Is there an update coming soon?

filmy wrote on 1/31/2006, 12:05 PM

Just some really rough testing.

Loaded up a HDV720p m2t file. Rendered out 10 seconds with the TC Window and another with the TC window and the Magic Bullet Editors Bleach Bypass look.

First I did this to the default HDV MPG setting.
Vegas =
TC Window - 19 seconds
TC Window with MB look - 12 minutes, 8 seconds.

In PPro 2 I did the same thing - but I relized you can't save to the format because it is MPG, disabled in the PPro 2 demo - so I did uncompressed AVI, the default.

TC window - 10 bit - 1;05
8 bit - 1:08

TC/MB - about 26 minutes.

To find something a bit more "alike' I went back to Vegas and output via the Cineform codec.

TC Window - 24 seconds
TC/MB - about 14 minutes

Back to PPRO 2 :

TC Window - 15 seconds.
TC/MB about 12 minutes.

Not too much of a change. A few seconds here and there.

Timeline playback is another story - Premiere pro has always been better than Vegas. Not sure why that is but on the vegas timeline playback starts at about 24 and drops to aboput 3. On the PPro timeline playback stays steady at between 24 - full speed. But to be fair I got great playback with PPro 1.5 / 1.5.1 as well.

I miss the output to my monitor I got with the PPro 1.5.1 update, unless this is something disabled in the Demo all I have options for are DV out via firewire or SDI out for anything HD. I know Cineform has a 4.0 update that works with PPro 2 but not sure if it re-adds the monitor option.

Bloated is what all apps seem to be getting now. Sort of like having IE as part of the Windows OS. Adobe, at leatsd in the demo, does not give you any install options for things like "help center" and "bridge". Also you get DX 9 and WMV runtimes that install ("configure") after PPro install. I HATE it when any app installs things without saying what is going on...or allows for an optiopn to install of not to install. But to be fair I seem to recall lots of complaints about Sony now installing it's own media management software along with Vegas - to me this is also bloat.

The PPro 2 interface is aboput the same to me - except now it has pull tabs that follow what you are doing. So if you resize the timeline the rest of the layout follows. Kind of nice, but also kind of annoying.

Loaded up some older projects and they seem to load ok, sans some plug-ins. DV plays out fine via firewire but it is somewhat tricky to get it set up now. It isn't the "Playback on desktop and monitor" click box but that is gone. Now it depends on what the project is - you get a "Realtime Playback" option with a "desktop video" checkbox and a drop down menu that shows you what devices you have. If are working on an NTSC DV based project you get "DV 29.97i (720x480)" or "none" option. If it is a 24p DV project you get "DV 23.976p (720x480)" or "none" . You can't change the settings in a project either - the options are greyed out. Sort of makes sense, but also means you can't do a "save as", you would have to re-import the project into a new project based on thier settings. Also you need to also check down under the "Export" settings and choose - same options as the playback settings. There are no options for "HDV" as far as output/monitor goes, although there is a capture option for HDV capture. This could be a limitation of the demo...but not 100% sure.

I can't seem to get any sort of "export to tape" option unless the project is HD and the option is for SDI. Another limitation of the demo?

I still dislike audio functions in premiere. They add things, but it just has never wored for me and still doesn't work. Veags is the mixing program of choice for me at this point. But premiere has been an editor, not a DAW and for sure not mixing software. Having said that with the newer interactions between programs mixing might be as easy as having Audition and just having whatever you do there jump over to PPro much like the new ability to somewhat author DVD menus on the timeline and have that go over to Encore.

Still playing a bit - the color correction tools are nice. nice for fast one click correction for white balance and the like.

dmakogon wrote on 1/31/2006, 2:05 PM

Hi Rob,

You're right, in that video cards are currently designed to output specifically to a video output device (i.e. monitor). I read somewhere, about a year ago, about the upcoming GPUs from nVidia and their advanced built-in features such as MPEG-2 encoding and decoding ability. Some of this is in use today, as these GPUs can render an MPEG-2 stream quite efficiently and not tax the local CPU. However, the article (that I cannot, for the life of me, find!) talked about the eventual ability to send data to a video card's GPU and get, in return, translated data. So, if this ever materialized, you could imagine Vegas sending avi data to the GPU, and receiving MPEG-2 encoded data in return. Maybe it's done in chunks, maybe it's frame-by-frame... the impartant part is that the GPU would provide this service, and a program would simply need to feed the GPU.

I scoured TomsHardware and some other places last night, as well as the nVidia and ATI sites. I can't find a single reference to what I'm talking about. So... maybe it was just a dream... If I come across it again, I'll let you know.

