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Forgive the repeat, still looking for GPU understanding for preview only…
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[Scott Francis] “I have just started to disable resample on the 60p clips. That does seem to help a bit with preview. “
It helped me more than a bit. I went from 6 fps back up to 29.97 fps during transitions. If you don’t disable resample, Vegas Pro will try and blend frames on the fly to conform to the projects frame rate. Other NLE’s would force you to conform your video first. This isn’t a bad idea. Just because Vegas Pro lets you throw mixed frame rate clips on the timeline doesn’t mean that you should. 😉
[Scott Francis] “So my main question is WHY is preview still so CPU heavy when we are utilizing GPU preview? This doesn’t seem to be logical (at least in my mind) as I have been chasing this end of the rainbow since SVP11!!!”
It’s about striking a balance. The GPU doesn’t work on it’s own. It is a co-processor which means that main processor (CPU) needs to feed it work. Perhaps an 8-core can feed the same GPU better than a 4-core can and keep it busy. There is a lot of setup and breakdown of data before and after the GPU does it’s work and the CPU needs to do all of that. Think of it this way… have you ever been so busy and someone says to you, “why don’t you delegate that to someone else” and you say, “it would take me longer to explain to them what to do than to do it myself”? That’s the relationship between the CPU and GPU. The CPU needs to do work to use the GPU. It’s not free from overhead and sometimes it can even be slower because the overhead is greater than the computation.
[Scott Francis] “Also, how useful is multicam editing in SVP vs the way I am handling it?”
Multicam in Vegas Pro assumes that everything is synced up correctly before you start. We have tools at VASST like infinitiCAM and Ultimate S Pro that take a different approach using markers for camera switches. Here is a video of infinitiCAM that you can download and view (sorry it’s in WMV format). This will show you the workflow.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
Thanks john,
I have an AMD system too with 8 cores running at 4.0 ghz and still have the same basic dilemma (not sure if that is an AMD vs Intel thing as well). I get the sharing, just don’t know if upgrading is going to help…what is your thought?
I will obviously go with the disable resampling to help, do you have a time when you do NOT recommend turning that off? I have read a ton of stuff on here and other places and it goes back and forth.
Also, at this point my workflow is to record shoots live with the ATEM and convert them (AVmux?) to a Vegas likable format in 29.97fps. I will then add the camera footage (1060p 60fps) and edit from there. I will set my project parameters to 1080p at 29.97 and disable resampling. Any other thoughts (minus the other multicam stuff I will look at) to get the best preview possible?
Thanks again, really appreciate this!!
Best
Xavier (Scott) Francis
Mind’s Eye Audio/Video Productions -
[Scott Francis] “I have an AMD system too with 8 cores running at 4.0 ghz and still have the same basic dilemma (not sure if that is an AMD vs Intel thing as well).”
AMD CPU’s are seriously slower than Intels. From cpubenchmark.net it looks like the 4.0 Ghz AMD 8-Core is slower than many of the 3.4Ghz 4-core Intels and significantly slower than 6-core Intels. So your AMD 8-core is grossly underpowered too. I don’t know what happened to AMD but I wouldn’t use one of their CPU’s for video work if you gave it to me for free.
[Scott Francis] “I get the sharing, just don’t know if upgrading is going to help…what is your thought?”
It’s hard to say. I have the same dilemma. I’m trying to decide if I should upgrade to a 12-core Mac Pro. I paid $740 for my used 8-core Mac Pro and a 12-core is going to cost at least $2400 used. That’s 3x the price and I know those 4 extra cores are not going to give me 3x the performance boost. Geekbench scores show the 2008 8-core at 11283 and the 2012 12-core at 22118 so that 2x (which isn’t bad but not a price performer). I sit and watch my timeline stutter and Vegas Pro is only using 33% of my CPU and I’m thinking, why buy more cores when Vegas isn’t using the cores I already have?
It all comes down to having a balanced system. If you have a dealer that will let you return hardware, try a better card and see if you get better performance. This will tell you if your CPU is the bottleneck. I know that when I upgraded my PC workstation from a 4-core to a 6-core, the same Quadro 4000 card performed better with the 6-core. So as I said, it a balance between matching CPU performance and GPU performance.
[Scott Francis] “I will obviously go with the disable resampling to help, do you have a time when you do NOT recommend turning that off? I have read a ton of stuff on here and other places and it goes back and forth.”
It’s pretty simple: If your frame rate difference is a multiple of 2 (i.e., going from 59.94 to 29.97), disable resample. This will tell Vegas Pro to drop frames instead of synthesizing new ones by blending. If your frame rate difference is not a multiple of 2 (i.e., going from 23.976 to 29.97), it may look bad if you drop frames so you need to tell Vegas Pro to blend them instead by leaving resample enabled. That’s all you really need to know.
