RT vs Software...

[Duty]

I was ordering some hardware the other day and I a talk with one of the owners of the store about my new rtx.10. The first thing out of his mouth was "Have you taken it back yet?".

I thought this a little odd, over the following few minutes he explained that real time cards are a thing if the past and now a hendrence to the movie making process in most cases. His first point was that the encoding process to mpeg2 was was best done in software as the top hardware was not as good as the top software encoders. His second point was once the hardware was maxed out it woud slow the system down, In turn making the average rendering time greater with the RT hardware then if you rendered the movie with software alone.

I thought I would post this and see what other people think.


Well???



Jeff

[gt40]

First of all, with the rtx.10 all mpeg encoding is done in software only anyway. Secondly you get a full blown version of Premiere and the rtx.10 card for almost the same price as the s/w alone. You also get a great deal more realtime transitions and effects than available with a software only package.
Plus with s/w only you would still nead a capture device for analog and for IEEE-1394 (if you don't have a firewire port). You also get a realtime preview on a tv monitor and realtime colour correction.

Unless you already own video editing s/w I think the rtx.10 is a great value - keep it.

[Ray Austin]

First of all the level of RT depends on what you are doing and what type of card you have.

I have the RTX100 which is the big brother of the RTX10... so my capabilities are a little bit better than yours. You still have better options other than just software by itself.

You have to decide what it is you need... no one can make this choice for you, but you. If you find you have to render too much and can't get anything done then the decision is rather obvious.

You can get alot of these questions answered by just pulling your card out... after you are fully aware of what it can do + all the extra that matrox gives you via software. Pull the card out and uninstall the matrox software. Now play with Premiere you will see for yourself the difference. Again nothing wrong with it... if it's what you need, if you need more then you made the right choice.

For some further reading with regards to the RTX100 you can read this http://forum.matrox.com/cgi-bin/rtx1...;f=19;t=000467

Read the full thread...Wayne answers this question very clearly... again this is for the RTX100.... your features are different, but this should give you the idea.

[Elie]

Listen, I don't care what people say about RT software NLE's!!!

You still need hardware no matter what, how the heck are you going to do the following with Software only...

1-RT Preview out to NTSC or PAL monitor/TV via composite or SVideo, ok this may be done with DVD Max on some Matrox cards but it is still not 100% as it is on RT.X hardware for example.
2-Real time Mpeg-2 capture and export
3-2D/3D effects that are very demanding on your CPU
4-RT export to DV is sometimes better if assisted by on board hardware
5-less chances of frames drops when capturing or exporting

Cheers,
Elie

[Dr Mordrid]

I flat out love my RT.X100, but truth be told;

1. RT.X's use a G550 core for their exports. The G550 uses 8 bit internal processing while the P-750 and Parheila use 10 bit, so that quality comparison is questionable.

2. RT MPEG capture can be done with MSPro7's MC's encoder with at least the quality of the chip used by the RT.X's, and this will be improving.

SW export speeds heavily depend on the system, but with SSE2 on a fast P4 it's close enough with 1.1 x RT to 1.3 x RT being very common using the MC 1.3 engine, and the 1.4 engine is faster and higher in quality.

3. Remember that most all the new RT.X effects are already being done in sofware. The real difference is in the effect UI, variety of effect types and keyframing; all of which the RT.X's are better at.

Still the RT.X's are limited in how many effects can be put into a single stack and previewed, while a software RT system like MSPro7 can pull this off. Xtreme Preview helps a lot, but not as much as it needs to.

Example: I've yet to see an RT.X100 do three or more chromakeys in a single stack in RT, but MSPro7 can do this on a fast system. You can even add a couple of animated bugs + moving paths if you want.

4. Agreed, but with a fast SSE2 system & an SSE2 enabled DV s/w encoder this advantage is gone.

5. Disagree. In my experience there is little difference between IEEE-1394 captures done with MediaTools (RT.X) or MSPro7's Scan & Capture module.

Uppance: keep the RT.X as it has a better selection of effects and a better effect UI than s/w solutions currently have. How long this advantage lasts will be fun to watch.

Dr. Mordrid

[Duty]

Thanks everyone,

Personally I was not even thinking of taking it back. I had a Fast FPS60 years ago and miss the ability to see the output as I go. Also the card was free, yep free. can't beat that with a stick. I love all the software it came with, if you think about it, there is about $1,200 dollars worth of stuff there with the premiere pro updrade.

The only issue I have had with the card so far is it told me my system was to slow and quit the install. It made me feel inadequate , so I ordered a AMD 2500+, a new MB and a gig of DDR400. I should be good and manly once that is all in place.

Anyway this was just to see what other people thought.

Later,


Jeff

[Brian Ellis]

Originally posted by Elie
1-RT Preview out to NTSC or PAL monitor/TV via composite or SVideo, ok this may be done with DVD Max on some Matrox cards but it is still not 100% as it is on RT.X hardware for example.
2-Real time Mpeg-2 capture and export
3-2D/3D effects that are very demanding on your CPU
4-RT export to DV is sometimes better if assisted by on board hardware
5-less chances of frames drops when capturing or exporting

1. I do it from MSP7 software via ADVC-100
2. I agree, I had difficulty with this with MSP7 but I can now do it with some beta software (no details - NDA, but you will hear of it shortly)
3. I can do some quite complex 2D and 3D effects in RT, 5 or 6 deep, with MSP7. I dare say that there are some things where hardware may be faster
4. Have no problems in software exporting
5. What are frame drops? Haven't had a single one for over a year.

