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Video Stutter with BMD Decklink HD Xtreme and CS6
Just recently got the Decklink HD Xtreme, installed in a Six-Core, 64GB Ram, GTX690 system running Adobe CS6….and another installed on 4-core, 32GB RAM, GTX680 system. Both have large, very fast Areca controlled RAID arrays. Using BMD 10-bit YUV 59.94i timeline in Premiere – or any other sequence setting for that matter – video will run fine for a bit but then begin to stutter after a while. I’ve also tried different kinds of video – both light and heavy in data usage, and the result is the same: stuttered video after a period of playback. If I turn the Blackmagic player off and just use Adobe DV player, all of the same video elements run smooth as silk. It looks like a driver issue to me. Does anyone have any idea what would be causing this? Surely BMD expected that someone would be playing out TV shows to tape with this solution, but what is it about my two similar systems that makes it look like BMD did not test basic, 1080i, long-form playback for broadcast? Believe me, I hope I’m a total dumb**** and there’s a simple setting I’m missing.
System:
Intel Core i7 3970x 3.5Ghz
64GB Ram
Windows 7 Pro
Nvidia GTX690
Areca RAID 5 – 12TB
BMD Decklink Driver 9.6.8
BMD Decklink HD Extreme
Outputting HDSDI to HDCam and DVCProHD
Player set to BMThanks,
Hop -
6 Replies
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Okay….I’m currently only half of a dumb****. In the case of one of my systems, I discovered that the GTX690 is not supported yet, and therefore GPU acceleration was not selected. I fixed that, and the problem, for short clips anyway, went away. However, the 680 machine, which is the only one I’ve run long-form stuff on so far, is GPU-acceleration-enabled, and timelines still begin to stutter at around the 5-7 minute mark. Once I start running longer shows on the bigger machine with the 690, I’ll know for sure if it’s exhibiting the same behavior. Does anyone have any experience with this or think that perhaps a driver rollback is in order? Again – both systems are running fast RAIDS (see above post for specs).
Hop
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the latest BM decklink driver is 9.6.9?
MacPro 2010, 16TB Mini SAS RAID, BM Decklink HD, CS6, Resolve 9, AVID MC, Red Epic
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I believe the latest drivers, for Windows anyway, which is what I use, are 9.6.8. That is what is listed on the BMD site and it is what I am using.
Hop
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I have even more goodness, unrelated to the previous problem, which by the way still exists for both systems using certain codecs. For this issue, I brought in some HD AVI footage from a Matrox-based machine and played it on a timeline in the BMD-based machine. The footage is 1920×1080 (1.0) at 29.97. The sequence in the BMD machine is 1920×1080 (1.0) at 29.97. I also have the same footage in the Matrox-based machine on a 1920×1080(1.0)/29.97 timeline. Both systems are running into an SDI monitor via SDI. The opening title part of the footage coming out of the Matrox machine, with it’s precised text and graphics, is smooth and clean as a baby’s booty. The BMD signal looks clean at first, until it hits the title sequence, where you can see that it is unacceptably pixelated, like it’s lacking a field. What gives BMD folks? I’ve housed it in a smokin’ system and it’s playing with perfectly professional outboard gear, but so far it’s not treating me like a professional. Would love to hear someone’s take on my setup and tell me why I can’t play long clips and why the footage looks like it’s missing a field.
Hop
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Hi Hop,
Where was the title created? .PSD? A Premiere title? Is it pixelated in the Program monitor and the output monitor?
Thanks,
Peter Garaway
Adobe, Premiere Pro QE -
Holy cow, man….I just figured out a whole boatload of stuff just by using one dropdown menu that I hardly use in Premiere, in my 7 years of using it for national TV work, working 15-18 hour days 6-7 days a week. I use it all the time in After Effects, but I might have used it twice in 7 years in Premiere. It hit me like a ton of bricks! INTERPRET FOOTAGE! When you are working in an HD timeline, and all the stuff you capture and work with is 1080i or becomes 1080i after a run through AE, you don’t think of that one. It’s always the same so no need. Luckily it did occur to me, and it solved the fields issue that cleared a lot of stuff up. But here’s the thing….in order for it to look right with the BMD hardware, I had to set interlaced footage to Progressive….no fields, as opposed to the upper fields setting I have used for almost all capturing and exporting for networks. I brought the 1080i/29.97 footage from a Matrox machine that assumes Upper Fields for everything – and what I personally think is the right way of thinking – and BMD wants it to be rid of the fields in order for it to play with the proper cadence. Very weird to me, but problem solved. Jeeezuz…I’m going to make an instructional video someday….I can’t imagine how many people are letting this kind of thing slip because they don’t have the patience to test it, the gear to see it, or the experience to simply know that their footage looks like poop. “Blacknmagic says it’s going to look great…it must look great, even though I don’t have the right monitor.” Anyway….all’s well that ends well. I haven’t run long runs of footage after this revelation to know whether my original problem of stuttering will be fixed with this, but I’m betting it will. Thanks for dropping by, Peter!
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