edius vs PPro rendering performance

Hi all,

I've been having lots of fun (not), with the rendering of a small HDV project with PPro 2.0.

The files were captured from my Z1 in PPro's native hdv format. Total length of the project is around 12 minutes. Lots of colour correction and some contrast adjustements on the footage, no other effects. I wanted to create a an expprt file for PC playback with high quality. I rendered a WMV file (1080i - around 12kbps). The rendering time was around 4 hours. Ouch.

Can this be done faster with Edius 4.x?

Thanks,

Peter

It looks like a 12 minute one rendering out @ 1280/720 8mbps CBR wmv file from the Canopus 1440/1080 HDV timeline with CC, effects will take about 1 hour.

I'm just still on a standard 3 GIG HT PC with 2 GIGS of ram.

It looks like a 12 minute one rendering out @ 1280/720 8mbps CBR wmv file from the Canopus 1440/1080 HDV timeline with CC, effects will take about 1 hour.

 

I'm just still on a standard 3 GIG HT PC with 2 GIGS of ram.

Thanks Wags,

My PC is probably twice as fast as yours and it takes 3 times longer. Not good. I'm going to revisit my choice of PPro. The distributor for Canopus in Belgium already offered a demo and I'm going to take him op on his offer. I hope to find out what the best workflow is with Edius and some of the other tools in the Adobe Suite like audition, AE and Encore.

What do you think of the EDIUS NX Express package?

Peter

Peter I never looked into the NX card as I just had a Quadro FX 560 which lets me preview when it comes in and outputs to a HDTV or whatever anyhow. Go an give EDIUS a go by itself then make your decision about the NX card.

Other more powerfull graphics cards give you very good GPU so allot more effects are realtime.

I always firewire in and one can always capture with the DV camera from an analog source if needed, then in.

AE can handle the Canopus HQ codec so no problems there from what I hear.

Make sure you download ProDad's plugins, they really work great. Their Vitascene is very good with a powerfull GPU card and Heroglyph is reall cool for easy text effects and more..

A 55 min HDV timeline took about 2.5 hours to render out to a 8.5mbps CBR progressive DVD spec MPEG2. Qualtiy is wonderfull. The m2t file took 3 hours to make then use the TS writer to send back to the camera when you are ready.

You will get a laugh editing DV and HDV (CanopusHQ) together, it's so easy then just render it out to whatever with Procoder Express even QT formats. Upconverting DV is a snap but it never looks as good as the real HDV, but you can sneak in the odd bit here and there.

It does take some time mastering pips and graphics around the screen though and at the start you will go what the *&^%#$...

It does not do AC3 but thats not a problem for us PAL mob as all PAL dvd players can play the tiny MPEG sound files. NTSC players cannot for some reason.

To make your DVD's DVDLAB PRO is cool and very powerfull. I even burnt our master this time with it's built in burning software, did a verification with it and then sent it to the replicators. We tested it on a old G4 powerbook laptop, old PC laptop, desktop comptures and one very fussy SONY DVD player to a normal 4.3 TV and even out to our Epson TW 700 projector from it . Played and looked great.

Good luck

For your info, the Canopus NX cards do not accelerate video performance AT ALL. They are just capture cards. This was true in Nov 06.

Yes that is correct Drew, however some other after market cards do, you can check it out on the Canopus Forums and there is even a small program some guy made to make certain cards handle the effects more in realtime.

Drew did you try this.

Open up a 1440/1080 timeline.

Bring in a Canopus HQ 1440/1080 clip and a normal DV 4.3 clip.

Place them on the timeline, click on the 4.3 DV clip and then and hit F7.

Then click on preset and select Fit Width....Done your 4.3 DV is now 1440/1080 in real time

Render it out to whatever.

For your info, the Canopus NX cards do not accelerate video performance AT ALL. They are just capture cards. This was true in Nov 06.

The Edius NX Express package has two hardware boards. The second board comes with an MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 accelarator on it. I'll double check with the distributor but for the moment I'm inclined to follow Wags' advice and stick to software only.

<edit>

Found extra info in the internet:

-------------------------------------------------------

The new encoder card is not only for WYSIWYG HD output but also contains an SD MPEG 2 and MPEG 4 hardware encoder.

Introduction pirce of 1549 EUR incl. 21% VAT

-------------------------------------------------------

The Edius NX Express package has two hardware boards. The second board comes with an MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 accelarator on it. I'll double check with the distributor but for the moment I'm inclined to follow Wags' advice and stick to software only.

 

<edit>

Found extra info in the internet:

-------------------------------------------------------

The new encoder card is not only for WYSIWYG HD output but also contains an SD MPEG 2 and MPEG 4 hardware encoder.

Introduction pirce of 1549 EUR incl. 21% VAT

-------------------------------------------------------

PC

I should have been more specific. The NX card do not accelerate effects rendering for HD. It allows for accelerated encoding to "SD" MPEG2/4. So besides the encoding, it doesn't accelerate the rendering, which is what I meant, and probably what I consider to be more important. However, the preview to the HD monitor (HD SDI) is render free, such is the WYSIWYG function as a preview, BUT NOT the rendered file.

