Testing MSP8 on a Hell Machine

[Mikele]

I'm doing tests with this hardware:
Sony HDV FX1-E
P4 Dual 3 GHZ, Aus P5WD2, 1.5 Gigas Ram, 2 SATA 250 Gigas HD.

Capturing 20:41:00 of HDV:
PERFECT. No frame lost. Direct conexion, no bugs, no problems. EXCELLENT!!! Full control of the cam (play, rec, FF, etc.).
Result: MPEG-2 file 3,70 GB. PAL 50 interlaced at 25 fps.
Windows can play it directly.

Editing:
not possible with this hardware without stops and glichs (but "usable" if this doesn't matter).
Let's try PROXY.
20minutes and 41 seconds of HDTV to PAL DV Type-2: half hour, but all in the same HD (probably fast if going to another fisic HD). Result: 4,41 GB file (bigger than original HDTV).

Editing with PROXY
EXCELLENT!!!! FAST!!!! VERY FAST!!!!!

Rendering from PROXY
eeeeerrr, so fast, errrr, very fast. An edit of 1 minute with three 3-D of 1 second and title of 20 seconds with motion: 2 minutes and 31 seconds of render!!!!! Quite GOOD
Two CPUs at 95%, all the time (with litlle ups & downs)
Smart render runs perfect.

Well, I'm doing more testing.

Bye and thanks.

[Dr Mordrid]

Told you guys that the proxy mode was cool

I find that generating proxies using the PICVideo MJPeg v3 codec (or Morgan MJPeg, though PICVideo is my preference) is MUCH faster on my single CPU system than creating them with either the DV or MPEG presets.

I'd love to see if PICVideo also speeds things up on a dualie.

I use a frame size of 720x480 (MSP8 sets the aspect ratio to match the source and PICVideo goes along) with a quality setting of 16-20. I think you'll find that using this method your proxy generation times will halve, at least.

Dr. Mordrid

[Mikele]

Well, I can't do more tests with the Hell Machine. Borrow in over.

Before I do a 1 hour and 3 minutes capture of HDV (recorded on a miniDVCAM tape) and was perfet. No frame drops.
But: preview screen can't play all the frames during capture. Pauses and stops but captures all the frames.
But: CUT with scene is detect doesn't work.

As I can understand, MPS8 uses the two CPUs quite well. I'm not a programmer or expert, but seems that is well programmed for dual cores.

Now I will do more tests on lower machines, like Athlon XP 2600+ or 1600+ (quite old).

[DarrenD]

I have not played around with the proxy files yet, but looking at their purpose why would I not want to do the following:

Create proxy files at half resolution 360x288 (I am in PAL-land)
Use built in MJPEG Compressor (part of Direct-X?) instead of DV/PICVideo

Are proxy files created by MSP in the background once I have "captured" my DV type-1 file and set the proxy settings as above? Proxy files, therefore, seem to be equivalent to the old technique of capturing lo-res versions of your tapes, working in MSP on these for CPU speed reasons, then re-capture full-res versions and get MSP to create final video. I assume proxy files just create lo-res from the full-res.

[Mikele]

Yes, but if your capture is 1440x1080 , is better going DV pal for proxy. Is fast and YOU CAN PREVIEW ON EXTERNAL MONITOR.
Is like work with DV, you can see your titling, colour effects, motions, etc on CRT monitor.

After render, will be very similar at 1440x1080 the effects that you insert on a proxy of 720x576 (16:9 format).

[Dr Mordrid]

I use and preview with PICVideo MJPeg because

1. I can scale the proxy's to 360x240 NTSC.

2. DV cannot be scaled down.

3. it's VERY fast, esp. compared to the Dx MJPeg plus I have control over the settings. Dx MJPeg's are fixed.

Dr. Mordrid