[Remy Mainz]

Thanks yes its true but its quite a lot more and not really a budget laptop.

I know you get what you pay for but Im interested in what experiences people have had in using such laptops. Ive heard people using the nVidia GT 230m , like in the HP DV8 has worked.

By the way they all have eSATA ports which is another necessity.

[Remy Mainz]

yes thanks

and 59i is only in 1280 720?

[Remy Mainz]

I cant see how to make encore do 1080p 30 anywhere.
If I choose progressive it changes my output to 24p or 1280/720p.

Is there a special settings somewhere?

I make my films for internet / TV and digital cinema. I dont need interlacing for TV so theres no reason for me to be forced to do interlacing anywhere. Its bad enough having to work at 29.97 instead of 30fps. HD should have updated these things once and for all instead of standardising them.

[Remy Mainz]

It looks like CS5 will work with 64bit and more cores properly. 64bit CS4 was a 32bit hack job.

https://cs5.org/?p=669#more-669

“Dealing with files is faster. Reading and writing certain compressed file formats is twice as fast. We have also parallelized QuickTime export. This improves the performance of common tasks like transcoding files into other formats.

Rendering is faster. In the simple cases, when rendering on a single core, we are seeing 20-40% shorter render times. This is a result of general efficiencies gained during the 64-bit conversion. As a result, each core on your system is being used more efficiently and you can expect to see greater utilization for each CPU core.”

For multi-core CPUs the After Effects CS5 has an option “Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously”. This feature has also been considerably improved. The CS5 developers have completely rewritten the After Effects multi-core processing engine. As a result render time showed by CS5 during benchmark tests is by 30-50% shorter. That’s a really impressive result, but not the only one with regard to multi-core processing.

Another improvement is that starting up multi-core processing in CS5 takes 1-2 seconds compared to about 30 seconds in CS4. So using multi-core processing became more convenient even for short renders.

Thus CS5 ensures more effective use of CPU cores and makes multi-core processing more comfortable and efficient.

Now, good news for those who have in their disposition Core i7 hyper-threaded processors with virtual cores. Unlike After Effects CS4 which could not use virtual cores, CS5 can see and use them so you will be able to enjoy all the advantages of the latest multi-core systems.

Also Michael Coleman announced several more individual improvements. He assures that some effects are faster: Bilateral blur, Turbulent Noise, and the ever-handy Cartoon effect. Pixel Bender plug-ins will also render faster.

“Even though we recommend adding some more RAM to your machine to take advantage of After Effects CS5, it will still work better in computers with less than 4GB of RAM. Even in this situation, After Effects CS5 can still use more RAM than CS4, and this means fewer out-of-memory errors and better performance.”

There is one more problem resolved by Adobe. When many applications are used simultaneously there is usually a kind of a struggle between them for the amount of RAM which they can use. Michael Coleman said that the developers added a new performance optimization that allows Adobe After Effects, Premiere Pro, Encore, and Adobe Media Encoder intelligently coordinate their memory usage. This new feature should ensure the possibility to enjoy smooth and comfortable work.

So, to summarize it should be said that Adobe CS5 looks very attractive and no wander that so many look forward to trying it.

[Remy Mainz]

thanks guys
my first script that sets up a timelapse of frames as individual layers on the timeline to slowly fade between frames.

var firstComp = app.project.item(1);
var layerCollection = firstComp.layers;
var leny = layerCollection.length;

for(i=1; i<leny + 1;i++){

var currentlayer = firstComp.layers[i]

currentlayer.inPoint = (i - 0.5)
currentlayer.outPoint = currentlayer.inPoint + 3

myOpacity = currentlayer.property("opacity");
myOpacity.setValueAtTime(currentlayer.inPoint,0);
myOpacity.setValueAtTime(currentlayer.inPoint + 1 ,100);
myOpacity.setValueAtTime(currentlayer.outPoint - 1 ,100);
myOpacity.setValueAtTime(currentlayer.outPoint ,0);

}


[Remy Mainz]

Ok , if thats so where is my bottleneck?
I know its not my RAM or Raid or x58 mb.

My CPU is only running at 17% and is still taking me 8 hours to render 15 minutes. The same as my old q6600 pc.

Something is holding AE back from using the other 83% of the processor and Id love to know what it is. When I render in 3ds max 2009 it uses all 8 cores at 100% all the time. I can understand CS4 not using hyperthreading or all eight cores but its not even using a single core at 100%.

If I knew then maybe I could relax and know I didnt waste all that money.

thanks

[Remy Mainz]

I just built an intel i7 930 setup with 12GB ram.
My results with CS4 as far far from positive.

Rendering at 1080pand using windows task manager Im getting 17% CPU usage in total with only 4 of the eight cpus working at less than 50% each.

So my computer is no faster than my 3 year old machine!

boooo

Wait until CS5 and pray they get it right this time!

[Remy Mainz]

thanks i didnt know that was there but as you say that doesnt speed things up.

what i meant by pre render was the same as pre compose but where the new layer is treated exactly like a footage layer as if it had been rendered , ie pre rendered it. That would be the equivalent of pre rendering.

JG

[Remy Mainz]

thanks Jonathan
thats what I need to hear

Dave, It was not an issue of pre planning as I will use the original material as is for an art installation but the single screen edit is the result of all the best material and there was no way of knowing how long it would end up. Worst case scenario I will make it all 50% and no-one will ever know.

The issue at hand is that pre-compose should really work like a pre-render and because it is not, for what ever bizarre reason, then there should be a pre-render option as well. If something is pre-composed then it will have a frame rate already embedded in it as as such should be frame blendable!

thanks again
JG

[Remy Mainz]

HI Dave

Am I wrong then in thinking that AE renders a precomposition frame before it becomes a layer in another comp?

I have 4 time lapse animations shot on dslrs that were shot at 1 frame every 5 seconds and are between 8000 and 10000 frames each, making over 5mins each at 25fps 1080p.
I need to make the final film edit at under 15 minutes where they currently make 23 mins in total.
I can make uncompressed masters of each section but that will take up a huge amount of space and extra time.

thanks
JG