Hi

Terry and Esoteric

I cannot understand what you hope to gain by turning off preloading - I would suspect that doing so will cause more problems?

As I understand it, preloading is necessary for loading the video, audio codecs and files so that they are immediately available for playback.

Turn off preloading and I would expect that at each change on the timeline eg video to image, would introduce a signicant pause while the changing of codecs, files or whatever are needed, is going to make playback even more choppy to the point of being unusable.

John

Hi John,

Speed and smoothness of playback is what I'm seeking!

Isn't preloading broadly the equivalent of what previous versions up to and including MX called 'cache'?

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/4019461/Compare-Playback.jpg

I was often able to improve playback by changing those 3 options. That's no longer possible in 2013.

--------------------

After my edit above I worked on the project for another hour or two. Out of curiosity I then tried that test again (it's in a separate 'work area' movie, untouched since my original post). Once again it had become glacially slow, just as previously described. I then immediately closed and restarted - and it's OK again. Something is definitely causing erratic/unstable behaviour in 2013, when used for anything with a touch of complexity in it.

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Hi Terry

Have you tried playing with these settings in the Video/Audio tab. The second one mentions delays in 32 Bit systems. From Help:-

Other
Reduce bitmap resolution for preview: The resolution of image files is reduced during playback to decrease required memory. This requires less computing power than playback in full resolution; full resolution is always calculated during export.

Relocate memory for bitmaps to other process: Activating this option will improve handling of bitmaps as they will be processed differently. This function can lead to delays in 32 bit systems. If this happens, you can deactivate the function.

Also in Playback Tab

Image playback

Resizing high-quality image material: Use this feature to improve the quality during resizing, particularly when downsizing to less than half of the original size (e.g. for picture-in-picture effects). This, on the other hand, requires more processing power.

Load image material in background: Activate this option in order to load inserted image material already before playback in background.

Also make sure Direct sound is not activated.

What John is saying is correct but I guess you are thinking about the selection that used to allow deactivating the Cache which helped a lot in some cases (in MEP16), which I have never been able to understand. My meagre understanding of this program is that the Cache was/is a RAM buffer that does what John has referred to so it should only help playback smoothness but it could increase the delay after hitting playback. This does not explain why our playback smoothness got better in MEP16 when it was turned off.

Also, you can release some memory while working by using "Edit > Empty Undo and Cache Memory"

Regards

Peter

Hi Terry

Aha -  now I understand what you mean - I think preloading and the cache are two seperate things.

If you turn off caching and / or change the resolution settings in 17 or MX you will find that you still get a preload before the video begins to play.

I have tested this with a couple of projects which are about 40 - 60 mins long and cannot see any significant differences in the preload time in 17 or MX with the cache on, off or the resolution settings changed. 

John

Hi Peter,

Many thanks for that most helpful post. And for sticking with me on this and some of the quirks I'm seeing in 2013 in particular!

I've just changed my settings in the Video/Audio tab to try out a couple of your suggestions. Here's the latest version:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/4019461/MEP2013-VideoSettings-1.jpg

Although we're working with different sources it might help to pin down some of these issues if we were as closely in sync on settings as possible for a while at least. So here are my other main settings. Could you post yours, or point out any differences please.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/4019461/MEP2013-PlaybackSettings-1.jpg

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/4019461/MEP2013-SystemSettings-1.jpg

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/4019461/MEP2013-DisplaySettings-1.jpg

However, although some of my settings may well be sub-optimal, the erratic and inconsistent nature of this an dother problems prompts me to look elsewhere. And as you'll see from another post I'm about to send, I believe some of these have a common cause, concerned with the much-discussed H/W acceleration business.

Nevertheless I'm going to configure my settings with a weighting towards minimising RAM usage, given that I only have about 3 GB because of the XP 32 bit limit.

