Difference in Playback Performance between Catalyst and Quicktime

Hi to all,

I notice differences between the playback of movies in Catalyst and Quicktime.

For example: When i´m running a Animation Codec Movie with Compression 75% Size 3140 by 1050 Pixel i´ve heavy framedrops down to 13 FPS in Catalyst.
When i start the Movie in the Quicktime Player everything is flawless.

System: 8core 3,2/ MTRON 128GB Content Drive/ 4GB Ram/ NVidia 8800

Animation Codec is used because of the Image Quality!

I´m just wondering why this happens.
The File is 1.17 GB big and the total time is 48 Seconds. Datarate is 208,42 mbit/sec.

Any Idea?

Holger

Don't think of Quicktime on a Mac so much as the media player.

Quicktime actually refers the entire media engine in OS X. There are a collection of utilities which a media player only accesses to playback video.

In the case of Catalyst, it is simply a media player to the Kernel. The reason some codecs work well is because Richard integrated them into Catalyst. The reason others don't work well is because Catalyst forwards them to Quicktime from within itself in a manner which is not efficient for continuous frame.

If you're going to use Catalyst. Only use the three main codecs we discuss which are: PhotoJPEG, AIC, or DV.

PhotoJPEG at 50% to 75% depending on the quality needed but 50% is fine.
AIC (Apple intermediate Codec) which generally best overall.
DV (Either NTSC or PAL) which is a fixed ratio but most efficient codec.

Anything other than these will not perform well in Catalyst.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Seantava

Hi to all,

I notice differences between the playback of movies in Catalyst and Quicktime.

For example: When i´m running a Animation Codec Movie with Compression 75% Size 3140 by 1050 Pixel i´ve heavy framedrops down to 13 FPS in Catalyst.
When i start the Movie in the Quicktime Player everything is flawless.

System: 8core 3,2/ MTRON 128GB Content Drive/ 4GB Ram/ NVidia 8800

Animation Codec is used because of the Image Quality!

I´m just wondering why this happens.
The File is 1.17 GB big and the total time is 48 Seconds. Datarate is 208,42 mbit/sec.

Any Idea?

Holger

---

how long did you have to wait before it started playing after you clicked start in quicktime player?
how many screens did you play movie over?

thats a pretty big movie-

suggest you try apple intermediate codec - immediately and see how well that performs - its the only codec that works well enough usually.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SourceChild

Don't think of Quicktime on a Mac so much as the media player.

Quicktime actually refers the entire media engine in OS X. There are a collection of utilities which a media player only accesses to playback video.

In the case of Catalyst, it is simply a media player to the Kernel. The reason some codecs work well is because Richard integrated them into Catalyst. The reason others don't work well is because Catalyst forwards them to Quicktime from within itself in a manner which is not efficient for continuous frame.

If you're going to use Catalyst. Only use the three main codecs we discuss which are: PhotoJPEG, AIC, or DV.

PhotoJPEG at 50% to 75% depending on the quality needed but 50% is fine.
AIC (Apple intermediate Codec) which generally best overall.
DV (Either NTSC or PAL) which is a fixed ratio but most efficient codec.

Anything other than these will not perform well in Catalyst.

---

AIC is the ONLY thing that works at these huge sizes- ( DV isnt the most efficient any more AIC is - and you cant change image size )

i do a lot more things on the screen than quicktime player- it doesnt have any graphics processing- it buffers ahead- it doesnt have to deal with compositing more than 1 layers -

Quote:

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Originally Posted by samsc

AIC is the ONLY thing that works at these huge sizes- ( DV isnt the most efficient any more AIC is - and you cant change image size )

i do a lot more things on the screen than quicktime player- it doesnt have any graphics processing- it buffers ahead- it doesnt have to deal with compositing more than 1 layers -

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Hi Richard,
hi Todd,

i know that Catalyst is working in a different way than the quicktime player. I´m just wondering that the playback speed difference is that big. Normally i´m using the AIC Codec for all of my things, but from time to time the image quality is not good enough. In that special case i tried the animation codec because of the higher quality. Anyway i did some testing with foto jpg as well, and fotojpg 100 is working nearly fine (only one frame drop to 24 FPS, compared to the drop to 13 FPS with the Animation Codec). So, i think foto jpg 75% will work! From time to time i´m using Animation Codec with Alpha to playback Textinformation over Background Images or Movies. So, i was thinking that the animation codec is working the same way than foto JPG 100%, but as you said you have only implemented some codecs in the system. Maybe the Animation Codec could be the next one ?
Apple Intermediate Codec is for some reasons not the best choice, because the image quality is not that good (Rendererd out of Final Cuts Compressor).

