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Improving HDV Secondary Monitor Preview Performance
I am looking for insights into what is limiting my timeline preview frame rate of HDV content (no effects or transitions) in the Best (Full) mode, and what (if anything) can be done about it.
I know the topic of getting 30 fps preview at Best(Full) preview has been discussed before. I am currently only getting about 9 fps preview of an HDV clip on the timeline while in Best(Full) preview to a secondary display monitor. This is running Vegas 8.1 under Vista 64-bit (6 GB DDR3 RAM). Project Properties match the HDV source media.
During playback the CPU utilization (Core i7, 2.67 GHz [overclocked to 3.1 GHz]) is around **20%**, and Vista Resource Monitor is indicating disk read activity of 3 MB/sec (consistent with a 25 Mbps HDV stream). The HDV media is on a separate internal 7200 RPM SATA drive from the boot drive. “Enable No-Recompress long-GOP rendering” is ENABLED.
So, what is likely preventing me from getting better than a 9 fps preview at Best(Full)? It seems the CPU has plenty of headroom and I doubt the 7200 RPM SATA read performance is the bottleneck.
Thanks!
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11 Replies
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I don’t have any answers other than to give you another data point: My Core 2 Quad 2.66GHz gets ~28fps on Best(Full) for HDV M2T content in Vegas Pro 8.1. My CPU utilization is around 50% during playback. So something is not right that only 20% of your CPU power is being utilized.
What format is the HDV media? I was using M2T files from my Sony Z1U camera when I took those measurements.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
JR,
Thanks for your “data point”. So my system could be doing better, which means more investigation is needed on my part.
The HDV is an m2t file straight off my Sony HDR-HC1, which sounds like it is equivalent to what your baseline used.
I might try pinging Sony Tech Support on this one.
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Rob -
Some additional experimentation indicates that if I do NOT select the “Preview on external monitor” button in the Video Preview, but rather drag the preview window to the secondary monitor and resize to fill screen of the secondary monitor, then I maintain 29.97 fps at Best (Full). Once I enable “Preview on external monitor” button in the Video Preview (with the Video Preview window docked on the primary monitor) the frame rate drops to 9 fps.
Could there be a Windows Secondary Display (Options=>Preferences=>Preview device tab) setting causing this decreased frame rate?
p.s., I did discover the audio properties of the project were 44 kHz and not 48 kHz, and hence did not match the HDV source. Although the frame rate playback improvement that resulted from matching the this project parameter to the source appears small (e.g., 1 fps).
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Utilizing a Raid configuration rather than a solo drive can make a difference.
John D. Frey
25 Year owner/operator of two California-based production studios.Digital West Video Productions of San Luis Obispo and Inland Images of Lake Elsinore
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John (Frey),
Do you really think RAID is necessary for HDV content (MPEG2-TS), where the stream is limited to 25 Mbps? (some most modern 7200 RPM, SATA, drives are typically more than adequate to handle this data rate – as I understand)
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Rob -
Your computer has plenty of horsepower for this, but Raid config can make a big difference. I gave up on Vegas 8.1 64bit recently, and went back to 8.0c which works great. I don’t think 8.1 is quite ready for primetime yet. Good Luck.
John D. Frey
25 Year owner/operator of two California-based production studios.Digital West Video Productions of San Luis Obispo and Inland Images of Lake Elsinore
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I agree, with that machine you should get better preview frame rates. you said an HDV track, which I assumed you meant one HDV file on one track. How is the audio 44.1? Try muting one track at a time and see if you can determine which track is causing the bottle neck.
You shouldn’t need to do this with your machine but some people convert their HDV to Cineform avi as all the frames are I frames instead of the long GOP structure of m2t. You will get better frame rate previews. Hope this helps. Danny -
Correct, there is one HDV (M2T) on the timeline. The HDV audio is 48 kHz. Whether I mute the audio or video track, the playback preview frame rate never exceeds 10m fps when Best(full) is selected.
Going to intermediates is a possibility, but it seems like a step backward to Vegas 6 in terms of my workflow. It would like to determine what the bootleneck is when using the Windows Secondary Display as an external preview monitor.
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Rob, Have you changed how much ram Vegas uses in the preferences? John, I’m impressed with your measurments of 28 fps. I don’t have a quad core yet at home but I do at work. I haven’t worked with HDV at work yet though. Are you using Vegas’s default settings for ram usages? If not, what are your settings? Also, there is a key, (shift I think) that if you hold while launching Vegas will load the default Vegas settings. Maybe that’ll help. Danny
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> John, I’m impressed with your measurments of 28 fps. I don’t have a quad core yet at home but I do at work. I haven’t worked with HDV at work yet though. Are you using Vegas’s default settings for ram usages? If not, what are your settings?
Actually most of the time I can get 29.97 but it does drop a bit from time to time. I’m using the default ram usage settings (128). My physical PC has 8GB of RAM.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com
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