Guess you may be a wee bit out of date I admit, though, that software RT does require a state-of-the-art system to get good results. The advantage of software v. hardware is the flexibility of upgrading. (Think of all those poor buggers with Marvels who are still not getting them to work with W2k/XP). And how is your RT-Xn going to look on the next generation of computer? No improvement of performance, if it works at all.

[Elie]

Originally posted by Brian Ellis
1. I do it from MSP7 software via ADVC-100
2. I agree, I had difficulty with this with MSP7 but I can now do it with some beta software (no details - NDA, but you will hear of it shortly)
3. I can do some quite complex 2D and 3D effects in RT, 5 or 6 deep, with MSP7. I dare say that there are some things where hardware may be faster
4. Have no problems in software exporting
5. What are frame drops? Haven't had a single one for over a year.

1-Aha you still some kind of hardware device to output analog out to TV, that is what I am talking about, so it is all built in to the NLE card you purchase.

2-Can't wait

3-Same here

4-Don't you have to render the timeline prior to exporting either to 1394 or analog?

5-I am talking about analog capture where I have seen on several occasions people drop frames because of a poor or low quality VHS tape.

The Marvel G400 had that issue.

Regards,
Elie

[Brian Ellis]

Elie

1. I don't do it, but I could also use my G-550 card for TV out, with no extra hardware. I choose to use the ADVC because I can then use the second port for a 3 screen system (although I rarely do: crick in the neck!).

2. It's great!

4. No! Not at all. 'Print to tape' exports the timeline to either my DVCAM drive or the ADVC for analogue (VHS) output. Also, if there are complex effects that "beat" it, the RT Preview can also export to the ADVC, although there are problems to DVCAM (of Sony origin).

5. The only analogue capture I do now is of old VHS tapes, again, via the ADVC. The other day, I had a very old tape where the bottom of the pic tore up, but I could capture it, dropless. Auto-tracking did not solve it. By adjusting the tracking manually, I managed to reduce the tearing to just a wee bit at the bottom (inside the overscan area). I did a dropless direct capture to DVD-compliant MPEG-2. I have one VHS tape I cannot capture, though: it will just about play to a TV, but even then the pic does queer things from time to time. I'd imagine that this one would be impossible to capture 100% drop-free, by any means. It is 95 mins, but the best I've been able to do is about 55 mins of it, in over 100 random stretches of <1 sec to about 5 mins.

I don't decry that hardware cards are useful: I used one for several years. What I am saying is that there are other solutions today which render their utility somewhat less outstanding. I'll go so far as to forecast that it will all be 100% software-only within ~5 years. We are nearly there, already. The next generation of CPUs should tip the balance (and I don't mean 64 bit, because a true 64 bit Win OS is still vapourware).

[Ray Austin]

Originally posted by Brian Ellis
Elie

The next generation of CPUs should tip the balance (and I don't mean 64 bit, because a true 64 bit Win OS is still vapourware).

....PS don't make illegal copies of this disk!

cof, cof.... I can smell the vapour's already.

[Brian Ellis]

And you really think that this is 100% 64-bit? How long did it take MS from the release of the first 32 bit CPU to produce an all-32 bit OS? 8 years, if you please. What makes you think they can produce an all-64 bit OS even before the hardware is available. Get real, man.

[Ray Austin]

For one we DON'T want an all 64bit coded OS.... At least not yet. All the 32 bit software we own would then be worthless, unless you use an emulator which is reverse engineering and we all know it doesn't work very well.

I never once claimed this was all 64bit. That is the advantage to using the Athalon64 you can gradually move to 64bit.

64bit is not new its been around for quite some time Alpha

And for the record every M$FT release is a work in progress, if it wasn't we wouldn't need Service Packs. Might as well get used to that one.

[Brian Ellis]

Originally posted by Ray Austin
That is the advantage to using the Athalon64 you can gradually move to 64bit.

Then what's the hurry to move to 64 bit? Would it not be wiser and wait until 64 bit has become the norm and let others, more intrepid, have all the inevitable hassle and the potential demise of AMD if either the hardware or the software does not meet expectations?

[Brambus]

RT vs software

Apart all the funny speech about 64 128 and 256 bit OS, have you ever tried an Hollywood FX transition (OpenGL) using the software engine vs the hardware option (using a trivial GeForce or Ati chipset) ?
Just one try and you will hurry to your HW dealer to buy such a device, no matter the motherboard or the chipset you have.
I think the plain thruth is that -NOW- playing Realtime (and going to tape) needs dedicated hardware, unless your favorite transition is a cross-dissolve (which, IMHO, it's a really good transition after all ).
Otherwise ... render and render and render.

My two cents
Brambus

[Ray Austin]

what's the hurry to 64bit???

• because it's faster
• because it's cool
• because we want it
• because it's new
• because it won't be obsolete in 2months
• because now we can

It's the only reason 64bit makes sense right now is that it is backwards compatible with all 32bit applications, with out that little feature it would hardly be as sexy as it currently is.

Is it for everybody.... yes, eventually one day 64bit will be your only choice... drag your feet all you want right now... you have time... but she's coming round the mountain!