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Real Time Performance Question…
I just finished a project on my PC and realize that I spent a tremendous amount of time waiting for:
1. Color Finesse 1.5 renders
2. Various cuts and transition previews
3. Audio Previews
4. Movie exports (only Twice and I could walk away)
in order of how often and long I percieved waiting.After it was all said and done I realize that I gave away about a day waiting for these renders, and I mean a 16 hour day, so we’ll call it Two. I have held off of looking at a Matrox Realtime card becuase of my perception that they are slightly outdated and there are better options, but I am not sure what if any they are…
So I purchased a little older dual 2.0 G5, 2.75Gb RAM with Studio Pro but have resisted cracking into it until I have some free time. What can I expect from this system working with lots of graphics, keying, and edits…
PC is a:
dual athlon mp 2800+s
2.5 Gb RAM
MSI mobo (only 333 Front Side BUS)
Nvidia 5800 video
super ATA drives on IDE and Promise card -
3 Replies
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1-3, you get real-time for all of that. Provided the video format is DV (judging by your disks, I assume that’s what you work with), almost everything is RT with Final Cut. DV50 and DV100 will be mostly RT as well as uncompressed SD. Uncompressed HD has basic RT effects like dissolves.
4. Exporting will generally be faster than real-time playback on a dual 2.0ghz.
The Matrox RT isn’t a little outdated. It’s incredibly outdated and totally worthless for a G5.
Give the G5 a try. I garantee you’ll be blown away. That said, you have a very powerful PC there. What are you using? Premiere? I’d be willing to bet your problem is that you’re using some outdated hardware (like something from Matrox) that does all the work. This is a massive bottleneck any modern Mac or PC. Use software based rendering.
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FCP, in general, is pretty much real time for most functionality — as long as you have the drive speed and RAM to support it.
On a G5, using a second internal SATA drive, it’s practical to expect RT performance for most single channel (even dual) 8-bit uncompressed work. As you add layers, you’ll need more bandwidth, possibly a RAID of some sort. 4GB RAM would not be too much.
Color Finesse has a Mac version that does real-time correction with files bounced via XML, though it might be version 2, not 1.5.
On the whole, for most normal workflow, FCP has little waiting for renders while editing, though you’re probably safe to assume a full render for output, but even that’s fading fast in FCP5.
JB
Blue Smoke & Mirrors Ltd.
FCP Finishing
Xsan Integration
310-292-0416 -
[Sean ONeil] “1-3, you get real-time for all of that. “
Color Finesse is not realtime on FCP. Only the FCP based Color Correctors are realtime if your system is fast enough.
As for getting the most performance, you need the fastest of everything to get the most realtime. This includes the drives. I run FW800 RAID arrays and Fibrechannel Arrays here with anywhere from 100 – 325mb/sec and more so I get a ton of realtime here with my Dual 2.0 machines.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.comNow in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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