cpu performance at 70percent with cineform!

[Craig Maret]

hi there
i borrowed 2 gig of ram to put in my pc
running xp 3.2e ghz pc
360 gig vid drive
geforce fx5500 256meg onboard
premiere pro 1.51
using cineform demo plugin

i get dropouts..the video freezes during playback(not a crash but the video monitor window just stops playing)

i checked my system cpu performance monitor it shoots to 45-80 percent when playing cineform video!!

i play standard dv(without the cineform plugin) it uses 10-20 percent cpu usage.

does this mean i need a better processor to use cineform or are there any tweaks i need to be doing?

hope someone can help as i want to at least come to a decision about whether to go hardware or cineform before the free trial of aspect hd runs out in 2 days!

cheers craig maret

[Richard Leadbetter]

CineForm is a high CPU-usage codec - decoding HD requires a lot more processor effort than processing DV.

In terms of your drop-outs, what hard disks are you using? IDE or SATA? Are they defragged properly? What type of HD video are capturing in terms of resolution and frame rate?

[Craig Maret]

In terms of your drop-outs, what hard disks are you using?
IDE 7200rpm no probs with dv(which as far as i know is similar data rate although a different format)

Are they defragged properly?
yep

What type of HD video are capturing in terms of resolution and frame rate?
1080i 50 fps from my new canon xlh1

ps thanks richard for your replies to this and my previous question.

[Richard Leadbetter]

When you say "CineForm plug-in" have you downloaded Aspect HD or Connect HD?

[Craig Maret]

hi there
its aspect hd

[William Gardner]

Originally Posted by Craig Maret

IDE 7200rpm no probs with dv(which as far as i know is similar data rate although a different format)

I have no idea if this is related to your problem at all, but FYI although normal DV and HDV are the same data rate, CineformAVIs are typically several times the data rate of the original HDV files, so the hard drive speed requirements are not identical.

Bill

[David Taylor]

Also in terms of CPU usage, when you begin playing the timeline when using AHD, our RT engine is calculating ahead as fast as it can up to the limits of memory you specify in the CineForm playback settings. That's why even when playing a single clip the CPU usage will be high for a few seconds. The CPU will drop down to a lower reading after it fills up memory. Similarly, you'll notice on the CPU monitor that as you approach a complex portion of the timeline, (many streams and effects) the CPU usage goes up before you get to the complex section because of the look-ahead, and it drops down lower before it gets to the end of the complex section.

[Craig Maret]

i just upgraded to pp2 and i have no problem running smooth 1080i hdv on the native hdv setting in pp2.

this seems crazy..i thought the pp2 hdv editing was more processor hungry.
i reckon this could mean i have some software tweaking to do as the claim that aspect hd doubles or quadrupples my editing power isnt happening for me.

any ideas?

[David Taylor]

Craig,

Premiere Pro does an okay job with native HDV editing. For simple projects native editing is perfectly acceptable - we're the first to offer that. I'm not sure if there's a specific question in your last post or not. It seems like more of a comment than anything else so it's difficult to offer any specific response. But try running 3-4 streams of native HDV in PP with transitions and color correction on simultaneously. Is that happening in RT for you?

It should be happening for you in RT using Aspect HD assuming you have the drive bandwidth to support it - a two-drive RAID 0 will easily support 4 streams. The philosophy of Aspect HD is to 1)allow you to eliminate rendering as much as possible, and 2) to improve visual fidelity for more sophisticated post workflows, and 3) offer features you can't otherwise get in PP, including temporal/spatial resampling, deinterlacing, and inverse telecine processing. "Sophisticated" in this regard means you either have a complex timeline or else you also use multiple apps in your post workflow including AE and perhaps others. Even Adobe on their website doesn't recommend using MPEG as an effects format: http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/332583.html. MPEG is not a render-friendly format, both in terms of the length of time it takes to render, and also the visual fidelity loss.

David.

[Craig Maret]

ok
im not trying to knock cineform..it is purely a question of how do i get it to work on my pc.
my pc is within the spec(at least for 2 channel edits)..my video keeps freezing on playback..my demo runs out tonight and im anxious to get it working before i part with my cash.
that was the "any ideas?" comment to hopefully find someone who has overcome a similar problem.

[David Taylor]

Craig,

If you're out of time on the trial our tech support team can give you an additiona 15 days and work with you on the issues. Please contact support directly.

david.

[Craig Maret]

Thanks David that would be great!
have a nice crimbo.
Craig Maret