what screens and what screen sizes?
what catalyst playback frame rate?
screen 1 div 2? screen 2 div 2

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'spiking' is normal

the usual problem is not drop frames at all - but screen refresh rates that do not match the audio/video frame rates
the 'visual' stutter isnt what people think - there isnt any stuttering - the screen just isnt displaying the image because the movie frames display times dont match screen refresh times

when doing audio - you have to work differently -

the frame rate of movie needs to match frame rate of screens -

triple heads are particularily obnoxious for this

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screens dont run at 60Hz or exactly 75Hz -

Quote Originally Posted by pip View Post
Was up last night testing different mov files (photo jpeg, AIC... 25/30fps) on different versions of catalyst (4.10 - 4.40) running 10.5.8 + 10.6.7! Then got some sleep.

Im still finding dropped frames when using the audio play mode as mentioned in this thread. Looking at the stats its the middle 'pink' bar on the layers play graph that spikes (as mention before) causes the dropped frames and stutter.. be good to learn what this represents?

I also split video/audio on another layer and
  • a) triggered both play setting at the same time... video was one second behind by the end of the clip
  • b) synced them by local ID
  • c) ran Catalyst on another MacPro (no dongle) running just the audio and remote synced the two together. MacPro with the DV dongle was the master.

I did notice the screens i have been using are fixed to 60Hz and the cinema display 59.XX.

Will be using a TH2G with LX41 and Lighthouse R7 LED come the show in a weeks time!

Not looked into Playback Pro yet, will do, but did run the 25/30FPS versions on Qlab and that showed no problem. Least i have a backup, but need the functions of Catalyst.