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DVCPRO HD 60 – how many RT streams do you get???
Hello, I am trying to figure out how many RT streams of DVCPRO HD 60 I should be getting on my system? (FCP 4.5 Dual 2 GHz, 2 GB RAM Full populated Xserve Raid 50)
I only get one stream at Safe/High, this doesn’t seem right to me. Apple support has been no help since they don’t believe in benchmarks.All other video formats seem to be up to par:
DV= 5streams safe/high
8bit=7 streams safe/high
10bit= 6 streams safe/high
HD 10bit= 1 stream safe/highany feedback would be extremely helpful
Kevin Ritchie
Editor
Cubist Post & Effects
Philadelphia, PA -
8 Replies
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Ouch! Sorry I can’t help, but I also can’t help notice that you’re getting more streams of 10bit (I assume UC) than DV! Something’s very wrong there.
Ed -
Actually I was told by someone at Apple that you are supposed to get more 8 and 10 bit uncompressed streams than you are DV because it actually takes more computing power to play back a compressed format. The reason being uncompressed formats have a constant bit rate which is easy for processors to compute. Compressed formats such as DV, DVPRO, and DVCPRO HD actually take more processor power because bit rate varies.
let me know if you have seen different, may be Apple is wrong
Kevin Ritchie
Editor
Cubist Post & Effects
Philadelphia, PA -
Sorry, I was thinking in terms of the hard drive capability, which in your case would allow far more DV streams than UC, not the overall system requirements. As for Apple not believing in benchmarks, here’s one of their own tests of how many streams FCP is capable of. Sure looks like benchmarking to me (I guess they’ll use benchmarks for marketing, but not customer support):
https://a448.g.akamai.net/7/448/51/7cf03f63961100/www.apple.com/finalcutpro/pdf/FinalCutPro4_PS_112003.pdfEd
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Yes, one stream sounds about right. 60fps is pretty taxing. Remember this is FRAMES not FIELDS. Most of the 720p demos you see are with 23.98 media with the pulldown frames removed. Far less taxing and more streams as a result. Change your setting to unlimited/medium while working. You have to render before you go to tape anyway because there’s no such thing as TRUE real-time in a software-based system when you have to go to tape.
Sincerely,
OliverOliver Peters
Post-Production & Interactive Media
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
Not so – FCP is perfectly capable of RT effects to tape without rendering.
Martin
Digital Heaven, London UK
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Multicam Lite – The first multicam solution for FCP -
Yes, FCP has a bunch of RT that does not need to render. The darker forest green bar, represents full quality. You can render this full quality, but you don’t have to. Some examples are cross dissolve and 3 way color corrector.
Kevin Ritchie
Editor
Cubist Post & Effects
Philadelphia, PA -
Kevin –
I’ve been working on a PBS series shot at 720P60. One stream is all you will get, and just barely at that. I’m working on a G5, Dual 2.5, 4 meg of ram and fibre channel drives. And yes, HDPRO 60 is much tougher on the Mac than uncompressed.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions -
Not with DVCProHD in safe/high. Also no quarantee that your drive array will play it if there isn’t enough buffer. Yes it will work. Is it reliable like EVERY hardware system. No way. The bottom line is that individual effects can run in RT to a point, but not in the real world, where you typically have a few filters, or CC on both sides of a dissolve, or DVE moves with drop shadows, etc.
Sincerely,
OliverOliver Peters
Post-Production & Interactive Media
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com
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