You are absolutely correct in this. Adobe has only tested the 285 and a couple of Quadro's. Additional cards will be added in due time, whenever that may be, but it is completely reasonable that the new 4xx series (it is not called the 3xx series) will be supported as well.

I wonder if the Mercury Playback Engine coupled with a Cuda GTX285 will suddenly produce acceptable video output in realtime from the timeline? Currently ALL Nvidia cards have slicing or tearing errors on output via HDMI or DVI or whatever you connect to them and cannot be considered suitable for broadcast output. If you wished to record to tape from these sources I'm afraid you would be saddly disappointed.

The tearing issues mostly seen on fast moving horizontal movement, appear as offset blocks which vary in position on the monitor, and are a result of the graphics card refreshing during active scan, and although there is a V Sync button in the Nvidia control panel which is supposed to syncronise the refresh to the vertical blanking period, it doesn't work.

I've tested this on older cards from the 6600 through FX1700 Quadro to 8800 and 285 - all have the same issue, and Nvidia are mute regarding this issue - I wonder if maybe Adobe and Nvidia have fixed this issue with the "accepted" cards that they list?

... and do you still find this problem if you buy a £6000 Quadro FX5800 HD SDI card, anyone using one who could confirm this ??

all best

Paul

^^
If you watch some of the videos floating around, everything was in real time. I can't remember if they were using a 285 card or not, but if it's on the supported list, I would think it should function just the same.

Personally I hope it pans out, cause I'm tired of rendering after adding a single filter.

Hmmm... While I don't record the output of the graphics card, and I have no NVIDIA gamer cards, I've not seen this on any Quadro cards, and I've had a bunch. Have you tested all these cards on the same system?

It can't be on all cards...every Autodesk, Avid (turnkey workstation), NuCoda, etc, etc system runs on the Quadro cards...I would think we'd have heard something about this by now...

Is there any other factor involved?

GTX 285M ( for laptops )
 

I just last week bought a new Custom Laptop with a GTX285M "Mobile" version of the 285. I heard CS5 needed the 285 as the Minimum card for the Mercury playback engine.

The GTX285M is currently the Fastest Laptop Geforce Card Nvidia makes. --And i had to buy a new laptop now so i got the best that there seemed to be.

Altho i realized mobile versions are not as powerful as Desktop versions I was hoping that the GTX285M would work for future CS5 and MPE. Maybe/ maybe not???

^^

Well the 285m has CUDA support which "should" work.

Personally, I would wait until MPE is released and then decide what video card to get, based on some reliable tests, so at least you know what price/performance you can expect to get.

Hi Tim,

Well this was my point really, I've run many cards on several systems and always have this slicing effect, whether on a laptop running media player, or a high end Nvidia card outputting HDMI - that said, I've never had a Quadro card except my FX1700 (which showed the same problem) so I'm very keen to see a system running with HD output, through any Nvidia card that is clean of any refresh errors.

Please bear in mind that this would never bother anyone working on say, frame by frame animation, it's really only noticable when playing real time quality imagery from an NLE into an external monitor.

As a rule of thumb, I use Edius with an HDStorm card which gives me full HD output in both component and HDMI, I never see any of these issues, but the same project played out through an HDMI feed from say the GTX285 is full of "slicing" glitches.

If you say you've never seen this, then I'd love to go check out an edit suite in London which uses say a Quadro card in conjunction with any NLE to see the results - I just want to fix this issue without risking spending huge money on a card which may only result in the same problems.

thanks

Paul

Hi Paul. How do you get any work done in Ibiza :)

On a serious note, I have recently seen the tearing but only when scrubbing through the timeline - using 8800GT, Premiere CS4, DVI into LCD, 30p, 60Hz.

Hi Steve,

that's why I'm in London working right now - too much swimming and partying !!

So playing out in realtime, you get a clean, error free image? this with an "NTSC" project - I wonder if this is a PAL related issue, in other words, although I set the output frame rate to be 50 in line with the monitor, I always get tearing - I'm gonna test a 60hz based project and shoot some 60hz EX1 footage right away.

OK, just tested with EX project 60i, also 30p external monitor 60hz, still the same problem!

Paul

Paul, are you using only HDMI to check this or have you tried via DVI? HDMI might be the culprit?

I have no tearing while using XDCAM 1080 30p & 720 30p presets as well as 720x405 custom preset.

I should also add that I use Media Player Classic all the time and never have any problems.

Any chance you could record some video tearing so we can see what you are seeing?

This is present on all outputs, RGB, DVI HDMI and even component from an older 8800 card. I'll try and capture something that moves rather than a still image.

