Question about MSP7.0 internals....

[Kris1]

@ Hulk.

As I said now in another thread, I got functionality on the ATI9700 and 9500, and on the cheapo 9000. As far as quality goes, I'm not sure.

I found the ATI9000 to produce a better image then it's 9700 (non Pro) bretheren, and the 9500 Pro was worse than both of them. I rate the quality somewhere between G450 and G550, but it's a highly subjective opinion, mind you.

Anyway, it does work, and I'm glad it does.

[Hulk]

Originally posted by wkulecz
IF it ain't broke, don't fix it!

Steal a few features from Vegas Video and add them to your existing UI -- like being able to grap the "thumb" of the timeline scrollbar and by adjusting its width scale the timeline zoom (scale factor), add an efficient keyboard shortcut for cut at current timeline position.

In most all your dialog box controls the sliders minimal movement interval appears to be some fixed percentage of full clip length, this makes it way too "twitchy" on longer clips, so add a modifier key or two for precise adjustments so the minimal mouse movement move 1-frame and perhaps another for 1 second.

Please don't adopt the XP-FisherPrice look that wastes too many pixels on eye candy. Buttons and controls should be large enough to be effective as click targets but not so large as to waste screen pixels that'd be put to better use displaying video and bigger adjustment previews.

Improved UI functionality I'm in favor of. Cosmetic changes to look like everyone else does, I'm not.

--wally.

I'm with Wally 100% here. The basic layout of the MS Pro UI is fantastic. Evolution is in order here, not revolution.

The issues Wally mentions are the same ones I would pay some attention.

The courseness of the sliders used to move about the video are the biggest problem, they are too small and don't scale with the dialog box.

Here is my suggestion, two sliders, one providing rough access to the entire file, basically what we have now.

The other slider would cover a user selectable portion of the course slider and provide much finer control.

Another suggestion would be to include forward and backward buttons that can be programmed to a certain number of frames, ie 5, 10, 20, etc...

I'm sure the senior members in this forum could come to agreement on this feature relatively quickly.

-Mark

[Hulk]

Originally posted by Kris1
@ Hulk.

As I said now in another thread, I got functionality on the ATI9700 and 9500, and on the cheapo 9000. As far as quality goes, I'm not sure.

I found the ATI9000 to produce a better image then it's 9700 (non Pro) bretheren, and the 9500 Pro was worse than both of them. I rate the quality somewhere between G450 and G550, but it's a highly subjective opinion, mind you.

Anyway, it does work, and I'm glad it does.

Thanks for getting back. By functionality do you mean the RT preview to TV works? Can you get a full screen image without a black border anywhere?

Are you PAL or NTSC?

-Mark

[Kris1]

Yup. Perfect image, Instant Playback and all. I've just pulled my 28" 4:3 set to my pc, and the pictures' great. No borders. But as I said in another thread, I had installed Tweak3D which unlocks the Theater Chips' Overscan capability. I don't know how the image would've looked like without it, but it looks great as is now. I also found I had forgotten a setting (flicker fixer, still was enabled, no good for Video playback of course) and to be honest, the picture looks identical to a G550 now. (subjective impression).

PAL country here. I can do some NTSC tests if you want, but not today. But in all honesty, PAL should be more icky than NTSC in terms of overscan support, and if PAL works I can't imagine NTSC giving any problems.

Hope this helps,
Kris

[Kris1]

Amazing.

In example of Doc, I started throwing FX and such and see when this Instant Play would stumble. Honestly I don't know how they did it.

Check this out :

Va : clip with non-RT effect (Vignette)
FX : 6 seconds of FlyFlip 3D transition
Vb : RT Emboss + Variable Speed
V1 : Overlay at 40%, Old Movie (non RT) + Monochrom + Mosaic

...plays perfectly in RT. And though I'm running at 3Gig, that's no HT P4 there !!!!

This is _f***ing UNBELIEVABLE_. I have NO idea where the exact limits of this system are, but they are well beyond anything I've ever seen in non-professional NLE systems, and it's even well beyond most of the professional systems I've seen so far. I'm sitting here, throwing God knows what at it, and the system just keeps on running and I just keep on grinning .Now PLEASE GET THAT DVCAM ISSUE out of the way and I'm sold.

[Hulk]

Kris1,

Thanks for the update. A few more questions if you don't mind.

How do you have to set up the card to do preview to the TV out? Does ATI have anything like DVDmax or do you have to operate in some kind of clone mode or something?

Also, what type of ATI card are you using?

I may switch back to ATI AIW if this thing can work with MS Pro!

Thanks,

Mark

[Kris1]

No problem at all, Hulk.

Apparantly, most modern ATI's have a "Theater chip", with the 8500 and 9100 that's an external chip, with the other 9-er's inclusive the 9000 it's on-dye.

For all I've heard, the ones with the external chip have a couple of issues, especially using Overscan. I don't know if there's a fix or not, but the 9100 I tested gave unsatisfying results.

The exact way and steps I needed to setup Instant Play over the ATI's I tested (9000, 9100, 9500Pro and 9700) is already discribed in an earlier thread (somebody asking if the 9700 was usable 4 Instant Play).

ATI indeed has a function comparable to DVDMax. It's called "Theater Mode" and resides in their "Clone" options. You need Catalist 3.1 to unlock them, maybe Tweak3D could do the trick too. I installed Tweak3D to unlock the overscan capabilities of the ATI.

Hope that helps,
Kris

[Hulk]

I'll do a search for that thread.

Which card are you currently using?

Mark

[Kris1]

9500 Pro.

The thread I mean is a couple of threads under this, look at my installation advice called "Got it".

[Ray Austin]

I currently own the RTX100. Can it do anything more than MSP7???

what are the differences?

[Hulk]

Kris1,

Found the thread, thanks for the comments.

-Mark

[Kris1]

Hi Ray,

About the RTx.100, I can imagine you're wondering about that now. But there remains quite a lot special to the RTx. cards which isn't (yet ?) available in MSP. The sheer number of flexible RT transitions of an RTx for example. The hardware Mpeg2 encoder, the high quality analogue ports just to name a few.

I think there's still more than enough reasons to justify owning an RTx. My answer would've been otherwise if you'd be asking this about, say a Storm. (my last dedicated NLE card)

[Dr Mordrid]

I agree. The RT.X100 does have several advantages, as does MSPro7. My solution is to use both

Dr. Mordrid

[Ray Austin]

Ok, that's kinda what I thought.... thanks alot.

[Hulk]

Kris1,

One more thing (sorry!). There were some ATI drivers for the older AIW series a while back that didn't do VFW.

Do the new ones for the 9700 series?

i.e. Can you do analog capture using avi_io with codecs such as PICVideo and huffyuv?

-Mark