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Weak Mac Pro can’t play big QT file
A 25P 1920×1080 8-bit uncompressed 4:2:2 file packs about 100 MB/s. My QuickTime player struggles through it, with stops and starts.
MacPro hardware:
Processors: 2 x Dual-Core Intel Xeon 2.66 GHz.
RAM: 3 GB 667 MHz.
Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT.Is it a purely hardware limitation, or, with OSX 10.4.11 running QT 7.6, is there a way to apply more system resources to the player?
Otherwise, must RAM be increased or must the graphics card be upgraded or …?Thanks.
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9 Replies
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Try a RAID configuration to make smooth playback. RAM and graphics card have nothing to do with it.
Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Board of Directors
Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group -
Hard drive.
Sean
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To add to the comments, you are going to want hard drive(s) as in a raid of some sort.
Jeremy
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Thanks all. I’d never considered the hard drive. I transferred the file to a newer internal drive and the playback became a little better. It’s spec’d at 175 MB/sec, but 100 MB/sec is too much to expect. Yes, must RAID.
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[Dennis Couzin] “It’s spec’d at 175 MB/sec”
Not possible. Most Solid State Drives aren’t even that fast.
Sean
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Sean, am I misreading the Samsung HD103UJ spec : “Data Transfer Rate / Media to/from Buffer(Max.) 175 MB/sec”?
I don’t think bubble memory has as fast read/write as good hard disk drives. -
[Dennis Couzin] “Sean, am I misreading the Samsung HD103UJ spec : “Data Transfer Rate / Media to/from Buffer(Max.) 175 MB/sec”?”
They’re lying. Google the benchmarks or test yourself with AJA System Test. That’s your problem. You can’t run Uncompressed HD on any single hard disk without it choking. Common knowledge. The absolute fastest models (like yours) barely crack 100MB/s when empty. And as they fill up they slow down a lot. It’s odd you posted all your specs except the disk (which is the problem). Your Mac Pro isn’t “weak.” I’ve run uncompressed HD on a <1ghz G4. The difference is that it had a fast SCSI RAID.
[Dennis Couzin] “I don’t think bubble memory has as fast read/write as good hard disk drives.”
Again, Google is your friend. Some new SSDs are faster than 300MB/s. So fast SATA can’t keep up so they make ones built into PCIe cards.
Sean
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Thanks Sean. I posted all my specs except the disk because three days ago I didn’t have the slightest suspicion that disk read time might be the limiting factor. (Common knowledge isn’t universal knowledge.) So, Samsung’s 175 MB/s figure is untrue. Can we trust the HD103UJ for at least 50 MB/s? Is software RAID 0 efficient? Can I stick two HD103UJ’s into the MacPro, joined in RAID 0 with Disk Utility, to get 100 MB/s? That would be a cheap and sufficient solution for me for now.
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I am going to second the AJA disk whack. Everyone here has that installed on their system. There is also an app that I bought I really like a lot, it is called disktester (one word) and is what Barefeats to do all their tests. It runs from the CLI though so many people stay away from it.
Many times a computer is slow it is because of the disk. So many people don’t realize that it is their disk that is the culprit of everything. Many people often run to blame the processor or ram, I used to do it too!
If you really want to know what the best disk out right now is.
It is the Intel X-25 E (extreme) 64 GB. It reads at 270 MBps and writes at 170 MBps. Has no latency and has over 1500 iops (input output operations per second) while a standard sata drive has less than 90 if that.. However, it costs $800 for the 64 GB and $400 for the 32 GB.
But, it’s older brother, the X-25 M, still reads at 270 MBps but only writes at 70 MBps. An 80 GB X-25 M is under $400 right now and can appear to revive a computer from the dead.
Bottom line – Every video editor should strive to have a X-25 M or higher (X-25 E) as their boot drive.
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