Guides

Stutter at a cut or transition

A single frame is duplicated – right at the start or end of a shot. Typical after adding a transition or moving edits around. In the timeline it is hard to notice because the picture changes strongly at a cut anyway; on playback it looks like a brief hitch.

Common causes

• The footage runs out: a transition needs frames beyond the visible cut. If the clip has none left there, Premiere fills in with repeated frames. In the timeline you can see this as hatched diagonal lines in the transition.
• A Frame Hold at the start or end of the clip.
• An edit that is off by one frame and shows a frame of the neighbouring shot twice.

Find and fix it in Premiere Pro

1. Go to the spot in the sequence and step through the cut frame by frame (arrow keys).
2. Transition with hatched diagonal lines: it uses repeated frames. Shorten or move the transition (alignment “Start at Cut” or “End at Cut”) so that it only uses existing footage.
3. Otherwise trim the repeated frames from the clip or remove a Frame Hold.
4. Export again and check the spot once more.

In After Effects

Trim the repeated frames from the start of the layer – move the in point (Alt+[, Mac: Option+[). At the end, move the out point (Alt+], Mac: Option+]).

Other causes of stutter: Video stutters after export.