HD editing/choppy playback/CS3 workflow

[Jeron Coolman]

Part of your problem is disk I/O. You aren’t going to get by with just a single 80 gig RAID 0. You want a separate system drive, separate scratch/project drive and separate media RAID array at the minimum.

[Mark Weaver]

Leighton,
This is probably DISK IO. My setup has two SATA
3.0Gbps drives, one for system/software, the other
for captured video, previews and C4D output files.

If I create a 1280x720p 24fps AVI file and put it
on the system drive, when I play it with Windows
media player I get missing frames, audio doesn’t
line up with video and stuttering playback.

Now if I copy the same AVI file to the hard drive with
just captured video/previews and C4D output files,
then play it with WMP again it plays fine. No need for
a big RAID system.

Again, my output was 1280x720p 24fps PAR=1.0.

Hope this helps.

MBW

[Waverideco]

Thanks for your replys.

I actually have 2×80 in raid 0. The reason I don’t think it’s a I/O problem is because the files are only 10-50meg exported directly from AfFx. I also have exported the same clip copy and pasted in the timeline and exported from Prem.

Isn’t the clip just playing from memory? I think there is some I/O problems on Large AVI/Animation files, but even when exporting from afFx in a final format (mp4/windows video/etc) the problem still exists.

Do you have any idea why QuickTime plays clips differently when the mode (full/windowed) is changed? If it was an I/O problem wouldn’t it be more consistent?

Also when I disable directX video acceleration the clips play much smoother but their is horizontal line tearing..

I have no problem going and buying a Raptor to see if that fixes the problem, but I’m not sure if it will. Do you still think so?

Does anyone know a tried and true method to use, that I could try. I’ve tried andrew kramers suggestions @ video co-pilot.net my exports just don’t add up. I need a start to finish workflow that works, and if it doesn’t I suppose I’ll have to upgrade.

Cheers for your help!

[Jerry Waters]

I can offer you some of my experiences with HD that might help. I first edited HD with Sony Vegas using Cineform. The biggest problem was not being able to preview HD in real time. The only way to preview was in lower resolution or to do a ram render to check sync. Moving to Premiere with Aspect (and later Prospect) I could preview in real time, several tracks of 1920 X 1080 footage with no special hardware.

As to showing HD, a friend recommended a JVC AveLink deck ($360 at B & H). This box has a network link, plays WMV, Divx, mpg and DVDs from either the disk drive or from the hard drive of my notebook computer connected with a crossover cable. The max bitrate of WMV the box handles is 8M but I tested 7.4 files on the big screen of a Landmark theater last week (component connection to the projector) and the picture was excellent. The people at the theater had not seen the box before but were definitely surprised by the output. My movie is premiering there Nov. 14. I’m not sure it is the format we will use but I am comfortable with using it.

[Waverideco]

Thanks for the suggestion for showing HD, it’s an interesting way to go about it.

Well I mean business so was I went out and bought a 150gig Raptor. Unfortunately, it still hasn’t fixed my jitters. There is virtually no change on playing performance.

Would someone be able to get me more specifics about exporting? There has got to be someone out there that has a machine that can play HD without these problems. I

[Jerry Waters]

CineForm actually rewrites the preview engine in Premiere to run its codecs real time – several tracks of them. You can download a demo at http://www.cineform.com and try it. It captures in PP or captures/converts in a portion of the program called “HD Link.” It has 2 programs for PP – Aspect and Prospect. Prospect is a higher resolution codec and is very editable. It is also “virtually lossless” and you can reencode without noticeable loss several times. In the beginning of HDV it was, to me, by far the best way to handle footage. You can read about all this at Cineform but you should give it a try. Probably start with Aspect.

I think the JVC is an excellent way to demo a project. Short videos (up to a little over an hour) can be encoded at a higher bitrate (up to 8M) in WMV and play very well off a cheap DVD on the machine’s drive. Bigger files play off a hard drive – the notebooks or a connected drive. The machine also has a USB input as well as the network connection.

[Jerry Waters]

I should add this: To do the project you want, set Premiere with Cineform to 23.976 (that will give you 24p). Edit everything in that. Then render out a WMV file at something like a 7.6M bitrate and play it on the JVC. Either burn it to DVD as a data file with Nero or something similar or play it directly from a hard drive connected to the JVC (it has software for this) using USB or if using a notebook with a crossover cable. You will not be disappointed. I have tested this on a 30′ theater screen.

[Mike Velte]

surely you do not have any virus/spyware scanner running?

[Jerry Waters]

After sleeping on this it dawns that I don’t know anyone who presents HD in avi. It is always some compressed format. The only thing that can do it, to my knowledge, would be the Cineform thing in PP. Maybe an avi done in Divx compressed codec.

[Jeron Coolman]

You are talking about 2 problems…

1. Premiere Pro Performance
2. Playback of HD output from Premiere Pro

To improve #1, you are going to need to get Cineform or change your hard drive configuration like suggested by me and another person.

To improve #2, you are probably going to want to output some sort of compressed format. Did you try H.264?