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LarsHD
wrote on 2/6/2010, 1:05 PM
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farss
wrote on 2/6/2010, 2:36 PM
OK, got the beast and my brain fired up.
I can see what you're talking about.
Enabling Auto Adjust Size and Quality does give me smooth playback but that's at Preview / Quarter. This is on a 24" Dell 1920x 1200 monitor.
Possibly the reason why your laptop is running smoother is the screen res is lower so Vegas has less to write to the screen. Remember it has to upadate the play head position all the time.
Would be interesting to try dropping the screen res down and see what happens. I think you're running 24" monitors.
Bob.
I can see what you're talking about.
Enabling Auto Adjust Size and Quality does give me smooth playback but that's at Preview / Quarter. This is on a 24" Dell 1920x 1200 monitor.
Possibly the reason why your laptop is running smoother is the screen res is lower so Vegas has less to write to the screen. Remember it has to upadate the play head position all the time.
Would be interesting to try dropping the screen res down and see what happens. I think you're running 24" monitors.
Bob.
LarsHD
wrote on 2/6/2010, 2:54 PM
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LarsHD
wrote on 2/6/2010, 3:24 PM
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amendegw
wrote on 2/6/2010, 3:24 PM
Does this help at all? It illustrates the wobble/jerkiness. I'm guessing the wobble/jerkiness is because the motion is too fast for 30p to handle. It is only marginally better on my Quad Core than my old Pentium M laptop.
http://www.jazzythedog.com/testing/stutter.aspx
...Jerry
http://www.jazzythedog.com/testing/stutter.aspx
...Jerry
LarsHD
wrote on 2/6/2010, 3:56 PM
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LarsHD
wrote on 2/6/2010, 4:00 PM
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LoTN
wrote on 2/6/2010, 4:05 PM
Does this help at all? It illustrates the wobble/jerkiness.
Same issue but with track motion.
I'm guessing the wobble/jerkiness is because the motion is too fast for 30p to handle
It is also my conclusion. I've put a small clip showing how track motion speed can end into jerky playback (RAM built preview or rendered file). Project was set to 30p: http://www.vimeo.com/8600962
For this one I submitted a trouble ticket. I've been told that SCS support was unable to reproduce the issue.
Same issue but with track motion.
I'm guessing the wobble/jerkiness is because the motion is too fast for 30p to handle
It is also my conclusion. I've put a small clip showing how track motion speed can end into jerky playback (RAM built preview or rendered file). Project was set to 30p: http://www.vimeo.com/8600962
For this one I submitted a trouble ticket. I've been told that SCS support was unable to reproduce the issue.
LarsHD
wrote on 2/6/2010, 4:15 PM
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amendegw
wrote on 2/6/2010, 4:30 PM
LarsHD said: That stutters alot. Does it stutter when you view that flash video too? I tried to view it on 3 PCs here and it stutters a lot on all of them.Yes, it reacts the same regardless of the computer I view it on. However, I guess I define a stutter as an intermittent jerkiness. My playback is a constant/continuous jerkiness - that's why I attributed it to 30p motion.
lord of the newbies said: It is also my conclusion. I've put a small clip showing how track motion speed can end into jerky playback (RAM built preview or rendered file). Project was set to 30p: When I look at your video, I see intermittent jerkiness - what I would call "stutter".
...Jerry
lord of the newbies said: It is also my conclusion. I've put a small clip showing how track motion speed can end into jerky playback (RAM built preview or rendered file). Project was set to 30p: When I look at your video, I see intermittent jerkiness - what I would call "stutter".