[Scott Francis] “Also, at this point my workflow is to record shoots live with the ATEM and convert them (AVmux?) to a Vegas likable format in 29.97fps. I will then add the camera footage (1060p 60fps) and edit from there. I will set my project parameters to 1080p at 29.97 and disable resampling. Any other thoughts (minus the other multicam stuff I will look at) to get the best preview possible?”
My only other thought is why are you shooting 60p? This makes no sense to me. It seems that you are shooting slow moving humans and not fast moving race cars so all you are doing is making extra work for yourself in post by shooting twice the frames that you need and then throwing half of them away. Once you disable resample you have turned 60p into 30p so why shoot 60p at all? You are receiving no benefit from it.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
Thanks John,
I have consistently checked the AMD vs Intel over the years and am aware of the lower speeds, but in comparison they are not as bad as one thinks. There top of the line usually matches a series prior of Intel. I have wanted to switch over, but could not until recently.
As far as 60p, for me to get down to a 30p rate on my cameras (Canon G30/XA20) I would have to go down to 17mbps vs 35 mbps on either the MP4 or AVCHD formats. That is cutting it in half and I can see a difference. I am doing dance stuff as well and I am concerned with fast moving feet/hands and so forth.
Is it worth dropping my mbps that far? I have always gone with (in audio or video) shoot/record the highest you can at the beginning and if deliver lower you are at least starting with the best. Maybe that adage is not in line with this..Again, thanks for all the input.
Xavier (Scott) Francis
Mind’s Eye Audio/Video Productions -
You did not give any specifics so I created a VEG file and ran tests on my machine. Here is the file.
7608_perftest.zipThis was done at Good Full and with disable resample turned OFF. The project is 1920x1080p29.97.
The file encoded by Quicktime, From ATEM TVS.mp4, has performance problems with the Vegas decoder. Nothing works very well with that one.
With the others, everything was smooth with GPU and CPU with crossfades and separate overlapped track fade out/in.
With CPU only the cross fades are still smooth, but the overlapped track fades slowed down.
My machine
core i7 4770K, 4Ghz
AMD 7950 GPU (same perf as a R9 280) -
[Scott Francis] “As far as 60p, for me to get down to a 30p rate on my cameras (Canon G30/XA20) I would have to go down to 17mbps vs 35 mbps on either the MP4 or AVCHD formats. That is cutting it in half and I can see a difference.”
Actually it’s not. Shooting twice as many frames per second at twice the bit rate per second is exactly the same quality has half as many frames at half the bit rate because the measurement is still “per second!”. So 35Mbps / 60fps = 583Kb per frame and 17Mbps / 30 fps = 567Kb per frame. It’s the same bit rate in frames per second.
[Scott Francis] “I am doing dance stuff as well and I am concerned with fast moving feet/hands and so forth. “
That doesn’t matter. You are throwing half of the frames away remember. Your playback is still 30fps in the end so the motion is exactly the same is if you had shot 30fps. It would only matter if you were delivering 60 fps.
[Scott Francis] ” I have always gone with (in audio or video) shoot/record the highest you can at the beginning and if deliver lower you are at least starting with the best. Maybe that adage is not in line with this.”
If you want to shoot twice as many frames and have slow stuttering playback, that’s up to you. I agree it’s best to acquire the best quality possible, but if your compeer can’t handle it, you have to ask yourself, “at what cost?”.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
I kept my CPU 3770, 32gb of RAM, 2xIntel 510 SSDs and swapped my AMD 6950 for a R9 290x and playback on the timelines is better, i can play 1080p content whether it is 60p, 30p or 24p fine at normal FPS but the moment I add color corrections, masks, alphas and other layers that quickly goes out the window
I would love to have a rig powerful enough to run newblueFX titles on top of 1080p content with multiple layers…. but i dont think that will be reality until 4k is the norm and our rigs are powerful enough the work with it… then 1080p will be easy
I will be upgrading my motherboard and CPU to one of the 8 core CPUs after summer.
Dell XPS 15″ 9350 i7, 512gb SSD, Nvidia 750m
Intel i7 4770, R9 290, 32gb, 2xRAID0 Intel 240gb SSD, 2x2TB WD Green, 3×23″ Samsung LCDs
https://youtube.com/adidas4275 -
I just picked up an R9 270x to use with sony vegas pro 13 , had been using slow nvidia card, decided to upgrade and take advantage of render power , and maybe playback, i did a clean install etc , few things i noticed , playback is very smooth at full resolution when regular sony plugin or not to intensive 3rd party plugins.. as soon as you put magic bullet looks or film convert , you start loosing about half to a third of the fps , if you do a chain and plug both magic bullet nad film convert your talking about two third of the fps play back is gone at full res, that has been my experience so far ,
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