--------------------

Re the cache/preloading discussion, your summary accurately reflects my own view. In short, I've never understood why, but I was consistently able to work-around jerkiness and slow playback in some cases by playing with those deceased options. But here again the key point IMO is the inconsistency I reported about preloading speed. Some operation I perform, and I'm pretty sure it's an MPEG4 export with H/W accel switched off to avoid the error message I reported, causes project corruption and MEP confusion, with the various bizarre symptoms I've described recently. And because the symptoms only show up later, such as when doind some palyback or selecting an object, they appear to be sudden and inexplicable.

--------------------

Neat tip about Empty undo and cache memory, thanks, another one I've never used! (Of course, it remains to be seen what the downsides are - I've just applied it and will soon find out.)

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Hi John,

Thanks, I take your point about these being separate functions, but as you see from Peter and my reply to him I don't think that's the full story about the behaviour I'm getting.

P.S: Did you see the PM I sent on Tuesday?

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Hi Terry

I will come back to you with some more comments about your settings but take a look at the post 2 or 3 below this from the German forum which strangely (coincidence...?) goes into some of what we are discussing especially the reply from A380 where he has a link to the old VDL forum where they discuss the cache no cache scenario back in 2010.

http://www.magix.info/us/verstaendnisfrage-zum-problem-performance.forum.884380.html

Very interesting.

The Empty cache is a use when required thing ie. it does not change anything permanently.

Peter

Thanks Peter. Ploughing through that now.

One specific section caught my eye:

Original
NewBlueFX und andere Plugins schlucken Leistung!
VORSICHT! Öffnet den Taskmanager und spielt mal an den Reglern in NewBlue (vor Allem "Film Look")! Der Speicher wird völlig aufgefressen!!!
Ich habe den Fehler gemeldet! Ob NewBlue oder MAGIX verantwortlich ist, ist mir nicht bekannt!

Google Translate
NewBlueFX plugins and other power swallow!
CAUTION! Opens the Task Manager and playing time at the controls in NewBlue (above all "film look")! The memory will be eaten up completely!
I have reported the same problem! Whether or NewBlue MAGIX is responsible is not known to me!

My best guess
NewBlueFX and other plugins use a lot of resources!
CAUTION: [No idea about that first sentence, except that whatever bad thing NewBlueFX is guilty of, it's at its worst with the effect 'Film look'.] The system's memory will be used completely. [?]

Can you add anything please?

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Hi Peter,

Well, I suppose I'm getting some sort of general 'feel' for what the German posts are about. And it is good to know that they are finding similar bugs and quirks. (Although I saw nothing on several of the things I've raised, like the 'Top left corner/aspect ratio' issue, or 'Invisible tracks', etc.) But hopefully their support requests will be better understood by the developers than ours (apart from those which get the benefit of Ralf's filtering).

However, on the specific debate raised in this thread about caching's effect on playback, my interpretation of their discussions is that
- there is no consiistency (surprise, surprise!)
- cache settings can have a significant effect on playback, for low and high power systems
- one particular technical question remains unanswered, namely 'How can using the No cache setting (prior to 2013) deliver smooth playback when all else seems to fail?'

But so far I have to admit most of the posts are almost incomprehensible to me!

Take this example:

Original
--------
Das Ruckeln sollte nur auf langsamen Rechnern auftauchen. Ist das so? Zumindest kann ich auf meinen Magix PCs auf denen ich das getestet habe, nicht nachvollziehen. Ich vermute das ihr relativ langsame Rechner benutzt. Auf diesen Rechnern könnte sich eine Optimierung die wir neu eingebaut haben um stellenweises Ruckeln (durch einen Übergang, oder Blende verursacht) in den Griff zu bekommen, negativ auswirken. Rechner die etwas zu langsam sind für das jeweilige Material, kommen mit der abgeschalteten Option besser.

In diesem Falle ist es besser die Option auszuschalten, so wie ihr das ja schon selbst herausgefunden habt.