...Jerry
LarsHD
wrote on 2/6/2010, 5:03 PM
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amendegw
wrote on 2/6/2010, 5:31 PM
LarsHD,
I certainly can't answer all your questions, but one of the problems with the flash video I referenced earlier was it was an mp4. I've always found that wmv's play more smoothly than mp4's. Try this (it's Silverlight, because Flash won't play wmv).
http://www.jazzythedog.com/testing/silverlight.aspx
...Jerry
I certainly can't answer all your questions, but one of the problems with the flash video I referenced earlier was it was an mp4. I've always found that wmv's play more smoothly than mp4's. Try this (it's Silverlight, because Flash won't play wmv).
http://www.jazzythedog.com/testing/silverlight.aspx
...Jerry
LarsHD
wrote on 2/6/2010, 5:38 PM
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amendegw
wrote on 2/6/2010, 5:47 PM
" I'm not exactly what we are doing when watching these silverlight and flash videos"I was just trying to illustrate the results I got when running your test."What about your preview window? Does that little clip play real smooth in there?"At least on my computers, it's about the same in the preview window at Best/Quarter as I see in my browser.
...Jerry
...Jerry
johnmeyer
wrote on 2/6/2010, 6:16 PM
I tested first on 7.0d. I got stutter when "Scale Video to Fit Preview Window" was enabled, but got no stutter -- even on Best Full with scopes updating in real time -- when I disable this.
I then opened the same project in 8.0c (which is as far up the upgrade ladder as I've gone). This time, I was unable to get stutter free performance when using either Best or Good, although I could still get stutter-free performance with Preview quality, as long as I had the "Scale" option (noted above) disabled. I even tried enabling and disabling the hidden "use multicore for playback" preference, but that didn't help.
Interestingly, sometimes if I replayed the test, it would play without stutter.
I then opened the same project in 8.0c (which is as far up the upgrade ladder as I've gone). This time, I was unable to get stutter free performance when using either Best or Good, although I could still get stutter-free performance with Preview quality, as long as I had the "Scale" option (noted above) disabled. I even tried enabling and disabling the hidden "use multicore for playback" preference, but that didn't help.
Interestingly, sometimes if I replayed the test, it would play without stutter.
farss
wrote on 2/6/2010, 6:58 PM
I tried a few more tests as well using both V9.0c and AE.
My conclusion is there's nothing wrong with what Vegas renders out. The AE ouput looks a bit better but I did enable motion blur so that's to be expected.
What staggers me is V9.0c cannot play out FullHD no matter what, even from Preview RAM without a stutter here and there. I mean good grief, all it has to do is shuffle the data from RAM to the video card. It would seem like every so often it goes off to do something else but what that is escapes me. On the other hand AE seems able to playout FullHD from its RAM preview quite nicely. Just keep in mind that it will always require a RAM preview to get a half decent look at your work at all, unlike Vegas.
Everything I rendered out of both Vegas and AE plays just fine out of VNC so clearly the PC is capable. Some of the test renders were 8bit 4:2:2 YUV and huge files. Admittedly coming off a RAID 0 array.
Bob.
My conclusion is there's nothing wrong with what Vegas renders out. The AE ouput looks a bit better but I did enable motion blur so that's to be expected.
What staggers me is V9.0c cannot play out FullHD no matter what, even from Preview RAM without a stutter here and there. I mean good grief, all it has to do is shuffle the data from RAM to the video card. It would seem like every so often it goes off to do something else but what that is escapes me. On the other hand AE seems able to playout FullHD from its RAM preview quite nicely. Just keep in mind that it will always require a RAM preview to get a half decent look at your work at all, unlike Vegas.
Everything I rendered out of both Vegas and AE plays just fine out of VNC so clearly the PC is capable. Some of the test renders were 8bit 4:2:2 YUV and huge files. Admittedly coming off a RAID 0 array.
Bob.
LarsHD
wrote on 2/7/2010, 8:11 AM
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farss
wrote on 2/7/2010, 11:53 AM
I'd start looking to see what is different between the two computers. The problem looks to me like something is getting in the way of Vegas rather than Vegas running out of steam.
I'd start by comparing the two Vegas installs, are they exactly the same. Check all the Options.
Then I'd look at all the Services running in both machines.
Next check the desktop PC for BIOS updates, driver updates etc.
Bob.
I'd start by comparing the two Vegas installs, are they exactly the same. Check all the Options.
Then I'd look at all the Services running in both machines.
