• Blackmagic Design

  Playback isn’t smooth and can’t figure out best export setting

  Posted by Terry Leahy on June 30, 2017 at 11:51 pm

  Hi Y’all!

  I recently switched from Mac back to Windows so I could get 8GB of GPU where my iMac had only 2GB. 3.7 GHz processor and 8 gb of Ram (upgrading shortly). So on paper it should be much better and smoother playback on my 4K RAW files but for some reason I still can’t get anything to playback well even in proxy mode. So Question 1 is how the hell can I improve playback?

  Question 2. I thought this would also help me to export faster but it just doesn’t seem faster at all. Now that I’m on Windows is the lag happening because I’m trying to go to H.264 instead of say DNXHR? What is the best method for exporting from DaVinci for Windows users? I’m thinking I should make a high res DNXHR (which should go fast?) and then convert that into H.264 for web? I’m looking for maximum speed out of DaVinci. Please help, running 12.5 studio.

  Glenn Sakatch replied 8 years, 8 months ago 2 Members · 2 Replies
• 2 Replies

• 

  Terry Leahy

  June 30, 2017 at 11:52 pm

  Let me also add that the media is even on SSD drives. Should I also put my system on an SSD as well?
• 

  Glenn Sakatch

  August 22, 2017 at 2:24 pm

  While 8 gbs of GPU should help out, you are still not really sitting on a build made for 4k…especially 4k Raw.
  The type of 4k will have a huge effect on playback. (R3ds vs mxf) Hard drive speed is another huge factor. You said the media is on SSDs…great, how are they connected? What kind of through put are you getting. Is it a raid, or a single drive. All these elements contribute to how resolve works.

  How much system ram do you have. Again, pretty important for Resolve.

  Back to the GPU, trying to do 4k raw with a single gpu might not be feasible. My box has 3 GPUs, 1 for GUI, 2 for processing, and it still struggles with some 4k, depending on the drive it is coming from, and the type of 4k.

  My usual recommendation is to switch your project to HD, do your work, then switch back to 4k if you need a 4k master. Look into using cache files for playback as well. Everyone loves saying they are working at 4k, but there isn’t really that much need to work at that resolution, unless you happen to be pulling some tough keys or something, and need every bit of the pixels that are available. The client (if there is one) will never know the path you took to get a 4k master, and you will save yourself some valuable overhead while getting there.

  Glenn

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