Why can't VV3 render as fast as VJ software

murk wrote on 5/13/2002, 6:52 PM
I wonder why VJ software like Arkaos and Visual Jockey can render many layers of effects and video at 800x600 in real time, while VV3 slows to a crawl previewing a single layer of effects and 3 layers of video in draft mode at 320x240. This actually seems to be the case with most NLEs. Is there someting I'm missing here? I mean I can basically do realtime editing and effects manipulation (via MIDI) using several VJ packages out there and have it look good on DVD or VHS.

Comments

SonyDennis wrote on 5/13/2002, 10:18 PM
While I haven't seen any of the VJ software you're refering to, I'd have to say that none of the NLE manufactures have written their inner loops in BASIC, and are running pretty near optimal rendering routines. Therefore, I'd have to say that it's a classic tradeoff of speed vs. quality and general purpose vs. task specific tools. There are very many "cheats" that enable the light-show tools to render very fast frame rates, but if you asked them to compress those frames to MPEG, or do bicubic scaling on the source images, the frame rate would drop, if they could do it at all. I'm not knocking the VJ software, I'm sure it's efficient stuff, and does what it does, well.
///d@
BillyBoy wrote on 5/13/2002, 10:36 PM
I'll take quality renders over speed anytime.

Maybe we could have a Vegas Video version written totally in Assembly language some day. Could always ask Steve Gibson for a few pointers. Just think a high end video editing package running in Assembly on a AMD XP 2000+. <wink>
DataMeister wrote on 5/14/2002, 1:16 AM
After finding the companies web site for VJ, I couldn't figure out exactly what it does. Much less how it would do things faster.

http://www.arkaos.net/site/en/index.html

My best guess is that it does something similar to the visualizations in Windows Mediaplayer or Winamp. Except possibly the visualizations are used in making transitions between live action video. Without downloading the demo and trying it I really have no idea.

JBJones

fongaboo wrote on 5/14/2002, 7:43 PM
another good program to check out is resolume or VJLowLev..

Would SF consider developing VJ performance software? Or a lopp-based program like ACID but for video?
murk wrote on 5/14/2002, 8:38 PM
You are correct, there is a difference between rendering to the screen and rendering to a DV quality file. But that is like comparing apples and oranges. I mean isn't the preview window just displaying to screen? The VV3 preview window certainly uses these 'cheats' currently (i.e. draft vs. best). I am not trying to say the these other VJ softwares should be used instead of VV3 (They have totally different uses), I just think there should be some consideration of the technology used for faster real time previewing.
Cheesehole wrote on 5/14/2002, 11:45 PM
what would be great is a quality level that stays in perfect sync with the audio, no matter how bad the quality has to be (I'm talking sub-draft). often I have to allow a section of my project to loop a few times before the preview window really matches the audio perfectly. when trying to time an audio event, video quality is a non-issue so it could look really bad as long as it's recognizable.
BD wrote on 5/15/2002, 9:18 AM
When editing audio, would these steps provide the best synch for preview purposes?

1. Reduce the Preview window size;
2. Use the Draft Quality preview setting; and
3. Uncheck the "Display at Project Size" box.