Google Translate
----------------
The stuttering should appear only on slow machines. Is that so? At least I can on my Magix PC on which I tested the not understand. I guess you used the relatively slow computers. On those machines could optimize that we have implemented to provide new bucking wise (through a transition, or diaphragm causes) to get a grip, have a negative impact. Computers that are too slow for the material, better with the shut down option.

In this case it is better to turn off the option that you like her already found itself.

My best guess
-------------
Gave up! Unless he/she (a Magix Administrator) is simply saying that jerkiness arises mostly on low power PCs? If so, I'd disagree, as apparently do several other experienced German users, with solid evidence to justifiy that view.

What we need here is John's German translation skills. All it needs, John, is a couple of weeks off work and you can sift through all the good stuff and give us the gems in English!

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Hi Terry

I think the Microsoft Translator in Internet Explorer does a little better than Google.

Your example from Magix Admin below reads like this, with my guesses in (Italics):-

The jerking should appear only on slow computers. Is it so? At least (thats what)I can understand (on) my MAGIX PC on which I tried that. I suspect that (you have used a) your relatively slow PC used. An optimization that we have (newly)incorporated new to get occasional (less) Judder (caused by a transition, or aperture) in the handle (practise), could  negatively (do the opposite) on these computers. Computers that are too slow for the material, are better with the (Cache option)shut down option.

In this case, it is better to turn off the option, so how you even (as you have) already have found out that.

So he is saying that they had introduced some kind of optimization (acceleration involving caching) in MEP17  to create less judder that, when used on too slow a computer, could do the opposite. So better in this case to turn caching off. Off course this was poopooed by users with good systems.

In your previous posts quote from Mad Magix I get:

NewBlueFX and other plugins swallow performance!
BE CAREFUL! Opens the Task Manager and play time at the controls in NewBlue (especially "film look")! The store (RAM cache) is completely eaten up!
I have reported the error! It is not known whether NewBlue or MAGIX is responsible!

Just trying an example myself with New Blue > Reflection in  2013, watching task manager, I can see the memory usage gets pushed up about 300 - 400MB and the Page file increases by about half a GB. He may be saying that the RAM Cache gets used up and pushed out to the page file with the subsequent slowing down of data access which creates the stuttering. Or he might be just saying most of your available memory gets used up....
 

It would be quite interesting to assign the swap file to a small dedicated SSD to see if this helped in light of the above. I think Magix may have made some optimisations in the latest versions that make better use of the RAM available in 64Bit versions of Windows in respect of the above, maybe a bigger Cache in RAM without paging out, so just having more RAM might achieve something similar?? All just conjecture on my part.

Coincidentily the "Edit > Empty undo and cache" command we were talking about earlier, recovers nearly 1/2 GB of RAM when used after a playback of this New Blue affected area of the timeline. Quite usefull. 
 

Re your settings my comments are

Program settings - turn off automatic interlace processing if your material is not interlaced ie. photos or progressive video. This makes my 1080 50P footage play smoother. Ditto Arranger > simple video object display.

Playback > image playback - take the tick out of "change footage dimensions in high quality" especially if your clips or photos are of higher resolution than your project.

System settings > other - take the tick out of "high output quality with dynamic zooms......." The key is "longer calculation times" - means what it says!

Display options -" Always use DX9" - I would always have this selected with XP because XP does not allow DX11 and even though my system (Vista) does, it creates playback problems with 2013 and some plugins that are not DX11 capable.

So, more fuel for the fire and I definitely agree with you that the inconsistancy of the choppy playback occurrences is bewildering to the wider comunity and probably is to Magix also, hence their often used line "......may improve performance on some systems......" 

One last thing - I have found that quite frequent defragging with a good 3rd party defragger that optimises file placement on all your discs nearly always bring an improvement in performance with MEP. It is suprising how quickly the C drive where I keep my program and project files gets fragged. I also use "Magix PC Tuning and Check 2011" (which is free I think) as it seems to make sensible optimisations of your system.

