Slow loading of videos in experiment

Hey everyone,

I am trying to program an experiment where participants just have to watch videos, and they are also able to “swipe” (using the up arrow key) to the next video. In total, there are a bit over 100 videos they can cycle through. However, there often isnt a smooth transition between videos – especially when they swipe twice or more relatively quickly. Sometimes, even when they dont swipe fast, the next video takes a few seconds to load and start. Or sometimes the screen just goes black for a few seconds before finally moving on to the next video.

I have already tried various things to resolve it. Does anyone have an idea how I can make it so that no matter what, there is always a smooth transition between videos?

Thank you!

How large are your videos?

What version of PsychoPy are you using?

It might be possible to speed up loading by loading odd numbered videos into one video component and even numbered videos into a different one, so the next video has already been loaded.

They vary in size, from just a few seconds to nearly 1 minute.

I am using psychopy 2026.1.3.

Unfortunately, due to the nature of the experiment, the videos have to be shown sequentially in the order they are in now.

I think I fixed it. I think it was something related to my Windows Security scanning videos before displaying them.

Your storage is SSD right?

Yea, indeed. How so?

Just making sure because with all those video files and the potential for swapping, a hard drive would really bottleneck you. Do you have at least 16G ram?