Next check the desktop PC for BIOS updates, driver updates etc.
Bob.
LarsHD
wrote on 2/7/2010, 12:32 PM
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farss
wrote on 2/7/2010, 12:41 PM
"So Vegas' previs seems to have something in common with how flash video is played back perhaps?"
Or both are running on the same system that has a service running that is causing the problem. Remember Windoz is multitasking. I'd be looking in Task Manager before swapping hardware around.
Bob.
Or both are running on the same system that has a service running that is causing the problem. Remember Windoz is multitasking. I'd be looking in Task Manager before swapping hardware around.
Bob.
LarsHD
wrote on 2/7/2010, 1:20 PM
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farss
wrote on 2/7/2010, 1:40 PM
When I was running my tests I did notice that AE had much the same problem as Vegas playing back from RAM. That still doesn't entirely exonerate the application. Both Adobe and SCS could be using the same compiler.
Also there's more for the OS to deal with than services. My understanding is that some drivers can cause the CPU to have to go off and do things. Network Interface Controllers for example, USB devices and RAID controllers. Also errors cause retries and that can really starts to use of a slab of CPU time. Task Manager does not reveal any of this.
Bob.
Also there's more for the OS to deal with than services. My understanding is that some drivers can cause the CPU to have to go off and do things. Network Interface Controllers for example, USB devices and RAID controllers. Also errors cause retries and that can really starts to use of a slab of CPU time. Task Manager does not reveal any of this.
Bob.
LarsHD
wrote on 2/8/2010, 1:09 AM
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farss
wrote on 2/8/2010, 2:27 AM
I think you have too many variables in your considerations. For example:
"Example in Vegas: Camera pointing at the entry of "Grand Hotel". Camera is still. People waling by. Things look good. Camera now starting to pan towards right - in Vegas iamge now starts to stutter and skip a frame here and jump/stutter. In Avid: panning is played back smoothly. How come?"
This could be simply how you are viewing the footage. Panning a camera shooting low frame rates is very big problem, whether or not it will appear juddery depends on many factors including angle of view and illumination levels in the viewing room. Shutter speed, resolution and edge enhancement are also factors that determine if the motion appears smooth or not.
We have a couple of older HDTVs at work and every movie I watch on them can appear juddery. The display isn't failing to keep up, there's nothing wrong with anything, it's just the nature of the beast with low fps moving images and how the display work and the viewing conditions. Worse still, some people see the problem and others don't.
Now all of the above may or may not have any relevance to what you're seeing but you need to remove the variable of observer perception from your deliberations otherwise it's impossible to know which problem is which.
The other problem that could have some bearing on the above is that as the camera pans the difference between frames increases and this increase the difficulties the encoder has encoding the footage and the decoder has playing out the footage. So it could be that you are seeing the result of frames being dropped.
Bob.
"Example in Vegas: Camera pointing at the entry of "Grand Hotel". Camera is still. People waling by. Things look good. Camera now starting to pan towards right - in Vegas iamge now starts to stutter and skip a frame here and jump/stutter. In Avid: panning is played back smoothly. How come?"
This could be simply how you are viewing the footage. Panning a camera shooting low frame rates is very big problem, whether or not it will appear juddery depends on many factors including angle of view and illumination levels in the viewing room. Shutter speed, resolution and edge enhancement are also factors that determine if the motion appears smooth or not.
We have a couple of older HDTVs at work and every movie I watch on them can appear juddery. The display isn't failing to keep up, there's nothing wrong with anything, it's just the nature of the beast with low fps moving images and how the display work and the viewing conditions. Worse still, some people see the problem and others don't.
Now all of the above may or may not have any relevance to what you're seeing but you need to remove the variable of observer perception from your deliberations otherwise it's impossible to know which problem is which.
The other problem that could have some bearing on the above is that as the camera pans the difference between frames increases and this increase the difficulties the encoder has encoding the footage and the decoder has playing out the footage. So it could be that you are seeing the result of frames being dropped.
Bob.