Paul

It's a shame it is CUDA only instead of OpenCL to open up the acceleration to the ATI/AMD cards.

It's sort of the ongoing issue with computers in general in my view...

As the configurations get more diverse, and the options get more numerous, each vendor who has the initiative to reach out and utilize some aspect of a computer system they don't manufacture or control to improve performance, has to make some choices.

Drivers and software for some hardware like AJA or BlackMagic cards, can be adapted to different host applications for a limited set of specific functions, but even in that product niche there are solutions like Matrox IO/acceleration solutions which are focused on one host application due to the complexity of what they're doing.

Making a Matrox RT solution for Premiere and Vegas and Edius for example, would require 3 quite fundamentally different approaches as the way each of those NLEs handle the job of creating and displaying frames very, very differently. The software engineering costs would simply be prohibitive in proportion to the potential sales increase...

If you're Adobe, you're now going to re-code nearly everything in the core of the software to get a systemic performance jump like that. At some point, you have to decide how much time you have to dedicate to the effort, and where that time is best spent. Premiere Pro isn't exactly the most svelte of software programs now...developing a version with multiple preview acceleration engines that use all the available display card protocols would create an exponential increase in the software's girth not to mention potential obscure incompatibilities, and sheer development manpower required to get the software coded.

Nothing is released of course, so what will and won't be supported and even what benefits may be coming without specific hardware dependency has yet to be seen.

That is one of the benefits of the OpenCL platform, both nVidia and ATI/AMD can use it, just like the OpenGL Acceleration in CS4 (although it appears most of the plugins were written with CUDA in mind it seems).

I am a Senior Programmer, so I know how much of a pain it is to program for multiple platforms, I hate having to work within different .NET versions even. When coding though I tend to not focus on any one platform, even when I do code for a specific platform I always abstract the low level stuff out and write some custom optimizations, but leaving the door open for other platforms.

But then again like you said, it's not out yet so we have no idea whether or not ATI/AMD cards will get acceleration too.

...yes, time will tell.

However, I do think that the Quadro cards certainly have been much more aggressively marketed to the pro user of late. At some level, the market posture of a product has an impact on its potential for such alliances...

I know a lot of Mac users who use ATI cards, but since Mac only certifies one card out of the entire Quadro line every three revisions or so, its not like they've historically had a huge set of options in this area.

I don't happen to know any PC users who have a really top of the line ATI card (whatever that may be...any of them that have bothered to invest the money in a muscle-bound graphics card seem to have Quadro cards in my anecdotal experience.

Also, the OEM market seems dominated by NVIDIA...so they've positioned themselves very well for this sort of collaboration it seems.

(Maybe things would be more competitive if AMD did some more effective marketing to the pro user?... I've had ATI cards over the years, but I know that I'm not very ATI savvy anymore as I don't seem to encounter any info on their products these days. Maybe I'm not looking in the right places?)

It wasn't until the HD 4xxx series came out that I made the switch to ATI, especially with the SoftMods to turn them into the FireGL series at a fraction of the cost, kind of like the old SoftQuadro Mods.

Currently I have a 5850 that for Photoshop and 3ds max 2010 is perfect with. The Beta Premiere/Media Encoder Plugin that AMD/Adobe were developing that uses the Stream Processors on the 4xxx/5xxx series cards really makes a difference when encoding in h.264 for Blu-Ray. It cut my times down by well over half.

If you would have asked me back in the NV20/30 era about ATI I wouldn't recomend any of their products, but ever since AMD took control of ATI, their drivers and quality have gone up considerably.

With the release date now set do we have a offical list of supported cards?

This is what I could find. I have the 285.

The Mercury engine will require one of a few specific Nvidia cards to work. (Initially qualifying: the Quadro FX 3800, FX 4800, FX 5800, or CX, and the roughly $400 GeForce GTX 285.) Adobe plans to extend support to more GPUs in the future, including Nvidia's next-generation GeForce GF100 cards.

Yeah its the fermi cards I'm interested in.

I have a question, Is CS5 using the nvida card for the all the processing? Or is it using the processor for video playback and the card for effects?

Randy, here's everything known about the Mercury Playback Engine

The Genesis Project: Technology Sneek Peek: Adobe® Mercury Playback Engine

o.k. ive seen all that. Personally I only do 2 layers of video 3 tops and I only do transistions with the occasional filter. I dont care about tons of layers and effects I care about smooth scrubbing and fast response.

Randy.... my production demands sound similar to yours. You may want to check out Edius before you make any hardware purchases.