Peter

@ Terry

All it needs, John, is a couple of weeks off work

Nice idea Terry - will be off for 3 weeks overs Christmas however I do not think I will have time to do this as I will be sliding down snowy mountains on two planks trying to stay upright and get the video shots

I do have an advantage - my wife is German and helps with the bits where I get stuck.

One problem I am having with this partcular topic is that I can not reproduce what you are seeing and I think this may come down to the differences in OS, graphics card and way of working - are you still using a single hard drive computer?

All my video editting is done on a second hard drive so I do not have the bottleneck of read/writes from MEP competing with Windows,  any speed comparisons I make may not be valid except where they are on my computer, with for example HWA turned on and off.

Since you first raised this issue and the HWA issue I have been running with these turned on in the program settings and, so far, I am not experiencing any problems except this one issue:-

Which I am not surprised to see as I have an ATI graphics card and when I do enable this rendering takes about 50% longer.

My computer spec is Windows 7 Pro 64bit on Intel Quad Core Q8300 2.5 GHz, 4Gb RAM, 350Gb +1Tb HDDs with ATI 4350 graphics card (had problems with my 4550 which has been swapped out).

John

Hi John,

Oh well, we'll have to do what we can with the MS and Google translators. (My wife isn't German but is fluent in written and spoken modes and teaches it in a large state comprehensive. I showed her the Magix Admin Google translation and she plans to use it as teaching exercise for her 16 year old class as it's so laughably bad!)

The external drives were added later, so the second internal HD I: is at present primarily for backup. Arguably I should now assign that role to the external drives. If I did so, freeing up space on I:, to emulate your approach could I simply move all my projects and source data to the non-OS drive, or would I need the Magix programs and all its effects etc on that too?

I've just posted about how I reproduce one of my issues. What happens if you try that?

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Hi Terry

I think the Microsoft Translator in Internet Explorer does a little better than Google.

I'll try that.

Your example from Magix Admin below reads like this, with my guesses in (Italics):-

The jerking should appear only on slow computers. Is it so? At least (thats what)I can understand (on) my MAGIX PC on which I tried that. I suspect that (you have used a) your relatively slow PC used. An optimization that we have (newly)incorporated new to get occasional (less) Judder (caused by a transition, or aperture) in the handle (practise), could  negatively (do the opposite) on these computers. Computers that are too slow for the material, are better with the (Cache option)shut down option.

In this case, it is better to turn off the option, so how you even (as you have) already have found out that.

So he is saying that they had introduced some kind of optimization (acceleration involving caching) in MEP17  to create less judder that, when used on too slow a computer, could do the opposite. So better in this case to turn caching off. Off course this was poopooed by users with good systems.

In your previous posts quote from Mad Magix I get:

NewBlueFX and other plugins swallow performance!
BE CAREFUL! Opens the Task Manager and play time at the controls in NewBlue (especially "film look")! The store (RAM cache) is completely eaten up!
I have reported the error! It is not known whether NewBlue or MAGIX is responsible!

Thanks, pretty well what I thought.

Just trying an example myself with New Blue > Reflection in  2013, watching task manager, I can see the memory usage gets pushed up about 300 - 400MB and the Page file increases by about half a GB. He may be saying that the RAM Cache gets used up and pushed out to the page file with the subsequent slowing down of data access which creates the stuttering. Or he might be just saying most of your available memory gets used up....
 

It would be quite interesting to assign the swap file to a small dedicated SSD to see if this helped in light of the above. I think Magix may have made some optimisations in the latest versions that make better use of the RAM available in 64Bit versions of Windows in respect of the above, maybe a bigger Cache in RAM without paging out, so just having more RAM might achieve something similar?? All just conjecture on my part.

I've only recently dabbled with these plug-ins and so far I don't see that I'll be using them much. (Although my grandsons liked this bit from a recent video: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/4019461/Skel1.mp4 ) If there's a potential performance hit then I'll be wary.