David

Coursedesign wrote on 1/31/2006, 2:12 PM

There's even pro audio software doing heavy processing on the graphics card.

There's Magic Bullet getting up to at least a 12x speed boost on film effects by offloading to a standard nVidia GPU. Premiere Pro, soon Final Cut Pro, and many more.

The video programs use OpenGL for most of the work, it finally has the shaders needed to do serious video work quickly. PCI Express now gives full throughput both to and from the card, which is the way to make this really rock.

p@mast3rs wrote on 1/31/2006, 2:36 PM

David:

Nvidia Pure Decoder: http://store.nvidia.com/

ATI: http://www.ati.com/technology/h264.html

Nvidia is only for decoding/playback whereas ATIs will eventually (soon?) allow use of the GPU for encoding assistance.

Coursedesign wrote on 1/31/2006, 3:08 PM

Just a word of caution for those working professionally with video (as opposed to games). ATI cards have been repeatedly found to create problems with many different applications, while nVidia cards have been solid.

It's really in the drivers, ATI needs to hire new programmers.

Don't get me wrong, I was an ATI fan for a looong time, but was not happy see all the recent problems.

nVidia is the ticket for both stability and performance, and ATI hopefully will work hard to regain its leadership position.

In the meantime, why bother with ATI cards?

Steve Mann wrote on 1/31/2006, 5:59 PM

If I recall, all that the GPU cards can do is process data to the display. In other words, preview in real time or near real time. They wouldn't do anything for rendering to file.

Since most GPU cards are designed for the gaming undustry, I can't imagine why the processor would need to receive back the rendered data, and even then, it's a completely different format than you would want in an AVI file. The display is a bit-mapped device where the AVI file is a sequence of frames compressed in JPEG format.

If there were a render processor for the PC, it would likely be very expensive.

Steve Mann

Nat wrote on 1/31/2006, 6:42 PM

A little fairy told me 6.0d would be coming soon...

Coursedesign wrote on 1/31/2006, 8:27 PM

If I recall, all that the GPU cards can do is process data to the display. In other words, preview in real time or near real time. They wouldn't do anything for rendering to file.

You don't have to take my word for it, just go to for example the Magic Bullet web site and see what a roundtrip to a GPU does for rendering speed, to a file of course.

Why did graphics cards make it possible to access the image that they generated?

Because this is needed in some applications, and if what's picked up from it goes to a file, well that's just trivial.

Why is a GPU so much faster than a CPU?

Two reasons:

1. It's optimized for doing ultrafast matrix math.

2. It doesn't have to be compatible with the Intel 8088 processor of the early 1980s.

GPUs have direct memory busses that a CPU could only dream about, and their specialized instruction sets are brutally effective at processing large amounts of data with internal dependencies (images, video, audio).

Since most GPU cards are designed for the gaming undustry...

There are gaming cards and there are workstation cards. What is relatively new is that even gaming cards provide OpenGL nowadays.

Welcome to the new world! :O)

Jackie_Chan_Fan wrote on 1/31/2006, 9:21 PM

Having OpenGL is one thing, but having a fully compliant opengl driver is another. Most gaming cards lack some of the higher end Opengl extensions found in the drivers of the workstation cards.

This is the evil little trick. Most notably... ATI does this.

Nvidia has done it in the past, but Nvidia has a far better Opengl implimentation. Nvidia's more directly linked to opengl historically thanks to their ties with the old SGI 3d engineering department that Nvidia swallowed up before 2000.

Steve Mann wrote on 2/1/2006, 12:23 AM

"You don't have to take my word for it, just go to for example the Magic Bullet web site and see what a roundtrip to a GPU does for rendering speed, to a file of course"

You'll have to lead me to it because there's no mention of any supported graphics hardware, GPU or accellerator hardware in the web site or the Magic Bullet manual.

While workstation graphics cards are a lot faster and more powerful (and expensive), they still only have to send rendered data to the display.

So, what graphics card can you think of that returns AVI frames to the processor?

Steve Mann

Coursedesign wrote on 2/1/2006, 12:43 AM

AVI is a video container file format.

Its only connection with image data is that it can contain it.

The CPU doesn't have to receive render output in AVI/NTFS format, it already has everything set up to do the disk output to the host disk file system.

I agree that the MB web site is screwed up, wonder how much this has cost them.

Here's the direct link (I have offered it before, but was too lazy this time):

MB & Vegas 6 = 1.8 frames per sec. playback w/o GPU vs. 30 frames per sec. with nVidia 7800GT.

Steve Mann wrote on 2/1/2006, 11:33 PM

OK, it says playback - not render.

In the chart below this, they have bolded the word PLAYBACK.

