed and work solely on my External Monitor for everything because it the laptop display is too small to use. I guess I should purchase an additional display and leave it at that but still... Premiere should work so I don't consider this solved. There's a bug. Don't you agree?

[rodneyb56060189]

hmmm. No, I don't consider it a bug. It's the way the laptop was built ( and most laptops like mine too ). My laptop isn't powerful enough to edit on anyway, so I just do really simple stuff with it to cut a couple small clips, and just do some simple photoshop stuff, etc.

I have desktop with fairly large monitors to work with.

My laptop is advertised as a fairly good "gaming" computer, but in reality it's not powerful enough to really edit.

Just a fact of life.

When you have program like your PPro, that allows for dual screen, then you can put stuff on a 2nd monitor. Even windows allows you to drag stuff over to 2nd monitor. But there are some programs that DON'T allow dual screens, and then it defaults to your native laptop screen ( or display 1 as it is called ), and the 2nd monitor will be powered on but useless.

[ari_kuchar]

rodneyb56060189  wrote

hmmm. No, I don't consider it a bug. It's the way the laptop was built

I want to agree but this just happened: I selected a QuickTime (MJPEG) clip* to view on the Source Monitor and the preview stopped updating like before and then the app stopped responding. I reopened the app and Mercury Transmit is not working again.

When it is off I can work with the QuickTime clip fine. So... methinks bug.

Really appreciate your help and responses by the way. I also want to say that when Premiere (and After Effects) is working properly I get similar (if not better) performance on my laptop than when I was on my work's trashcan MacPro thanks to Cuda.

(*This particularly QuickTime clip seems to defy the unsupported QuickTime formats)

[rodneyb56060189]

Your experience with this problem and subsequent explanations of what you've done to make progress has helped me understand some things too, so thanks. Unfortunately I don't hook up a second monitor to this laptop and don't use CC stuff, so I can't try to duplicate what you have going on, etc. Maybe someone else can be more helpful.

Just for heck of it, I looked into davinci resolve stuff a little, cause that's one of those programs that don't like dual screen, unless you install a decklink card with SDI connections on it, which got me to looking at flanders scientific monitors, so that's an example of how you have been helping me. It has inspired me to look at other things I normally wouldn't investigate.

: )

[rodneyb56060189]

UPDATE: getting into tangential stuff maybe, instead of your specific desires.

Due to your thread, I looked into getting what's called a 'reference monitor', a little 10" monitor, with SDI and HDMI inputs. I also had to get a card for that ( so resolve will work with it for color grading, etc.) Luckily I opened up the pig (desktop) and there's tons of PCI-E slots of various X factors ( x16, 8, 4, etc) available.

So, I'll get it in a few days from B&H. My laptop has hdmi out so it will be interesting to see how this interacts with laptop via PPro and some of what you are dealing with ( I'm talking about the monitor only now ). My desktop will have the card installed and that's a done deal with resolve via SDI.

It becomes obvious that we are dealing with TOOLS, and how to make them work to make the products we want. We can't just blatantly blame a software company or an operating system for NOT KNOWING how to use the TOOLS.

It's up to ME to figure out how to use the tools I can get to do stuff.  It gets complicated doesn't it ?  Is sorta nice to keep focused on the product(s) and not so much blaming the tools if things don't work the way you think they should.

: )

[ari_kuchar]

Sure, I used to use broadcast monitors to ensure my levels and colours were correct before sending to QC etc but now most of my stuff is for the web so I occasionally use an iPad as a reference monitor with a 3rd Party app such as AirDisplay.

I agree with you to some extent re: knowing the tools but when everything fell apart due to a particular codec, I know there was something wrong with Premiere and the way it handles multiple monitors with my particular set up. My set up is not strange. I'm using pretty common cards from Intel and Nvidia and based on the swathes of other issues concerning CCs latest updates (and the lack of an official response) I don't think I'm wrong in probing the software as the culprit. As unfortunate as that is. I wish they would put a hold on the new features and rather invest in making the apps rock solid.

[R Neil Haugen]

There's a new build released, which is all bug fixes ... and a lot on the list.

Make a copy of your project file, create a new project in the new version, and then navigate to the copy project file in the Media Browser panel. Import all the assets into the new project, then see if the new version works better.

Neil

[rodneyb56060189]

wow, that's interesting. Using iPad as ref and air display app. I bet a lot of people would like to know about that.

Yes, from what I hear there are lots of problems with new releases of PPro. There's so much new stuff happening I'll never be able to catch up on what people are using and doing. I hope you can maybe go 'back' to the version that worked good for you and get back into working comfortably without problems.

[Churapcha]

Hi, everybody.

I have a similar problem. Word for word, as ari described it.kuchar.

Bought an MSI notebook GT63 Titan 8RF, set AP in 2018, and found this.

Two video monitors are connected to the mini-display port and HDMI connectors.

What's interesting: at some point, after turning on the laptop-playback mercury transmit earned!

Now I can't remember exactly my actions with my laptop that led to this result.

Because, in search of the cause of what I just did (deleted, then re-ustanavlivat video card drivers and sound devices, I changed the HDMI cables, etc.). But now, to my regret, this problem has arisen again.

This happened after I installed a newer Realtek sound device driver. I do not know whether this event is directly related to the manifestation of this problem. But what is interesting: all my actions related to the installation of an older driver, alas

no longer led to the health of playback mercury transmit. Therefore, I can assume that this problem may be somehow related to the drivers of audio devices and their correct operation in the system. On the following results of his observations

I will try. I apologize for the language - the translation was carried out with the help of an application-translator.

[ari_kuchar]

Wow, I think you might be right! I am going to try uninstalling my RealTek drivers and see if it fixes my issues. I think drivers might be to blame as they have caused other strange issues (Intel driver update caused artefacts when reading in .mp4 codec).

[Churapcha]

Yes. It's all Realtek's fault. I removed this device and Mercury Transmit worked!!! Now we have to think about what to do with the sound.