Thanks for your response.

Greetings from Germany,

Holger

Hello,...

When you try to play on Quicktime,... if you choose the option

PLAY ALL FRAMES, in Quicktime,... you will get a closer result than playing that same movie on Catalyst, with just one layer activated.

Try that and let us know.

Regards

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gian

Hello,...

When you try to play on Quicktime,... if you choose the option

PLAY ALL FRAMES, in Quicktime,... you will get a closer result than playing that same movie on Catalyst, with just one layer activated.

Try that and let us know.

Regards

---

quicktime player does drop frames - yes absolutely-

catalyst does not drop any frames on playback- its a different design choice-
not dropping frames is more vital in our application space.

also with this sizeof movie you are very close the the edge of performance of entire computer - suggest you use AIC immediately

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Seantava

Hi Richard,
hi Todd,

i know that Catalyst is working in a different way than the quicktime player. I´m just wondering that the playback speed difference is that big. Normally i´m using the AIC Codec for all of my things, but from time to time the image quality is not good enough. In that special case i tried the animation codec because of the higher quality. Anyway i did some testing with foto jpg as well, and fotojpg 100 is working nearly fine (only one frame drop to 24 FPS, compared to the drop to 13 FPS with the Animation Codec). So, i think foto jpg 75% will work! From time to time i´m using Animation Codec with Alpha to playback Textinformation over Background Images or Movies. So, i was thinking that the animation codec is working the same way than foto JPG 100%, but as you said you have only implemented some codecs in the system. Maybe the Animation Codec could be the next one ?
Apple Intermediate Codec is for some reasons not the best choice, because the image quality is not that good (Rendererd out of Final Cuts Compressor).

Thanks for your response.

Greetings from Germany,

Holger

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3000x1000 images!!!!
its not playback speed - that is different- you have a huge image size- and all that has to be processed to do something- and this takes time-

if AIC doesnt work you probably have the wrong settings- and you outputted a scaled up movie instead-

Animation codec is run length encoded compression, AIC and photojpeg are jpeg compression- they are compleletly different-

you also have to bear in mind that all codec performance is dependant on the nature of the image - and the data rate per frame-

I use 3000 and so x 1024 images all the time,
Either on Photo Jpeg or AIC, both work just fine on a SSD drive.
Regards

Hi Richard,
hi Gian,

as i told you, AIC is working fine for me but the quality of the movie is from time to time not good enough. Thats the reason why i tried the Animation Codec with a Compression to 75%. My content drive is Mtron SSD 128GB, and i have no framedrops with AIC and Foto JPG 75%. I tried several files now, and AIC is definatly the best performing codec.

I´m used to big setups with catalyst, up to 7 Servers and each server is playing out to 4 Screens 1024 by 768, and everytime i´m using the AIC codec.

But in this special case i noticed some little artefacts around some of the very crisp icons on a monochrome background. This is definetely caused by the AIC Codec. I did all that testing with the Animation Codec in our showroom just to figure out if i could do it under show conditions.

I´ll playback the Movie to Barco R22+ Projectors and the native resolution is 1400 x 1050 Pixel, so i did no scaling during compression at all.

Next step is dividing the movie into more pieces and playback with several machines.

Regards from Germany and thanks for your statements.

Holger

Hello Holger ! why not using a SSD Raid system?

It doesn't meter if QT play it ... if Catalyst doesn't, it doesn't!

I'm sure you can build a raid of 2 or more SSD it will take a few minute to configure it.

Can you try it?

Druff Emil Druff Pizza Druff!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by emilianomorgia

Hello Holger ! why not using a SSD Raid system?

It doesn't meter if QT play it ... if Catalyst doesn't, it doesn't!

I'm sure you can build a raid of 2 or more SSD it will take a few minute to configure it.

Can you try it?

Druff Emil Druff Pizza Druff!

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Hi Emiliano,

yes, as i told you, another option is to build a SSD Raid. I think i´ll try this during the next week, because i have a little catalyst training with Reggi during the next days, i´ll have time to check this out!

