Stuttering playback

dvboy wrote on 11/6/2005, 3:31 AM
Hi all

This is most probably not a new topic but would really appreciate the fundi's advice here.

I want to try and put the 'stuttering playback' issue to bed once and for all and am willing to spend a few bob to achieve this - albeit for the right reason.

I capture and edit HDV (z1 and FX1) and for the present moment output to SD (until HDV consumer screens come on stream).

Vegas supports "real time" preview but even with an Cineform intermediate, I get stuttering playback on my second monitor (both are connected via a NVidia 7800 via DVI-D). Even on the internal preview I get this using both "good" and "preview" setings.

I want to be able to view TRUE real time playback WITHOUT any stuttering and all the talk of BMD etc is not giving me a definitive answer. Would the HDLink from BMD be the answer or a Nvidia Quadro?

Spot - and any others too - what would be the best video hardware setup to achieve this. I have a pretty high end machine (pentium D dual core 3.2GHZ) but now need to solve the remaining problem.

Any help in the right direction would be appreciated.

Thanks

Comments

farss wrote on 11/6/2005, 5:18 AM
Neither of those will make one iota of difference!
When you say 'stuttering playback' just what is happening?
Is the frame rate consistently under what it should be or does it just drop every once in a while?
Are you adding FX etc?
Only question I know but they might save me or others offering a lot of useless advice.

Bob.
JJKizak wrote on 11/6/2005, 5:46 AM
You will not get rid of the stuttering playback without using hardware. That's the way it is with HDV avi's at the present time. You can play back the m2t files in the MY-HD -120 HDTV Tuner card perfectly by changing the file ending to tp. But it is not very convenient unless you do a preview to media player render first to look at what you have edited, view your render on the preview monitor or the MY-HD card which entails much more screwing around. I set my preview window to best full and if I want to see the basics I will render to media player as NTSC Widescreen which is fine. If I want to really see what is happening I will render to HDV 1080i then look at it with the MY-HD card on my new Sony 23" 1366 LCD HDTV monitor. The Windows media player has a problem playing back m2t files which I will also look at through the Matrox APVe HDTV overlay. The overlay looks fantastic when playing the windows HD-WMV files through media player.The V6c hdv 1080i files sharpness and color look great when played with media player through the overlay but they stutter a lot.

JJK
dvboy wrote on 11/6/2005, 12:04 PM
Thanks Bob

Maybe I should have been a bit more clearer after reading these responses.

My preview pane is never at the project settings (720 PAL - 25fps). Even when working with Cineforms' intermediate, if I add a fade, transition or overlay another track, bang goes the frame rate.

Previewing at "preview" setting gives crappy quality to view your work - I would like to see something at about 15+ fps at "good".

Which hardware accelerators work with Vegas for real time preview on external screen/monitor?

Rendering before previewing is not the ideal workflow and would defeat the object

Many thanks
fldave wrote on 11/6/2005, 2:32 PM
"Rendering before previewing is not the ideal workflow and would defeat the object"

True, but I'm getting by quite well by selecting a smaller section of the timeline, then selecting Tools\Selectively Prerender. When complete, runs HDV 1080i at 29.97.

Good for checking transitions, color settings, etc.

Edited: HDV 1080i at 29.97 at Best preview
dvboy wrote on 11/7/2005, 5:24 AM
"True, but I'm getting by quite well by selecting a smaller section of the timeline"

This what I am trying to avoid. With a project which spans two dvd's, this means a heck of a lot of rendering before outputting the final project. I agree that a selective render will solve a lot of problems but it is the time taken which screws me around - surely there is a way of previewing realtime at a decent frame rate

its not that I am sitting with a slower machine - if this was the case then I would have to relent - I specifically built this machine to alleviate alot of what I am currently experiencing

I would have thought that someone would have a fair workable solutionto the problem - or is this part of a newer version to be released?

Thanks