Quad Core Question

[Stacy Rothwell]

Tonight I installed a QX6700 Quad Core processor to replace my E6700 Dual Core.

I'm editing in PPro 2 with Cineform and I noticed that when exporting to a Cineform M2T file, that each core is only going at 25%. When I am in PPro and doing a preview with 6 real-time HDV videos in boxes with a title, all 4 CPUs are pegging at about 97% each.

What is the discrepancy?

I do notice that under my E6700, it took about 6 minutes to export a 2 minute video (with no effects just plain video) to Cineform M2T, and with the QX6700 I see a 50% increase in speed (4 minutes to render the same thing).

Thanks for the info,

Stacy

[David Newman]

Our playback engine is much more threaded than the render engine, as we can completely ignore Premiere while in playback. When rendering to MPEG we are a bit more a slave to the Mainconcept MPEG encoder that Premiere uses -- yes we are working on replacing that.

[Stacy Rothwell]

Any possibility that it will be out before I have my zillion renderings to do in HDV for the NAB show?

:-)

[Ron Haley]

Have you tried running without cineform? I just upgraded to relatively low end core 2 duo (6300) but overclocked it to 2.4GHz. The big change was to add an 8800GTS graphics card. This system, without cineform, runs better than my prior 3.0 GHz P4 with cineform.
It's my understanding that cineform does not utilize the features of high end graphics cards. I would be interested to see if the quad core with a top end graphics card running HDV outperforms cineform on the same system. There has to be a crossover point there somewhere.

[Stacy Rothwell]

Originally Posted by Ron Haley

Have you tried running without cineform? I just upgraded to relatively low end core 2 duo (6300) but overclocked it to 2.4GHz. The big change was to add an 8800GTS graphics card. This system, without cineform, runs better than my prior 3.0 GHz P4 with cineform.
It's my understanding that cineform does not utilize the features of high end graphics cards. I would be interested to see if the quad core with a top end graphics card running HDV outperforms cineform on the same system. There has to be a crossover point there somewhere.

No I haven't, but I'm completely happy with Cineform as it pertains to rendering on-screen.

I was asking about something that would speed up rendering final files via CPU.

On a side note.... When I got the Quad-Core last week, one of the first things I tried was doing Priemere Non-Cineform. Worked great until I had to do little things like Key some titles, or shrink video down to a box or do a simple dissolve. Yes, all these things happened REAL fast on the QX6700, but with Cineform there was no wait at all. No matter what you use, there is always the final render to m2t file to go back to HDV (or in my case XDCAM HD with the HDV option card)

regards,

[Ron Haley]

That is my question - will it render faster with or without cineform on the final render?

[David Newman]

CineForm will always be faster than MPEG2, so there is no cross over point. Of course as PC get faster decoder speed become of less significance, fortunately for us there are plently of reasons to use an Intermediate vs heavily compressed MPEG.

[Rafael Lopes]

I would also like to know if there's any date set for this new version to be released. I'm planning to buy aspect hd and I don't want to have to update one day after I buy it. And this new mpeg2 feature you guys are talking about is something I consider very important.

So, Newman, it was not very clear to me if you guys are simply planning to make the entire existing mpeg2 process easier or if you guys are planning to create your brand new mpeg2 process/encoding/codec...in any case, it would be compatible with any dvd player, right?

[David Newman]

There is no risk to purchasing now, we aren't going to be charging for this upgrade.

[Ron Haley]

Originally Posted by David Newman

CineForm will always be faster than MPEG2, so there is no cross over point. Of course as PC get faster decoder speed become of less significance, fortunately for us there are plently of reasons to use an Intermediate vs heavily compressed MPEG.

David,

I've just run a test on 1268 frames exporting to mpeg2 NTSC, 1920x1080, 2 pass, progressive from Premiere Pro 2.0. This would be a typical export for me to get the video in a format to burn to HD-DVD.

Time from Cineform project - 8 min 26 secs
Time from HDV project - 7 min 25 secs.

I presume the extra time comes from reading the larger cineform file.

However, it's clear that there is no advantage, in fact a disadvantage to rendering from the cineform codec.

I purchased cineform because on my original 3GHz P4 machine, I could not edit HDV at all. However, since upgrading to a dual core and adding a 8800GTS graphics card, editing HDV inside Premiere Pro 2.0 is no longer a problem.

Add to this the fact that there is no "realistic" way back to tape from cineform at the moment, and I think the product has some real issues.

Sure, there are some real time transitions, and some color corrections tools that avoid rendering. However, as soon as you have to use levels or curves, you are required to render anyway, and coming from the still world, these are the tools I use most of the time to adjust my video.

I guess the question that has to be asked is where would a user spend the extra $500 - cineform or and upgrade to the graphics card and processor. I for one don't see $500 value in cineform.

[David Newman]

For down-res'd outputs we have put in a very high quality scaler, which likely explain the output performance to SD DVD. Quality is factor also. Everyone measures performance differently based on their production needs. So if we added RT curves and levels you would have the performance you need to switch back?

[Ron Haley]

Was my output downressed? 1920x1080P, 30P

[David Newman]

I assume if you are going to mpeg2 NTSC like you said (NTSC is 720x480.) If you are going to 1920x1080 then you are scaling up (from HDV's 1440x1080) which is also a compute intensive operation, plus the render said depend of the quality you set you both encoders.

[Ron Haley]

Hi David,
I'm just describing it the same way it's described in the Premiere export settings.
Mpeg2,NTSC, 1920x1080, 30,progressive, quality 5.
You are right, it's extremely CPU intensive.

I'am trying to find a workflow that gets me to a HD-DVD. It appears that a large percentage of that time will be spent rendering the final product. If I've missed something, please enlighten me!

I'm not sure what your question re the curves and levels meant!

[David Newman]

If a large percentage time is spent rendering the final product, you're not doing enough post-production. :) We design our products for people who spend weeks to months editing films, the final render stage is nothing compared to that. So we focus of editing optimizations and quality not final render speed. Of course if you what real-time output, get Prospect HD with a AJA Xena card and it play to a deck or encoding card (like Inlet Technologies VC-1 card -- for even better HD-DVD output than MPEG2 -- although very high-end.)

Regarding real-time Levels and Curves, they are on this list for support within our products.