I'm toying with a combination of Cineform Prospect HD which provides a pathway to their amazing First Light metadata adjustment tool, and Edius 5.

The playback of HDV and Cineform encoded clips is smooth as can be. I get my EX1 tomorrow, so the final test will be with MXF material. I'm running Win7 64-bit on a modestly powered workstation with an ATI display card (I can't even remember which one) and only 4gb of RAM.

Edius is a 32-bit software however.

Edius 5 is available as a 30 day trial from Grass Valley. I'm really liking what I see.

Actually I use Edius now I also own CS4 I like to keep my options open. Everytime a new CS comes out I try to change but up till Edius is too smooth. The thing that kills me with Edius is its lack of a decent DVD authoring app. or at least the ability to make a authoring app friendly file. I can only use mpeg-2 files from Edius with Encore not h.264. I really hope CS comes though this time I really like the whole Adobe package. I have a Black Magic card intensity pro the one thing I learned is Adobe doesnt play well with BM cards with Cineform the only way I could edit reliably with my BM card is natively which is why I really hope this Mercury engine pays off. I shoot in AVCHD.

Hah... I've been singing to the choir.

I use TMPGenc for virtually all of my conversions, never using Adobe Media Encoder (I have CS4 as well) except to export to a Cineform master.

I mention TMPGenc because the makers of that software also have DVD authoring programs as well. If they are anything like the encoder, then they are probably solid and high quality.

I use Encore with MPEG2 files converted via TMPGenc from Cineform master files. I've had great luck with it, and the quality is outstanding.

If I go with Edius.... I will still use Cineform source clips for my edit project because of the First Light capabilities... but my output will probably be the lossless Canopus HD codec instead of Cineform..... unless of course Cineform manages to make an export plug-in for Edius 5.

So far as CS5.... to understand all the hype about the Mercury Playback Engine, all one has to do is fire up Edius 5. It may not do countless layers of video, but in my case.... and it sounds like yours as well.... who cares?

Well, of course, the ATI card won't be compatible to augment the Mercury Playback Engine boost...so Edius may well retain a responsiveness edge on that system vs CS5 PPro.

And while XDcamHD on optical disc are wrapped as MXF...the EX cameras are MPEG4 wrapped (yes...it's MPEG2 video in an MPEG4 wrapper.

Tim,

The question that caught my attention was essentially asking if GPU processing was really needed for smooth previewing of a couple of streams in CS5.

Randy's needs seemed very similar to mine, and it appears that I am achieving perfectly smooth performance with the Edius 5 demo on my garden variety setup.

I have been contemplating an extensive (read expensive) overhaul of hardware to accommodate whatever the CS5 specs are going to be.... and now I realize there may be alternatives to that route.

I was using the "MXF" term in a generic sense. I'm very excited about the addition of the EX1.

I have Edius NEO 2 also and it is smooth and fast. But still no decent authoring app. I still must use Encore.

Marty,

I have an EX1 (now replaced in the product line by the EX1r) and simply think it's the best camcorder value dollar-for-dollar that In know of currently. I use a fair variety of higher-end cameras when necessary including Motion RAW cameras, and while there are cameras with greater capability than the EX1(r), I think that the return on investment with this camera is really impressive.

So, I think you'll not regret your decision there...

On Edius:

Going back some years when I worked more closely with Canopus, my typical mantra was if you can do what you need to do in post production in Edius, I've seen nothing faster. I still stand by that statement. Edius is starting to get some traction in news, which is an area where I have to assume it just smokes everything in its path.

I'm an Adobe user, but that doesn't mean I don't see the strengths of other products...the media management in an Avid system, the ability to scale performance to be stable on a wide variety of systems ranging from underpowered to powerhouses that Vegas possesses, the flexibility offered by the inclusion of Color that gives FCP an edge in that area... There are strengths in every app out there. The strengths of Edius have always revolved around being absurdly responsive relative to the media and the hardware being used.

As you've noted, Edius just handles media beautifully and smoothly. It has from the beginning when I was operating an Edius kiosk at NAB when it was introduced, with something like 16 layers of DV (a big deal for that time) with effects...and it chewed right through it.

Adobe will always have more effects and more options than Edius as they really are targeting different users, but I still think that Edius is a great product.

on your question...the playback is improved on CS5 relative to CS4 even without a CUDA compatible display card as far as I know. Whether it would get to the level of Edius' responsiveness without the display card help...i could only speculate, but I'd be doubtful on a modestly configured system.

...but I always reserve the right to be proven wrong by actual testing.

