In this tutorial, you will learn how to set up the Preference in Filmora9 to improve performance, optimize the quality of the video playback and minimize the lag.

Exploring the Preferences Window

Go to the File menu and select the Preferences option. This will bring up the Preferences window that contains General, Folders, Editing, Save and Performance tabs.

You can change the language or choose how frequently Filmora9 is going to check for updates from the General tab. The Folders tab lets you set destination folders for temporary and recorded files, recorded audio, uploaded files and effect packs.

In case you want to change a default destination folder, simply click on the browse icon next to any of the options available in the Folder tab and select where Filmora9 is going to keep your files.

The Editing tab lets you set default durations of photos, transitions, effects and freeze frames. For instance, if you set the default photo duration to five seconds, the duration of each photo you add to the timeline is going to be limited to that amount of time. You can set the default duration of transitions, freeze frames and effects in the same way.

The Photo Placement offers the Fit, Crop to Fit and Pan&Zoom options. Selecting the Fit option will enable the software to fit a still image you add to the timeline within the screen. As a result, black bars may appear around the photo if it is in the Portrait format, but this only happens so that Filmora9 can fit the whole image into the frame.

The Crop to Fit option will help you avoid creating the black bars around a photo, but it will also crop out parts of the photo you place on the timeline. However, this feature is going to fit the image to the project’s aspect ratio. The Pan&Zoom option creates the panning effect and it also fits the photo to match the aspect ratio you specified for the entire project.

You can adjust the project backup options from the Save tab that lets you choose how frequently Filmora9 is going to backup your projects or where the backup files are going to be saved.

Furthermore, the Save tab allows you to change a project’s default location. Enabling the auto-save option won’t take too much of the storage space on your hard drive, and it can save you hours of work if anything goes wrong during the editing process.

Processing large video files can cause the footage playback to lag. If your videos are not playing smoothly, you should enable hardware acceleration for playback, video rendering and video decoding options from the Performance tab.

Click on the background render checkbox if you want to ensure that all files you add to the timeline are rendered. By doing so you will ensure their smooth playback and reduce the lagging.

Creating proxies is yet another way of keeping the lagging to the minimum while working with high-resolution files.

Filmora9 lets you create proxies automatically when media files are larger than the resolution you specified as a threshold. A proxy file is in lower quality than the original clip, but using proxies won’t affect the quality of the video you export from Filmora9.

Once you’ve adjusted the settings in the Preferences window you should click on the OK button to confirm the changes.

The Preview quality and display settings icon that looks like a computer monitor is located directly below the preview window. After you click on the icon, you should expand the Playback Quality submenu and choose if you want to preview a video clip in full quality or reduce its playback quality to ½ or 1/16 of the original quality.