Coincidentily the "Edit > Empty undo and cache" command we were talking about earlier, recovers nearly 1/2 GB of RAM when used after a playback of this New Blue affected area of the timeline. Quite usefull. 

Wow, that's worth having!

Re your settings my comments are

Program settings - turn off automatic interlace processing if your material is not interlaced ie. photos or progressive video. This makes my 1080 50P footage play smoother.

Duly turned off, thanks. MediaInfo shows MOV from my digicam 'Scan Type' as Progressive. But there's no entry for Scan Type in MediaInfo for my FRAPS AVIs or CamStudio AVIs; should there be?

Ditto Arranger > simple video object display.

Not entirely clear about this. By 'Ditto', are you saying I should turn it off? From 'Simple' to presumably 'Complex'? With it unchecked, MEP progressively displays all the sections, which logically must surely be more resource hungry?

Playback > image playback - take the tick out of "change footage dimensions in high quality" especially if your clips or photos are of higher resolution than your project.

Duly done, thanks.

System settings > other - take the tick out of "high output quality with dynamic zooms......." The key is "longer calculation times" - means what it says!

Duly unchecked, thanks.

Display options -" Always use DX9" - I would always have this selected with XP because XP does not allow DX11 and even though my system (Vista) does, it creates playback problems with 2013 and some plugins that are not DX11 capable.

Duly checked.

So, more fuel for the fire and I definitely agree with you that the inconsistancy of the choppy playback occurrences is bewildering to the wider comunity and probably is to Magix also, hence their often used line "......may improve performance on some systems......" 

One last thing - I have found that quite frequent defragging with a good 3rd party defragger that optimises file placement on all your discs nearly always bring an improvement in performance with MEP. It is suprising how quickly the C drive where I keep my program and project files gets fragged.

Fully agree. I use Perfect Disk which is resident and defrags intelligently.

 

I also use "Magix PC Tuning and Check 2011" (which is free I think) as it seems to make sensible optimisations of your system.

I'll investigate, thanks, although I already do a fair amount of housekeeping with tools like CCleaner and Glary Utilities.

Peter

Thanks for all those suggestions, Peter, I'll let you have any significant feedback after a while.

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK
 

Hi Terry

You can move all the files in the project folders to the second drive - make sure you have good backups before doing this. 

MEP stays on your C:Drive which then become a pure system drive. All my data files are stored on the second drive, only OS and programs go on the C drive, you have seen my folder structure in past posts, which makes doing this easy.

Opening them in MEP you will then get the 'I cannot find my files - where have they gone? ' which is an occasional regular that pops up in the forum

John

Thanks John. That's going to need a lot of preparatory work but I'll give it some serious thought.

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Hi John

When you say all your data files, do you mean the MVP project files as well? I have always thought that it best to keep them on C: so that nothing interupts the Data disc's flow of high bandwidth video data. Whilst a modern Sata disc should have no trouble keeping up it is surprising how much activity Resource Monitor shows during playback -in places 50 - 60MB/sec, although it is not easy to tell in Vista which disc is doing most of that.

What function gave you that warning window? Is it the Calculate video effects on GPU? Interesting - that is the first time I have seen any indication from Magix that an AMD is not as suitable as an Nvidia card. I also see from a German post that MEP does not support the newer cards (Geforce 6xx series etc.) for GPU rendering! 

Hope you have a great ski holiday. Always lots of oportunities for some great footage on the slopes. I fixed a small ball head on the top of my ski pole when I visited Les Arcs back in 2004 got some unique angles although everyone is doing it now with GoPros etc. Also worked very well as a steadicam if I held the pole horizontally with both hands across the front of me and the camera turned 90 degrees. Great for shooting someone in front or following.

Hi Terry

So do I take it that you have your video data on an external USB2 drive..........I thought we were all agreed that is a no no.

Your Program > