V8Pro & DVDA 4.5 Rendering & processor Usage

Maverick wrote on 10/27/2007, 6:01 AM

I know that back under V5 rendering was pretty processor intensive but it seems even more so with V8Pro, etc.

I haven't got a dual-processor but I haven't got a particularly slow machine, either.

I notice, for example, that DVDA, when Making a DVD, uses between 95 & 97% of processor time.

Is there anything I can do to reduce this? Is there an option I have missed that allows you to use less processor time albeit making the rendering take longer?

Cheers

Comments

farss wrote on 10/27/2007, 6:12 AM

DVDA has always been a resource hog, I don't understand why you'd want it to use less resources and run slower.
Realistically an NLE should be run on a purpose built machine with a stripped down OS and it should be using all the resources you can throw at it.

Bob.

Maverick wrote on 10/27/2007, 6:21 AM

Thanks for your comments, Bob.

Being an amateur editor (I have done several edits for the local health authority but mostly for family, friends and myself) I don't, as yet, have the option to use a dedicated machine. When I am rendering it now becomes very unresponsive and a PIA to use.

I siuppose I could just sit back and catch up on all those turtorials and manuals I should be reading;)

Cheers

farss wrote on 10/27/2007, 6:43 AM

You might get some relief by reducing the process priority. Unfortunately I'm not certain where to do that, maybe someone else can chime in.

I always do rendering overnight, the DVDA prepare thingy should be very short unless you're making DVDA do the encoding. If that's the case use Vegas to do it, you get more control.

Where you need to be careful with video is certain things are time critical. Capturing from and printing to tape. The data must get moved on time or the process fails. Burning a DVD is the same although thanks to buffering in the burner not as critical as it used to be.

But overall you're dead right, every release of Vegas seems to need more CPU, that's what happens when you add more features and options. For a lot of work I just go back to V4, probably made more money out of V4 than anything.

Bob.

TheHappyFriar wrote on 10/27/2007, 6:56 AM

to reduce the priority, hit CTRL+ALT+DELETE. Go to the "processes" tab. find the program you want to reduce (IE DVDA, Vegas, etc.) Right click on it -> set priority -> below normal.

now... it will still use up to 100% resources, but the second you do something else (i've played Quake 3 once), it hands as much over to the other program as necessary. all slow-downs when running another app should be put to nill.

i use that all the time. :)

Maverick wrote on 10/27/2007, 7:06 AM

You might get some relief by reducing the process priority

I never thought to give that a try. IIRC you go to Windows Task Manager and select Processes. Right click on the process involved and select the priority from there. I'm in the middle of a render now so won't mess with it but will try later.

I usually render over night, too, but this morning there was an error and i needed to re-render. I promised my parents I would have the DVD ready for this evening - they want to view my last visit to Ukraine!

I'm surprised the render is taking so long as the entire project is around 30 minutes (3 MPEG-2 DVD files rendered in V8Pro) with just 4 animated buttons.

What I don't understand is that I used the default template in V8Pro to render ac3 files yet DVDA still informed me that they required re-rendering!

Capturing is never a problem as I always leave the PC well alone until capturing is complete. I learnt this very early on.

Cheers

@happyFriar
Only saw your post after posting my reply:)

MPM wrote on 10/28/2007, 12:49 PM

There was a post in the DVDA section about 4.5 wanting to re-render the same PAL W/S files version 4 accepted. Last I looked it was unresolved, so may be a problem with 4.5 wanting to re-render DVD compliant media when PAL W/S?

Otherwise FWIW...
There are 2 things you look for: Software Ideally will use a minimum of processor time when it doesn't have to, and a maximum of all your resources when doing something processing intensive, like rendering.

Besides lowering priorities, dual core cpus don't in general make your PC faster, but do multi-tasking better, so upgrading would be a help. Vista has better thread handling I think, so that might help. -- in fact I've read in some cases it's hard to achieve 90+% usage in 1 app. And background rendering is available in some apps/encoders, and that would help.