"...but I always reserve the right to be proven wrong by actual testing."

I work with a lot of engineering firms and I am going to steal your classic quote from above and claim it as my own.... I love it!

Having been so impressed with Edius 5 and a current owner of CS4, I'm thinking I may have a good formula. I have longed for a snappy, simple, responsive NLE. If I am going to do anything complex, I have After Effects. For Blu-Ray/DVD, there's Encore.... and for encoding, I have TMPGenc.

Already armed with Cineform's Prospect HD... I can do all my color correction on a metadata level and not affect preview performance.

All my sound work is done in Vegas and Sound Forge with the Waves mastering plug-in suite.

I've never had FCP or Avid experience, but they seem to have powerful assets as well.

CS5 could be a breakout product, but simple and lean workflow is my ultimate goal. The EX1 should contribute to that end as well.... and hearing your praises is further affirmation.

It's great to hear your perspective on things Tim... there is a lot of commonality in your experiences with where I am headed.

The thing with Adobe's product...which I use as my principle tool BTW, is that it simply isn't as elegant in its resource utilization as some other NLEs (think Edius, Vegas).

Now...the upside is the effects and inter-application functionality that the Adobe suite provides is extensive...and I need those capabilities, so I have to get the hardware necessary to run the app effectively.

As I said, they each have their sweet spots...Adobe's is not lightweight resource utilization and Edius's isn't external effects or encode authoring extension...

I wouldn't buy a Corolla to start a freight business, nor a 24' box truck to commute back and forth to the office. You get what you need and life is good.

I downloaded the trial for Edius 5 and when i import Cineform files, some work fine and some are totally black. (i can hear the audio though)

Any thoughts why it would do that?

Edius from what i saw is smooth and realtime. I just can't take it anymore with Vegas 9c, Core i7 920 , 6gb ram, velociraptor for OS and raid 0 (3 drives) for footage. Vegas can't keep a smooth preview.

I want CS5.

This article from an Adobe blog proivdes some additional information about the MPE. There have been improvements to the base product and a supported GPU is not required, but if one is available, it will be used.

The Video Road: Debunking Mercury Myths

Adobe Premiere Pro Mercury Playback Engine is faster than CS4 across the board --- works great on your existing system. If you want even more speed, then you need to grab one of the NVIDIA CUDA cards that we've tuned for (GTX 285, Quadro 3800, 4800, 5800, CX .... optimized support for GTX 480 coming in Q3).
4 hours ago · Report

From their Facebook Page - No 3700 or GTX295?

I find it hard to beleive that now that all the work is done of creating the technology that only a few cards work. Are'nt most of these cards the same at their core? Something tells me Nvidia is just trying to get us to buy crazy expensive video cards. Personally I dont need all that crazy speed, I just need to edit 2 layers of AVCHD SMOOTHLY which I cant see needing at $400 video card to do. I saw a video demonstration earlier on with the MPE and it seemed to be a bit different, it showed the CPUs only job was playing back the video and all the effects were done by the card. Now it seems like everything is done with the card. oh well I guess we'll all know in about 18 hours.

mmmm, playing AVCHD smoothly = Edius 5.5, its as simple as that. Edius is so smooth, its an agony to use Premiere Pro. At the best of times, the Adobe Media Encoder is so slow and moody, there's no render to timeline and playback stops everytime you touch the keyboard, also after coming to look at PP in its CS4 guise after using Prem 6.5 years ago, I'm amazed at the tool set having remained set in stone, hardly any changes at all.

Oh dear, its sounds like a bit of a moan!

The upside of Premiere is that it edits RED.

I hope the CS5 release packs a few surprises.

Paul

Tomorrow we should find out Paul.

I have Edius 5.5 and I have been using Edius since v.1 before that Premiere 6.5 the problem I have is GVG is a broadcast company who has no interest in exporting to DVD or BR for that matter. They care about interfacing with their servers me I do weddings and need a full work flow. Edius's DVD export tool looks like it was written by a college student and the exporter does export a Encore compatible file (h.264). Edius is fast because its so stream lined I feel like I can grow more as a editor with CS because of the whole package. Believe me im staying with Edius if it still takes an hour to conform my footage or if its clunky but maybe with the horsepower of the video card it just may be the fast & functional solution we have been waiting for.

Check out this link for all the details on What's New in Premiere Pro CS5:
digital video editing software | Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 - new features

Encore:
DVD authoring | Adobe Encore CS5

After Effects:
deliver more creative control | Adobe After Effects CS5

Many small enhancements... Mercury Playback Engine is the big new thing.