[Paul Anderegg]

Well, I just installed a new SSD, and reinstalled the recovery disks AGAIN. Wow, a big improvement! My renders now take 44 seconds with the GPU, and 51 seconds CPU only. Not the 37 seconds I had previously, but at least there is an improvement, and the GPU setting is making a real world difference, if only slightly.

That’s still 10 minutes saved rendering 2 hours of footage…not that I render that much! 🙂

Oh yeah, now Vegas launches in like 3 seconds instead of 30, and plopping P2 files into the timeline is almost instantaneous….me very much like me the SSD!

Paul

[Paul Anderegg]

Is there really a quality difference between GPU and CPU based encoding methods?

Paul

[Paul Anderegg]

Thanks for reminding me about msconfig…..I always forget all the bloatware stuff that autoruns at startup!

[Paul Anderegg]

The local NBC affiliate in my city uses the 370 with $10000 BROADCAST Canon lenses……just about every interview they air is out of focus….I don’t know if this is the camera, or if the color viewfinder is so poor that they can’t tell if they are in focus or not. Either way, my SD SPX800 looks 10x better in most cases. 😛

[Paul Anderegg]

I recently did some work with a company that added a PMW200 to it’s EX3 fleet. They loved the camera, but said there is a “noticeable” difference in quality between the stock EX3 and the 200 lenses…..are codecs really that big a factor in “broadcast quality” in your areas? I remember when chip size and “broadcast” lenses mattered….

Paul

[Paul Anderegg]

You want to make video DVD’s and BluRays? I just purchased Vegas Pro 12 and it came with DVD Architect……seems to have enough options for most uses….was included free with my Vegas, not sure on pricing if purchased alone. Vegas has special rendering templates just for DVD Architect, which streamlines this function if you don’t use it that often.

Paul

[Paul Anderegg]

I downloaded Furmark, will see what it says…..

I give up……Vegas and GPU acceleration has always given me issues……I am going to download some free trials of competing software and see if anything else can beat my 37 second best rendering speed I had previously.

For kicks, I tried some renders using the Main Concepts MP4 templates…..much worse, with GPU or CPU I am seeing like 1:20 renders per minute….

Thanks for the help guys!

Paul

[Paul Anderegg]

OK, did that and all processors are selected.

Also tried the following…..

Went into BIOS and selected DISCRETE as the graphics option, no change.
Reinstalled (clean option) Nvidia drivers, no change.
Tried rendering at draft quality instead of best, no change.
Selected “Enable video editing mode” in Nvidia control panel, no change.
Tried various project settings, HD, SD, no change.

I am at a loss here as to why the same hardware/software/drivers render SLOWER with GPU than with CPU only! Obviously it’s a user adjustable setting, everything was reinstalled off of the same disks and the software updates are all identical between the old and new install……. 🙁

Paul

[Paul Anderegg]

I shoot P2, which means each “story” I shoot contains a half dozen folders, with dozens of randomly named files. If there were a way to archive as a single AVI file, like with DVCPRO25, this would not be an issue. I just figured since everything I shoot will be aired in HD broadcasts, and I originate 30p, 1280×720 30p archiving and distribution seemed like a great idea. 🙂

And for the record…….the 50 in DVCPRO50 makes the colors POP, very vivid, and the P in 30p gets rid of all those lame interlacing issues most SD footage has…..I am very pleased with the resulting quality.

Paul

[Paul Anderegg]

I bought a brand new Lenovo i7 W530 laptop with the $200 K2000 GPU option, and 4GB of RAM installed, specifically for the AVC rendering speed enhancements. I purchased a 16GB RAM upgrade kit on the cheap, and when my computer first arrived, I did some before and after testing.

I started with a 1 minute DV AVI file, which I render to SD ACV MP4. My old $400 i3 laptop with no GPU and 4GB of RAM does the 1 minute clip in about 1:30. First tested the new laptop with the stock 4GB RAM and GPU off. Render time was around 32 seconds. I then turned the GPU on, still with 4GB RAM, and render time dropped by only 4 seconds.

I then installed my shiny new 16BG of RAM, and repeated the tests……exact same results, not an ounce of difference. Now, mind you this was simply rendering raw unedited DV footage, actually transcoding, and did not involve an hour or two of clips and effects, which could make a difference. I would expect working with 20GB of files on the timeline to have an effect on RAM. I would test 4GB vs 16GB again with a huge amount of data on the timeline, but i think I threw my original RAM fishstick away! 🙁

Paul