Adding effects to a clip increases the amount of computation Pinnacle Studio must do to give you a smooth preview. Depending on your computer’s hardware, the ‘rendering’ process for a clip can easily require more computing time than can be managed in real time; that is, while the preview is actually running.

In this circumstance, some ‘pre-rendering’ will be required before the clip can preview acceptably. Rendering progress is shown on the time-ruler by yellow (‘to be rendered’) and green (‘now being rendered’) shading. The shading is removed as soon as pre-rendering is complete.

Options for rendering are set in the Preview page of the Pinnacle Studio Control Panel. (See “Export and Preview” on page 257).

If effects are not playing back smoothly, try increasing the Optimization Threshold value. This will increase the amount of pre- rendering time while improving the preview quality. If rendering is taking too long, on the other hand, the Optimization Threshold value can be decreased, or rendering can be turned off by altogether by setting it to zero. Other factors that affect playback and rendering time are the format, size and frame rate selected for the project. These can be changed in Timeline settings. Please see “Timeline settings” on page 48.