Since you are using Adobe PP, you may wish to check out products from Matrox, Aja and Decklink amongst others.

Drew,

I currently have two ATI Radeon X1950 Pro cards in my system, both with 256 MBytes. Good enough for Edius, or do you recommend an upgrade. Perhaps cards with more memory onboard?

Thanks,

Peter

Just tried to get to the Canopus Forums but they are down.

There is some post about guys running Core2duos/fastdrives and getting many streams of Canopus HQ with pips/effects happening in real time.

There is some interesting stuff about different cards as well.

Peter

I don't want to pretend I know too much about the Canopus NX system. I'm just going by what the rep told me at DVexpo and also several TV editors. The turnkey system I tried also couldn't accelerate the effects but had WYSIWYG output on the HD SDI to a HD monitor.

In most all NLE, the GPU shares the CPU load for r/t preview. However, that doesn't accelerate the rendering from the timeline. Which could be another bottleneck. Also what are you driving that you need 2 cards?

Also what are you driving that you need 2 cards?

Three monitors. I also use the system for software development and the more desktop space the better.

I think Edius has a problem with three monitors. With all three enabled, the output monitor doesn't show video. The image remains frozen. When I disable one of the monitors it works.

I'm not sure whether this is a specific issue with my system or with three monitors in general.

I've created a two minute WMV file (8 mbps at 1080i res) and the result showed no banding. It seemed quicker than PPRo but I haven't done a side-by-side test.

The interface requires getting used to. I'm missing all the nice shortcuts from PPro.

For instance, how do you copy effects from one clip to another?

Peter

Im running 2 LCD's and the third is a TV, but it could be another screen or HDTV or even a big MAC screen.

The NVIDIA Quadro FX 560 card has two 3 ports but you can only use two at the same time.

First screen is from the card. 128 megs

Second screen is from the 128 meg Port on the computers motherboard.

TV is driven from the second port off the FX 560 card.

To copy effects, right click [PC ] on the clip and go copy or (Ctrl+C)

Then right click on the clips you want to copy the effects to and select Replace Part-filter or (Alt+R )

Look in the aplication setions for shortcuts. You can customise them as well.

WMV does take allot of processing.

Yes it has got a strange layout indeed.

Im running 2 LCD's and the third is a TV, but it could be another screen or HDTV or even a big MAC screen.

 

The NVIDIA Quadro FX 560 card has two 3 ports but you can only use two at the same time.

First screen is from the card. 128 megs

Second screen is from the 128 meg Port on the computers motherboard.

TV is driven from the second port off the FX 560 card.

 

To copy effects, right click [PC ] on the clip and go copy or (Ctrl+C)

Then right click on the clips you want to copy the effects to and select Replace Part-filter or (Alt+R )

Look in the aplication setions for shortcuts. You can customise them as well.

 

WMV does take allot of processing.

 

Yes it has got a strange layout indeed.

Did you actualy try a third screen. The TV doesn't count, because that is overlay.

ALT-R. I tried the ALT-C, ALT-V routine :glare: RTFM time I guess.

Wags, do you ever sleep?

Thanks m8.

BTW. One foot is already in the Edius camp. The more I see of this weird NLE the more I like it.

Peter

I do sleep but working on a Training WHale Shark DVD and another Turtle training one and a 10 minute underwater clip for bereantapeministry.com which made me chuckle.

I'll plug in a 3 screen and see what happnes. Stay tuned.

Done

EDIUS runing on 3 screens at 1280/1024.

Overlay goes to the 3rd scrreen.

Even playing any video clip on the first screen gets overlayed to the 3rd one

NVIDIA Quadro FX 560 Drives 1 & 3rd screen

Onboard graphics port drives the # 2 screen.

Gee, now I have to get a HDTV as it looks great on the 3rd sharp monitor. I use a TV to give me a feel of Colour thats all.

Wags

Are you connecting the external monitor on S-VIdeo or component via VGA or DVI?

Peter, that's an interesting problem that you have to run 3 monitors. It may be an error with Edius getting confused because all the monitors are hooked up on VGA or DVI and it's expecting component out? Just a theory.

Just use Svideo to the TV for now but...

I have the follwowing options to overlay to the 3rd screen from the back of the card.

#1 VGA is what I did for the above post for 3 screens.

#2 DVI

#3 Svideo

#4 Component

Peter maybe you can get into your card drivers or graphics settings and change things around abit to get 3 going.

Wags,

I'm confused. Your Nvidia card has YPbPr component out or S-Video/composite out? Big difference in color trueness.

Peter, I suggest you use the overlay monitor and main monitor on the same card and then the 2nd editing monitor on the 2nd card. Try that ... and of course update all drivers blah blah.

It has

YPbPr component out plugs.

Svideo out plug with adaptor to go to composite.

Two DVI ports with two DVI to VGA adaptors if needed.

After pluging it into the VGA monitor today though, I think we had better get a high res overlay screen.

No picture as me camera is flat