1000 Greetings

Holger (3 Tage wach :-) )

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Seantava

Hi Richard,
hi Gian,

as i told you, AIC is working fine for me but the quality of the movie is from time to time not good enough. Thats the reason why i tried the Animation Codec with a Compression to 75%. My content drive is Mtron SSD 128GB, and i have no framedrops with AIC and Foto JPG 75%. I tried several files now, and AIC is definatly the best performing codec.

I´m used to big setups with catalyst, up to 7 Servers and each server is playing out to 4 Screens 1024 by 768, and everytime i´m using the AIC codec.

But in this special case i noticed some little artefacts around some of the very crisp icons on a monochrome background. This is definetely caused by the AIC Codec. I did all that testing with the Animation Codec in our showroom just to figure out if i could do it under show conditions.

I´ll playback the Movie to Barco R22+ Projectors and the native resolution is 1400 x 1050 Pixel, so i did no scaling during compression at all.

Next step is dividing the movie into more pieces and playback with several machines.

Regards from Germany and thanks for your statements.

Holger

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there are several bottlenecks - and they SHIFT all the time with hi-res files - sometimes its graphics card, sometimes cpu and sometimes its disc bandwidth... all 3 are relevant and interact

yes - for animation codec - you might need a higher peak data rate than from a single ssd- try raiding 2 together.
with animation codec percentage 75% etc isnt the same as 75% with photojpeg-
or try using uncompressed files.
uncompressed might work better as the cpu has less to do - but you will need much more drive bandwidth


richard

Quote:

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Originally Posted by samsc

there are several bottlenecks - and they SHIFT all the time with hi-res files - sometimes its graphics card, sometimes cpu and sometimes its disc bandwidth... all 3 are relevant and interact

yes - for animation codec - you might need a higher peak data rate than from a single ssd- try raiding 2 together.
with animation codec percentage 75% etc isnt the same as 75% with photojpeg-
or try using uncompressed files.
uncompressed might work better as the cpu has less to do - but you will need much more drive bandwidth


richard

---

Hi Richard,

today i´ve tried a setup with 2 MTron 128GB Drives in a striped Raid setup. Maybe i´m too stupid, but i noticed a significant performance loss during playback AIC Codec Files. I´m 100% shure that the raid settings were fine.

So, i switched back to a single SSD setup.


Any Idea?

Holger

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Seantava

...i noticed a significant performance loss during playback AIC Codec Files. I´m 100% shure that the raid settings were fine...

---

Unless I'm mistaken, you're not using a RAID controller?

If you are not using a RAID controller then the processing resources of the computer are used to control the RAID. Once you do this, the performance bottleneck becomes the processor. A RAID card independently processes the RAID leaving the processor and GPU free to render the output.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Seantava

Hi Richard,

today i´ve tried a setup with 2 MTron 128GB Drives in a striped Raid setup. Maybe i´m too stupid, but i noticed a significant performance loss during playback AIC Codec Files. I´m 100% shure that the raid settings were fine.

So, i switched back to a single SSD setup.


Any Idea?

Holger

---

what raid setup did you use?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SourceChild

Unless I'm mistaken, you're not using a RAID controller?

If you are not using a RAID controller then the processing resources of the computer are used to control the RAID. Once you do this, the performance bottleneck becomes the processor. A RAID card independently processes the RAID leaving the processor and GPU free to render the output.

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no. not true. this is a data transfer problem not cpu.

if one ssd can do 80MB/s 2 ssd should do close to 160MB/s enough to do uncompressed hi-def
in this case using raid should double data throughput rate-
this would be a reason to use raided ssd. and it should work.

RAID 0

Correct ?

Hi Emiliano,

of course i´ve set the RAID to Stripe and not to mirror.

But i think Todd is right with his comment regarding the processor load, when you are Raiding 2 Drives together without a seperate Controller Board.

I hope you are fine !

Regards from Germany,

Holger (Pille Palle! ;-) )

Hi Richard!

Richard, i´m sure that i´ve done all the correct steps during the RAID setup.

But as i wrote allready, i noticed a speed loss after raiding the 2 Drives together.

I´ve no idea whats going on! Maybe its because i´m not using a raid controller?

Greetings from Germany,

Holger