-
CS4/EX1 playback horror
Tell me I’m doing something wrong, this better be a good joke…
First, I’m running a Matrox Axio LE system with updated utils and drivers on an HPxw9400 workstation, CS4 updated as well. Vista Ultimate, 12gigs DDR3 ram, dual AMD opteron quadcore 2218s (2.6gHz), and Radeon X9150 Pro with 512mb ram (though DxDiag says total mem for display is 3317MB? Must be something to do with the Matrox acceleration? I don’t know)…Point is I think the machine is strong enough to deal with HD? My drives were very recently defragged, and are all 500-1tb drives, storage/fragmentation is not an issue.
Footage was shot with a Sony EX-1 camera.
1) I copied over a bunch of footage from SxS cards to my drives; still have intact BPAV folders and everything.
2) I tried importing the footage by hunting for the .mp4 wrapped files, I did this by simply double clicking in premiere’s project panel. (I’m trying through both Premiere’s media browser window, and Sony’s XDCAM ED ClipBrowser next to see if I get improved playback performance.)
After this I had my footage in the job, I put it on a timeline, but even before this everything started to act extremely slow, laggy, artifacts formed on the screen from mouse movement…Playback is horrible at best, when I hit spacebar to play, only audio comes out and the picture stays frozen, then 5-10seconds later the audio restarts this time in Sync with video play back, which for the first few seconds if STILL choppy.
Now aboutt the footage…the first batch (about 23gigs) was shot in 1080p@30f….My cameraman didn’t realize Matrox (for WHATEVER STUPID REASON, though this is slightly off topic) CAN’T INTERPRET AND WORKWITH 1080P@30. If any of you have a Matrox system, you may know what I am talking about, as when you create a sequence, and use the matrox presets (otherwise I get no monitor feed from my Axio I/O box) the only presets under 1440×1080 are 23.97, 24 and 25 fps…
I found that placing the 1080p@30 footage on a timeline with Matrox 1080i 29.97 (closest matching matrox TL preset) appears to work, at least there is no red ‘render’ line over the footage – seems to view the footage as native…Might this be my problem?
The other footage, shot on another day is at 1080p 23.97f – I talked to my cameraman and explained the problem that Matrox can only accept certain formats (anyone have an idea why that is? Only 1080i@25, 1080i@29.97, 1080p@23.97, 1080p@24, 1080p@25 are matrox accepted formats?!?!).
I can create a sequence that perfectly matches up with the 1080p 23.97 footage from the second shoot date, but STILL am getting molasses performance out of playback. I’m going to create a new job, just import the second shoot date footage (which can perfectly mesh with Matrox TL presets) and see if this helps things…
What I am working with now, is simply impossible to work with, there is a possibility I can get away with scrapping the first shoot date – not much was caught that will be used, and thus get around the Matrox “unusable format” issue, but together both days comprise 66gigs of footage.
Right now, I’d rather be working with BetaSP or SX again. Any help or suggestions?!
-
6 Replies
-
Hmmm…
I edit EXcam all day on laptops…your system should have the juice to do it. I’d suspect if you opened an Adobe EX project (no Matrox), it would work fine.
You could try to interpret the file as an accepted framerate (switch the 30p to 25p) in the project if the content isn’t sensitive to a speed change.
Dunno why Matrox accepts the formats they accept. I suppose trying to crank out everything in real time demands you draw the line somewhere…
TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions, -
Typically you would use the 1080i (1920×1080)preset for editing progressive footage, since typically it is shot in progressive to impart a “film look” to the footage, and this look is maintained when edited in an interlaced project. Really the only reason to work in a progressive project would be for layback to film, or certain instances involving graphics manipulation. Generally, all distribution, broadcast, DVD, etc. is 1080i (interlaced).
The 1440 x 1080 presets I think are primarily for editing and outputting native HDV.
I’m not sure why Matrox hasn’t included a 1080 30P preset, although it would be a rare circumstance where this would be necessary.
I believe Axio should be able to play back multiple streams of native XDCAM EX (with the appropriate workstation and disk array) on a 1080i (1920×1080) timeline without rendering, whether it was shot 1080i or P; 29.97 fps or 23.98 fps. (I’m not positive, because I don’t have an EX1)
-
I’m having much of the same problem, WITHOUT a Matrox card. On Friday I took delivery of a new CS4 system. I have about 100 gig of XDCam footage, broken into about 350 clips. For the first few minutes of editing, everything is fine. Then, Premiere freezes for several minutes, only to respond again. If you change the project panel to “view thumbnails”, then scroll the panel to find a clip, all thumbnails turn gray, and the computer needs to be restarted.
My machine should be fast enough. This is what I purchased:
SC733TQ-645B SATA Mid-Tower Chassis
ZALN5600004 Riptide Accessory Package
ASUN5450005 P6T Deluxe V2
Intel® Core™ i7-920 Processor 2.66GHz
OCZN5180001 DDR3 1600 6GB
WESN5160010 500GB Caviar Black 7200rpm 32MB Cache SATA Hard Drive
2 WESN5160009 1000GB Caviar Black 7200rpm 32MB Cache SATA Hard Drive
PION5410026 Pioneer BDR-203 Blu-Ray DVD Drive
DIAN5300007 Radeon HD4870 1024MB PCIe
MSON0900006 Windows Vista Ultimate 64-BitAny suggestions?
-
Update guys-
Everything is fixed, now I’m REALLY seeing what this axio can do, VERY IMPRESSIVE!
I changed the file structre by renaming (the BPAV container folders), I renamed them BPAVxxgbcardxx/xx/xx bascially to tell me which card the footage was off and what shoot date the footage was shot on (fill in 16gbcard for xxgbcard, 07/10/09 for xx/xx/xx etc…)
This ruined everything, and the axio was STILL able to play it sorta… I went back renamed all the BPAV container folders BPAV, then put the entire BPAV container folders in ANOTHER folder to label where the footage was from…
Example: 16gbcardMorning07/xx/09–>BPAV (reverted back to original file name!)–>CLPR–>clip folder
It WAS: BPAV16gbcardMorning07/xx/09—>CLPR–>clip folder
I guess it’s a rookie mistake! From now on NOTHING will be changed AT ALL! I did this to try an make sense of my archiving at first and manage the media better, but I’ve learned now I will FIRST make a descriptive container folder with teh card ID and Shootdate etc…as the name, THEN place an intact unchanged BPAV inside the descriptive folder. Lots of folders, but thats how I keep track of time logs shootdates and media as well as with metadata.
So DONT rename those BPAV container folders! (I’m sure you all already know that!)
-
My problem has also been fixed. By NOT using the Sony Clip Browser to transfer the clips from the card to the computer, but using Windows. I thought I was NOT to use Windows to move the files, but since doing it, Premiere has been flawless.
Darrell
-
[Darrell Boeck] “I thought I was NOT to use Windows to move the files, but since doing it, Premiere has been flawless.”
Wow… That’s pretty interesting. I’ve not had an issue as far as I can tell with the Sony transfer utility… I wonder if your Sony app is corrupt somehow?
TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up