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Playback & Preview strangeness
OK, so we all want the best frame-rate for our preview as we work. But I am finding something odd re the preview quality settings in V8. Which is this:
I have a clip to which I add a Sony sharpen effect. Frame-rate drops from 29 to 14. That’s in the Best/Full setting. I change it to Good, same frame-rate. I change it to Preview – same frame-rate. I change it to Draft and zing – it goes to 29.fps. Of course, Draft is too ugly to look at.So this is quite a stumper to me. I tried other FX, I played with the Ram settings, I played with the multi-thread settings, I made sure properties were set to lower field first.
I have a P4 with 3gb ram. CPU usage is about 65% with the effect on, about 35% with it off.
What is anyone else’s experience with these settings?
Thanks
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John -
5 Replies
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Some FX are just more CPU intensive than others. Someone had posted a list of FX and how they affect frame rate during preview and it was a real eye opener. The fps change dramatically depending on the FX. So what you are seeing is quite normal. Also some FX and not multi-threaded so threading has no affect on their performance. They are just slow to process.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
Thank you for your response, but perhaps I didn’t make myself clear:
I have no issue with FX using varying degrees of CPU power and lowering frame-rates, all that is to be expected.
The issue is that there is zero difference, in playback rate, between Best/Full, Good/Full, and Preview/Full.
The reason I mentioned the various FX was to show that this behaviour is not dependent on the type of FX being used.
So, that does not seem to me normal behaviour – I can only assume that the various settings are designed to raise frame-rates as they reduce quality. Am I missing something?Thanks
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John -
> The issue is that there is zero difference, in playback rate, between Best/Full, Good/Full, and Preview/Full.
That probably indicates that your CPU is having difficult rendering Full frames regardless of quality. So in your case it doesn’t matter how much you lower the quality from best down to preview, the resolution is limiting the frames that you see.
There are two settings being affected. One is quality: Draft/Preview/Good/Best. The other is resolution: Auto/Full/Half/Quarter. If you drop your resolution to half or even quarter, you should start to see different frame rates between preview, good, and best.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
Thanks John,
Yes, I see the changes when I do the half-screen rez. So That does help me understand it. I think it’s time to upgrade to a quad-core (from a P-4) and hopefully that will give me a little better playback.
Thanks again,
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John -
[John Magee] “I think it’s time to upgrade to a quad-core (from a P-4) and hopefully that will give me a little better playback.”
It’ll give you a LOT better playback – and much quicker renders too!!
I went from a P4 3.4 GHz to a QX6700 quad core and was amazed and how much quicker and more responsive Vegas was.
HDV clips play at full frame rate at Best/Full.
Doing a dissolve will drop it down to around 20 fps for the transition but dropping the Preview window to Preview/Auto sends it right back up to 29.97.
A 10 min. project from 2 years ago that took 3 hr. to render (lots of chroma-key and other assorted FX) dropped to 27 min. with the quad core.
This is a decision you won’t regret 🙂
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