Power machine, but external preview still crap

malowz wrote on 4/16/2007, 2:58 PM
hi, im using vegas for ages. i always used vegas in slow machines, and the preview on tv via firewire was always skippy, jumpy, but ok, the pc that we use do not have a good performance in anything.

NOW, we got a new pc. with an asus m2n32 sli deluxe, athlon 64 x2 5000+, 2g ram 800mhz dual channel, raid 0 with 2 seagates 500g hd with 16mb of buffer. performing i/o test show a excellent read speed as you may imagine.

BUT, guess what? capture form dv camera, put on timeline, turn on external preview. play. result: previews keep jumping.... skipping a few frames in a random way.

ow yes, PPT works flawless. the normal "play" is unusable.

i was thinking, with good chipset, a processor like this, very fast hds, this problem will be a "past" thing. but is not.

ive tested with a via pci firewire, other 250g hd, other dv camera, turning on/off read cache from hard disks, defrag, dinamic ram preview, anything. and yes, the video is at 100% opacity, track too. is simples, just open vegas, drag file, play. the video is not recompressed for preview. ive changed firewire cables too ;)

and the results are the same. i REALLY think this is a vegas flaw, as premiere does playback buffer, but takes a while to star play because of this, but, the playback was smooth even with slower 5400rpm old hds.

so, any of you have such problems? or everyone have this and keep in "silent"??? ;)

tnks in advance.

Comments

Marco. wrote on 4/16/2007, 3:12 PM
If it is about DV and external TV preview I have a flawless playback even on my poor system with an old 900 MHz, 512 MB Ram system. So no - this is not a typical Vegas flaw.

Are you sure your project settings are correct? - Them determine the preview in many ways.

Marco
cbrillow wrote on 4/16/2007, 3:19 PM
If significant numbers of Vegas users experienced performance as poor as you describe, there'd be little silence around here.

On my aging system -- an Athlon XP 2600+ - a simple DV file such as you've described plays smoothly in the preview window (at "Best", "Full") and my external firewire device simultaneously, and at 29.97fps. Even when the DV file is on an external USB drive.

Performance begins to degrade to lower frame rates when using effects & compositing, which is to be expected.

You didn't mention the version of Vegas you're using, or whether the preview is smooth in the preview window. This could be an indicator of the overall performance of your system, and provide a starting point for additional troubleshooting.
busterkeaton wrote on 4/16/2007, 3:22 PM
yes, check your project settings, do they match the settings of the video you are using? If not you are probably doing a conversion.
malowz wrote on 4/16/2007, 3:28 PM
@MarcoB

yes, ntsc dv.

@cbrillow

the preview on vegas window is fine. only the external preview trough dv is jumpy.

this problem happens with no effect or anything, just a "play" on single avi in timeline.

im using vegas 7.0d on winxp sp2 , with lastest updates.

also, nforce, forceware, device drivers are fully updated.

using the preview window on best-full and with a curve filter as example, it runs smooth. but a avi with no filter or anything on external preview, run not smooth.
malowz wrote on 4/16/2007, 3:33 PM
@busterkeaton

NTSC DV, 720x480, 29.970fps, lower field. pixel aspect:0.9091.

i have 2 ntsc cameras, a jvc gy-dv5000, and sony dcr hc-42.

the preview window show "preview on external monitor" (i disable simultaneous preview) and, does not show "frame recompressed"
Marco. wrote on 4/16/2007, 3:39 PM
Is it possible there is a malfunction in your firewire device you use for external preview?

Marco
busterkeaton wrote on 4/16/2007, 3:50 PM
Marco's diagnosis seems like a good diagnostic.

What are you using for firewire? Is it an a firewire card or is it on the motherboard?
johnmeyer wrote on 4/16/2007, 3:58 PM
Here's one that definitely will cause the problem: Videoscope. If you have it turned on and if you have it set to update scopes while playing, it will totally mess up the external playback rate. Once you enable videoscope enabled, it stays there between projects, so this would affect everything.

I assume you have no permanent fX set for the video track, but that's worth checking. Far less likely to be the problem, however. Same thing with track or even opacity, two things I've had "bite" me with external preview, but again, this goes away when you start a new project.

I have also seen this problem when another Firewire devices (hard drive) is connected, even if not on the same connection as the camera. I am sure this is specific to the chipset, so this may not explain why both your old and (presumably different chipset) new computer have the same problem, but if you do have an external Firewire drive, I would sure try temporarily disconnecting it.

However, my bet is that VideoScopes is the problem.
malowz wrote on 4/17/2007, 11:25 AM
@MarcoB and busterkeaton

no, ive tested onboard firewire ("TI" chipset) and a pci board ("via" chipset). same thing. today tested on another camera, an old panny, dvc15. this makes 3 cameras to test, with 4 different cables.