But further up is the note:
"(Note: Magic Bullet Editors 2 will work without a supported graphics card but will revert to CPU rendering and therefore not utlilize our DeepColor RT rendering technology.)"

So, I'll concede that MB does in fact use GPU hardware for rendering, but the supported GPU cost over $400 - more than MBE.

I don't shoot for film, so it's difficult for me to see any value in MBE. But to the original question: A more expensive graphics card does nothing for Vegas.

When and if Vegas does in fact use the Nvidia 7800 "Video post-processing" to get faster rendering, then I'll buy the hardware. But only if the render quality is the same or better.

Steve Mann

Steve Mann

filmy wrote on 2/2/2006, 2:56 PM

The run down is a bit confusing because they give tests for playback but they mention rendering in several spots, but in conjuntion with rendering: ...was developed to utilize your computer's graphics card processor (GPU) to deliver the same high-quality results with up to realtime preview and render speeds. is one mention.

Then for the specs:

Real-time playback and render speeds were acheived on the system listed below.

But now you also find this: Using our new DeepColor RT™ GPU render engine... and if you read the "fine print" so to speak you see most of this "real time" stuff comes along with the "DeepColor RT™ render engine" which is available is the "(Look Suite 2 only)" so to me this adds more confusion.

Coursedesign wrote on 2/2/2006, 5:25 PM

the supported GPU cost over $400 - more than MBE

The last expensive OpenGL 2.0 GPU I know is the nVidia FX5200, I have seen it recently for $29AR. It's a really good card (I have one on one of my Vegas machines), although it doesn't have sportscar performance.

An nVidia 6600GT can be had for about $125, this is in a totally different league. Very good power for the money, optimal really for most people.

The 6800GS is less than $200, and for a few bucks more you get a 6800GT.

A 7800GT is within 10% of a 7800GTX and costs just $289 at Newegg for an eVGA card (which I think have the best drivers currently, as well as a lifetime warranty that doesn't say like PNY's warranty, "valid until there's a new model").

So your choice, and the table (on the page linked above) shows what performance you get at each level.

Coursedesign wrote on 2/2/2006, 6:14 PM

if you read the "fine print" so to speak you see most of this "real time" stuff comes along with the "DeepColor RT™ render engine" which is available is the "(Look Suite 2 only)" so to me this adds more confusion.

Their whole web site is a mess!!!

Two other sources indicate Look Suite 2 is included, including one forum post elsewhere from their tech support.

Note that MB also supports just chroma deartifacting before chromakey or just dressing up DV/HDV footage for inclusion in higher format video:

* DV/HDV - 4 sample chroma reconstruction to compensate for 4:1:1 or 4:2:0 sampling
* HDCAM - 3 sample reconstruction to compensate for 3:1:1 sampling
* Broadcast - 2 sample reconstruction to compensate for 4:2:2 sampling

rmack350 wrote on 2/2/2006, 9:35 PM

Steve,

Buying a graphics card today for GPU acceleration tommorow would be silly. Of course you'd wait. However, there are lots of other applications that already use the GPU for 3D rendering to disc. It's real.

As Bjorn pointed out, there is a at least one application using the GPU as an audio coprocessor. It just demonstrates that a GPU can do more generalized tasks.

Vegas doesn't have to send "AVI data" to the GPU. Think about it a bit. The preview window is a frame buffer, meaning it's the data going to the video card, or the data held in memory on the video card, (actually I think it really is the buffer on the card itself but I might be wrong). This is why when you copy a frame in Vegas it's always exactly what you see in the preview window, and not neccesarily a full rez frame..

The Matrox Axio uses itself and a high end Nvidia graphics card for processing, along with the biggest, fattest AMD Dual Core/ Dual CPU system that money can buy. I've seen it work a little and it's very fast. Hugely fast but in some ways not as flexible as Vegas (extremely limited exposure here, though)

The question here isn't whether GPU acceleration is possible. It's already here. The question is whether Vegas would support it and under what circumstances. My own feeling on this is that if it was a very standardized technology and commonly available in the operating system, Vegas would support it.

Rob Mack

rmack350 wrote on 2/2/2006, 9:36 PM

Whatdaya mean "little"?

-Rob Mack

Spot|DSE wrote on 2/2/2006, 9:52 PM

I'll bet he wouldn't like being called a "fairy." :-D

p@mast3rs wrote on 2/2/2006, 10:39 PM

Fairy or not, I hope its soon and I hope they open up H.264 AVC encoding a bit (HD resolutions and much higher bit rates.) That would be enough to hold me over til 7 finally hits.

Can someone from Sony at least give us an idea of when we can expect a new update?