[Chris Davis]

Chris Short
The 16 or 32 bit setting did not work for me…
As yet i have found no way to do this successfully, motion always clips the super whites…

Weird program. In a sense it is well integrated with FCP in that FCP footage roundtrips quickly and elegantly. But it is not integrated at all in the sense that footage (almost) always comes back damaged (missing super white info).

I just checked, and Red Giant Software/Magic Bulle’s plug in, Colorista, supports Motion (though not Colorista II). It seems odd to think of a colorist using Colorista, but I wonder if this may be a quick work around.

Anyway, thanks for the info.

-Chris

[Chris Davis]

Chris Short,

Did you ever find a definitive answer to whether Motion will accept and roundtrip the super white information in 16 bit or 32 bit settings?

I noticed you did not post again on Creative Cow. Perhaps your question was answered on another forum?

Thanks,

Chris Davis

[Chris Davis]

Mr. Korpriva:

My Creative Cow thread notifications were being filtered into my spam mail box, and I just realized that I did not respond to your last answer.

A sincere thanks for the info.

-Chris

Todd Kopriva
“The conclusion that you drew is false and is not implied by what Chris Meyer said. 64-bit does not equal faster.”

[Chris Davis]

Todd,

Thanks for your help here.

I had called Red Giant before but was unable to talk with a rep., and my phone message was not returned.

I tried again after you posted, and was able to “live chat” with a rep. I was told,

“Colorista II is mainly a GPU plug-in so it does not utilize the Multi-core Processing or Hyperthreading…”

I have a followup question for you or the other people here…

You said on another thread of a particular RAM and CPU allocation settings in AE CS5, “This setting is just about Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously, and it’s just about After Effects. It only affects how many additional background instances of the After Effects application will be started to aid with rendering.”
Link here: https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/202/886167

Can using “Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously” speed up rendering with plug-in’s that are not otherwise able to take advantage of multi-core processing, by starting additional background instances of After Effects AND the plug-in?

I suspect the answer is, “no way,” but I thought thought I’d give it a shot. I’m a little off topic here, so I will post again with a different subject heading I don’t get an answer.

Thanks again for your time,

Chris

[Chris Davis]

Guess the answer is, “Not with Final Cut Suite 2.”

Seems like there should be a simple way to just change the wrapper without transcoding, but I guess not.

Will re-post later in the PPro section or the After Effects section (After Effects seems to be “The Land of Plug-In’s).

[Chris Davis]

Because I did not get a response to my followup question above, I figured I should say that the utility of my question is whether to buy a 4 core machine or hold out for an 8 core.

My question is really twofold:

1) Is setting one core (two threads) “reserved for other applications” adequate when employing “Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously” and

2) how much faster are RAM previews/renders on an 8-core with 2 cores (four threads) “reserved for other applications” vs. a 4-core with 1 core (2 threads) “reserved for other applications” when employing “Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously.”

iMacs currently have the option of a quad-core i7, and Intel has scheduled the mobile quad-core Sandy Bridge for release Q4 this year. So it is also possible Apple will release a 17” Macbook Pro quad-core with hyper-threading before Christmas.

However, I will not need an answer until it is time to make a decision, about two months before Christmas.

So I will ask again around September or October, when enough people have experience with AE CS5.

[Chris Davis]

“This setting is just about Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously, and it’s just about After Effects. It only affects how many additional background instances of the After Effects application will be started to aid with rendering.”

I re-watched the lynda tutorials, and I see now how I got confused re: AE, PPro, Encore, and Media Encoder. They share user decided amounts of RAM, but the “Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously” is a different section. (Oops.)

“Operating systems are smarter than that. You (probably) wouldn’t get a crash. You’d get poor performance from the operating system continually needing to swap context.”

By “poor performance,” are you referring to slower render times/RAM previews in AE? More beach balls when opening an e-mail, etc.? Would this be constant poor performance, or occasional hiccups? (I checked out the link you provided, BTW).

It seems like you have direct experience in this regard, your home system appears to be is similar to the one I am describing, and you also have only one core (two threads) reserved for other applications re: “Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously”.

Thanks again for your time. I hope this will be my last follow up questions.

[Chris Davis]

Mr. Kopriva,

I read some of the link you provided, as well as some of the links within the reading. Below is a quote that seems to beg another question…

If I reserve one processor (with 2 threads) for “other applications,” does AE totally reserve this one processor for other applications (such as OSX, e-mail, Photoshop etc.)? Or am I just keeping AE from using this core for “Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously” multiprocessing, and still allowing AE to use this one core for other AE tasks (again, in with a four core processor with hyper-threading)?

Also, if PPro is running, does using this setting in AE relegate all PPro tasks to the 3 cores also, or does PPro still use this one processor for some tasks?

One reason I am asking is that intuitively it would seem that I would need at least one core free in order to keep the system from being prone to crashing.

I realize you said reserving only one core is fine, and I do not mean to question your advice. Just asking for some clarification… The other reason I am asking is that, if I do need to reserve TWO cores for other applications to keep things stable, then it would seem that an 8 core machine (with 32 GB RAM) would create RAM previews 3 times faster than a 4 core machine (with 16 GB RAM). If I need to reserve only ONE core for other applications, it would seem that an 8 core would create RAM previews only 2 times as fast as a 4 core. I can live with 2 times as fast. But if the 8 core is 3 times as fast, I would rather save up for the 8 core.

Thanks for your time,

Chris

“After Effects is a multithreaded application that can also use other forms of multiprocessing beyond just Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously multiprocessing, and it is possible for the processors to become “overscheduled” if these threads are competing for the same resources as the background processes used for rendering with Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously multiprocessing.
Therefore, the best approach is to begin by using a small number of processors for Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously multiprocessing; and then increase the number of processors used until you find the optimum number for your computer system and compositions.
For an 8-core computer system, the optimum number of processors may be 4 for some compositions, 6 for others, et cetera.”

[Chris Davis]

Daniel, David, and Adam,

Looks like it’s Photoshop first. No big deal. I realize AE is Huge, and I would like to really understand it. My remaining question is,

How well do I need to know Photoshop before learning AE?

I can easily watch 50 hours of video. Following along with and doing the exercises is another step, and remembering WTF I did seems to require using the program at least once a week (or more).

(At least that’s my experience with learning FCP6, which took 30+ hrs. of lynda.com tutorials and the Level 1 & 2 Final Cut Pro Training Series books to get a feel for. I love the program, but a bit clunky for compositing, etc…).

[Bill Kelly]
“You’re probably better off knowing some simple basics in PS before you start AE, but if you apply yourself and just straight to AE you should be able to get it… I work in AE a lot and only grudgingly go over to PS when I absolutely need to. If fact, a lot of times if I need to make or manipulate a still image, I’ll do it in After Effects and export a still .psd file from AE. Just easier for me, although other people’s mileage may vary…”

Looks like you’re the minority opinion here, with the viewpoint I’m looking for. 😉

“You could check out Videocopilot’s AE Basic Training (it’s free!) at https://videocopilot.net/basic and see if it makes any sense after you go through it…”

I looked through a couple of these. It seems similar to the Chad Perkins lynda.com tutorials. It makes sense, for the most part, but it’s a different level of understanding once I start following along with AE (which I did not), and remembering all the necessary shortcuts…

[Chris Davis]

Bassel – many thanks for the clarification. I will re-post in the Matrox section to ask about computer monitors in the $400-600 range that work well with the MXO 2 Mini.

Andy Mees and David Roth Weiss – I am enjoying your discussion on the “guts” of the MXO’s.

-Chris