@johnmeyer

nope, no videoscope actived (update wile playing). no video fx, motion, or anything , nor permanent fx on tracks.

cpu usage keeps on 2% with external preview activated. sign of "no processing"

again, the problem seems to be "larger". as MarcoB have a nice preview on "900 MHz, 512 MB Ram" vegas should work nice on the others 4 machines i said to be "slow". but no one ever worked as it should.

i think i will have to do a very deep dig to find why any other NLE works fine, but vegas not, cause i really cant live without vegas... but this problem is really bad to me... clients came here, and i have to use PTT to overcome this problem...

another thing: the "disk acess" of vegas during play is to intensive in my opinion. the hd lighs keep "on" all the time of play, and others NLEs just give a "flash" about one time in a second. thats why i think is a vegas buffer problem, not machine problem...
winrockpost wrote on 4/17/2007, 11:31 AM
may try minimizing track height and width and see if it makes a difference,
malowz wrote on 4/17/2007, 11:36 AM
@winrock

no difference...
Dreamline wrote on 4/17/2007, 12:43 PM
have you applied the dual core hot fix for AMD?
malowz wrote on 4/17/2007, 12:59 PM
@FishEyes

yes, 2 weeks ago.
johnmeyer wrote on 4/17/2007, 1:04 PM
OK, I'm out of airspeed and ideas, but here are a few last straws to grasp at:

1. Since you mention major disk access, check the temp file settings in Vegas. Do they point to a valid drive, and one that has fast access.

2. Check DMA (this is very unlikely because if this is screwed up you'd have lots of other problems, but like I said, I am grasping at straws).

Laurence wrote on 4/17/2007, 1:09 PM
You're not changing aspect ratios by chance are you? In other words using 4:3 footage in a 16:9 timeline or vice versa.
malowz wrote on 4/17/2007, 1:28 PM
@johnmeyer ;)

1. yes, they point to raid drive.

2. DMA is ok.

@Laurence

Aspect ratio is on 0.9091 (NTSC DV) , my videos are 4:3 too.
johnmeyer wrote on 4/17/2007, 1:40 PM
I'm stumped.
malowz wrote on 4/17/2007, 1:43 PM
i'm crying.. ;)
winrockpost wrote on 4/17/2007, 2:10 PM
not that its going to make you feel any better, but i too have jumpy playback on the external montor..but only with vegas,, no other app does it. I have found that if i grab the timline,under the horizontal scroll bar and push the timeline up till all that is showing is the controls(play record,pause etc ) it will fix it 90% of the time.
......weird ,,i know.
Laurence wrote on 4/17/2007, 2:29 PM
Try this test:

If you set the resolution to the lowest resolution, does it degrade on your 1394 monitor setup just on the transitions, or does it degrade the whole time?
malowz wrote on 4/17/2007, 2:51 PM
@winrock

i will try it.. ;)

@Laurence

im only triyng to have a smooth play. no trasnitions, fx, or anything. i pre-render all effects, etc, but it is jumpy on everything, native dv video or on the prerendered effects. i disable preview on pc. enable, disable, high resolution, lower, no change. (looking for smooth play on video only of ourse)

other detail:

on vegas timeline (this time, forget external preview) if i put 3 videos , one in top of another, without any effects, etc, it cannot play smooth on vegas video preview (preview framerate gets about 27fps, on preview/half). the HDs looks working on limit. very low cpu usage.

BUT, on any video player (like media player classic), i can put 12 DIFFERENT VIDEOS PLAYING AT SAME TIME AND THE HARD DRIVE IS STILL ON ABOUT HALF UTILIZATION. all videos playing smooth. so, i must consider this machine "excellent."

other thing: I've reinstalled one pc (sempron 2300, 1g ram, 200g sata hd) formated, install windows, .net, directx, vegas. capture 2 minutes, and play. skippy as always...
Marco. wrote on 4/17/2007, 3:11 PM
I remember I once had big trouble with dv files which came from Canopus RexRT. Where are your files from? A Canopus system maybe?

Marco
Laurence wrote on 4/17/2007, 3:16 PM
The reason I was asking was that what should be happening with external 1394 preview is that you should be seeing full resolution regardless of the preview resolution anywhere where there isn't a transition, filter or generated media. This is because the DV codec data should be merely passed from your hard drive to the 1394 preview device without any graphics processing whatsoever. While this is happening, my P4 3.06 for instance drops to about 10%cpu usage and only briefly spikes up during transitions.

Anyway, I find that I can check my project settings by lowering the preview resolution and viewing an unprocessed section of video. If your settings match, the unprocessed sections of video will preview at full resolution regardless of your preview settings.

On a power machine such as yours, you should be getting smooth playback regardless, but it is especially strange to be getting jerky playback during these unprocessed parts.

One thing that might cause this is if the frame rate was set to 30 fps rather than 29.97 or if the projects settings were slightly different than the footage settings: 704x480 instead of 720x480 or 720x486 or something like that.

Maybe you have a firewire interface problem. Maybe your firewire card is sharing an IRQ that it shouldn't or something like that.
malowz wrote on 4/17/2007, 3:21 PM
@MarcoB

captured from 3 dv cameras, utilizing scenalyzer and windv.

is not a "capture/original dv files", because even the prerendered areas have skippy playback...