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Thread: HD Playback on Catalyst

  1. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by OlliR View Post
    I did try a fourth layer - but that ran at 12 fps and layer 3 dropped to 18 fps.
    Cheers, Olli
    you have the classic performance characteristic of slow sata discs.

    they dont work well- doing 4 layers - is fine of almost anything.

    more than that and they dont work so well

    Please - suggest as a test - you UNRAID your discs, and just test with a single disc- and see what the difference is?

  2. #22
    Quote Originally Posted by OlliR View Post
    I am quite impressed:

    3 layers running 1920x1080p 25 fps with Apple Intermediate Codec!

    That´s a really good result. Though Harddrives seem to have hard work - judging by the sound of them.

    System setup: MacPro 8xCore 3G 4GB Ram internal 3x500GB SATA Raid Level 0
    i think - from my testing - you are wasting the power of your computer with your sata RAID.
    I can get 7 layers with my MTRON SSD. same computer.
    you do have x1900?
    You need x1900 at these resolutions 7300 has very poor performance at hi-def sizes

  3. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by samsc View Post
    scott

    did you do any tests with apple intermediate codec yet? and build m150?

    thanks r
    Hey Richard,

    I have not had an opportunity to test that codec yet. I should have some time and access to servers next week.

    I will let you know how it turns out, I am looking forward to the prospect of a better performing codec for HD.

    Best regards,
    -scott

  4. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by SvenCRen View Post
    Hey Richard,

    I have not had an opportunity to test that codec yet. I should have some time and access to servers next week.

    I will let you know how it turns out, I am looking forward to the prospect of a better performing codec for HD.

    Best regards,
    -scott
    the order of importance is

    1. codec. if you get the wrong one it will never work.
    2. hardware, cpu graphics card, disc.

    apple intermediate codec works better on computers with at least 4 cores.

  5. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by samsc View Post
    i think - from my testing - you are wasting the power of your computer with your sata RAID.
    I can get 7 layers with my MTRON SSD. same computer.
    you do have x1900?
    You need x1900 at these resolutions 7300 has very poor performance at hi-def sizes
    I have the X1900.

    I did the test you suggested. Though not unraiding the disks but copying the test files folder to the system disk.

    Same result 3 layers with 1920x1080 playback at 25fps.
    Layer 4 plays back just below 25 fps.

    So the RAID seems to be no advantage at all. I did not expect this. I believed the RAID should have a greater bandwidth and perform better with larger files.

    For sure I will look into the MTRON SSDs. But 1500 Euros for 64 GB is quite a statement...
    Olli
    ------
    Oliver Ranft, Aachen, Germany

  6. #26
    Quote Originally Posted by OlliR View Post
    So the RAID seems to be no advantage at all. I did not expect this. I believed the RAID should have a greater bandwidth and perform better with larger files.

    For sure I will look into the MTRON SSDs. But 1500 Euros for 64 GB is quite a statement...
    raids do not work - and are pointless unless you are trying to achieve high data rates - with only 2 or 3 layers for uncompressed playback -
    other than that they are pointless. I keep trying to say this-

    the problem is that SATA discs have very poor random access data rates - sure they can do 150MB/s or more in a RAID config- but that is for 1 file - read sequentially.
    catalyst does not read 1 file sequentially. It reads 1 file for each and every layer. In a random and unpredictable manner.
    And SATA raids can actually perform worse with catalyst than a single disc.
    A hard disc is a rotating device that typically rotates at 7200rpm - one revolution in 8.3ms - only a single read head - if you miss the data you need on one rotation - you have to wait up to another 8.33ms before it comes round again. 8.33ms is forever in computers.

    The MTRON discs are worth every single cent - you get up to 14 layers of playback - with no dropped frames - on any layers - because there is no rotational latency - access times are 0.1ms -
    Being able to almost guarantee this performance across all files - at all times - in the type of shows we do - is a life saver.
    Performance is critical in almost all the shows i do.
    As it is in most video applications.

    ---

    Did you find a source for the MTRON discs in the EU?
    for 6 1080p layers rather than 3 1080p layers - double the performance - i dont think the cost is much.

  7. #27
    Quote Originally Posted by OlliR View Post
    Same result 3 layers with 1920x1080 playback at 25fps.
    Layer 4 plays back just below 25 fps.
    and you cant get more than 3 layers off these discs- whatever you do- ( and its worse with ntsc which needs 30fps )
    - unless you have a huge buffer- or complex caching strategy.
    And amazingly enough - this hasnt changed much in the 5 years since v3 started.

    You might like to try a single Raptor 150GB drive- and see what you get?
    though they arent that much better.

    you should also - in most applications - never use the system disc - because the system disc is used for the virtual memory cache.
    and the os when it accesses this - will interfere with playback.

  8. #28
    I just used the system disk for a worst case test.

    I found these contacts for Mtron SSDs in Europe:

    Belgium:
    http://www.ssdisk.eu/

    Germany:
    http://www.winkom.eu/

    On www.ssdisk.eu you can find prices of 950 Euros for 32 GB and 1510 Euros for 64 GB.

    My decision is made. I will get one of those.
    Olli
    ------
    Oliver Ranft, Aachen, Germany

  9. #29
    I have a client what wants (because wants) to playback a HD movie uncompressed. You can make a test for me please, on a 2.66 MacPro Dual ( I belive you have one of those) and a MTRON disk, you can test a Uncompressed 1920 x 1080p. We use 30 fps, but if you tested on a 25 fps is fine too.
    Gian
    Ibeam SP
    SP, Brasil

  10. #30
    Quote Originally Posted by Gian View Post
    I have a client what wants (because wants) to playback a HD movie uncompressed. You can make a test for me please, on a 2.66 MacPro Dual ( I belive you have one of those) and a MTRON disk, you can test a Uncompressed 1920 x 1080p. We use 30 fps, but if you tested on a 25 fps is fine too.
    you have to take a different approach to uncompressed- MTRON not so important-

    the data rates are very large-

    you can also investigate whether apple's pro -res codec or DVCProHD is "Uncompressed" enough... for your client.
    ( I could get almost 50frames per second total - from Pro-res 1080p ( seems to be around 30MB/s ) and DVCProHD 1080p ( around 15MB/s ) using MTRON and quad 2.66Ghz Intel )

    ----

    one second is 1920x1080x ( 2 or 3 - yuv or rgb - depends on codec ) x30 bytes = 186MB/s or 124MB/s
    one second of standard definition 720x576 uncompressed is only 17MB/s - you can normally do 2-3 layers of this from a single 15k scsi disc if the wind blows in the right direction -

    you need more than one disc- you might need up to 4 or 5 discs to do 186MB/s consistently-
    This is the only time when a RAID solution is required.

    First of all - you need to begin by making a little test using a RAM disk.
    Check CPU and bus limits with RAM Disc-
    i could only get esperance dv to create a 2GB ram disk-
    So create one for yourself- create a Hidef- movie - a few seconds long - and see if it will play in catalyst from Ram disk.

    Does it playback? from ram disk?
    How many minutes does client need?

    Then you need to start to do a lot of research on the RAID cards on the market-
    SATA or fibre channel - internal SATA RAID on Mac - how many discs needed for length of content required?

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