HD Render for AT or WMA9 computer playback

willisub wrote on 10/10/2005, 7:10 AM

I recently redid a family project at 6x9 1920x1080 1.0 aspect (24P - 24 fps on Mac and 23.9?? on the PC). It is a combination of video and stills (with pans on all stills) about 14 minutes long.

I have rendered via Vegas 6.0c using QuickTime (mpeg4 and sorenson3 ) at different data rates 2.7, 3.5 Mb / sec. and in Windows Media 9, at all sorts of data rates. (also tried QT DVCPRO, but playback on computer was very pixelated, like a low res preview version) .

I have a dual Xeon 2.4 MHz, single Xeon 2.8 MHz, (Xeon's at 533 bus) and 2 - P4's at 2.66/800 MHz bus and 2.4/ 800 MHz buss. All computers have 1 gig or more ram. Nvidia and built in ATI graphics cards are used.

I get stuttering in playback on all machines in both QT and WMV 9..

I then put 3 of the files on DVD's and took them to a computer shop and tried playing on some Apple G5's and the top of the line Intel machines both single and dual core. They didn't have any AMD high end machines to try, so no luck ther.

I got stuttering in various forms on all machines except their fastest flow model G5 Mac (Dual 2.5) . All playback's were set at full resolution for HD and also at 1/2 res. The Mac's only had 512mb of ram. The 2.7 Mb/sec QT played decent on the G5 dual at 2.5 MHz, but the 3.5 Mb/s QuickTime stream was so so. I wouldn't trust it to play back to an audience.

At the shop, all playback was from the DVD disk.

Anyway, when Apple and Microsoft talk about playing back HD (QT or MA 9) on the computers, are they talking only about ADV? or 1440 x 1080 as opposed to 1920 x 1080?

I'm simply looking (for the time being anyway) to play back Full HD on an HD screen via either Windows Media 9 or QT.

On almost all windows machines, the CPU performance is under 50%. The playback stuttering is the same whether from playback on hard drives, dvd disk, or from gig enet off of an 8 drive array.

have rendered probably about 30-40 different combo tests, and they all stutter. I've tried 60i as well at 30 fps and 29.97 fps. All have some stutter.

What the heck am I missing?




Comments

B_JM wrote on 10/10/2005, 8:20 AM
wel for one thing - you should use a a better codec(s) for HD .... the ones you used have no hardware acceleration ...

Another is that playback from a dvd disk (as a data stream in this case) is not a very good idea as you are relying on the poor iDE buss + the pci buss together to move a lot of data .....

I know it will not make you feel better - but i can play back 2k resolution videos in real time 30fps on even a 2.4ghz p4 ..... and 3860x1080 resolution @ 30fps on a 3.2ghz system - with dual output card (for 3D) ...

and many commercial HD playback machines use nothing more than 400mhz cpus and in some cases can spit out dual stream.
MH_Stevens wrote on 10/10/2005, 9:03 AM
B JM: Please expand a bit. What Vegas settings/codex are you advising him to use? When you quote your playback numbers do you mean when playing from hard disc? And how do you render to get a 3860x1080 HDV format?

willisub wrote on 10/10/2005, 2:13 PM
well for one thing - you should use a a better codec(s) for HD .... the ones you used have no hardware acceleration ...
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OK, but if acceleration is needed, why is my cpu's only running 50% or so. I have both 533 and 80 MHz bus's.
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Another is that playback from a dvd disk (as a data stream in this case) is not a very good idea as you are relying on the poor iDE buss + the pci buss together to move a lot of data .....
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The QT and WMA9 files are not that large. I get the same issues with the compressed QT and WMA files from:
1. an ata dvd internal player
2. an ata 7200 rpm drive
3. an 8 drive array via gig enet
4. reading off a dual scsi 10 drive raid 0. (well over 200 MB/Sec read times).

They all stutter pretty much the same. Music plays with off and on stuttering of the video. Only the dual 2.5 GHz MAC G5 didn't.

Also I don't recall either Microsoft or Apple saying we needed hardware acceleration. But again, I obviously don't know the answer, cause it's not working for me.
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I know it will not make you feel better - but I can play back 2k resolution videos in real time 30fps on even a 2.4ghz p4 ..... and 3860x1080 resolution @ 30fps on a 3.2ghz system - with dual output card (for 3D) ...
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What hardware/ display adapter are you using and what codec's are you rendering in. I just care about HD 1920 x 1080P and 24 or 30 fps.
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and many commercial HD playback machines use nothing more than 400mhz cpus and in some cases can spit out dual stream.

OK. But I'm not going to buy one. I just want to play back from the computer so I can make databases for searching and playing in HD to computer monitors, TV, or Projection systems.

Maybe you will have answered this via the "what graphics card and codec's are you using questions from above.

Thanks
B_JM wrote on 10/10/2005, 8:04 PM
1. yes - playing from hard drive .. or in SOME cases, hardware raided drives,...
2. I dont use HDV
3. i'm not rendering at those resolutions with vegas of course either ...



mpeg2 played back with a recent decent quality nvidia or ati card will play fine at HD settings you require -- with a high quality drive on its own .... on a well built system ..

pic video mjpeg will also play - there are some applications that use mjpeg and other codecs and use an openGL playback acceleration - they require wildcat video cards or more often nvidia Quadro cards .. note that pic video (Pegasus Imaging Corporation) has other mjpeg codecs which they dont even offer on their website - optimised for certain applications and playback..

there are other codecs which will work -- but they are not free either ...


a good motherboard is a key thing -- ive seen plenty of dual xeon systems with worse perfomance (in this case) than lessor 1 cpu systems ..

the NVIDIA nForce Professional MCP systems look like a good choice also .. though expensive and rare at this point ...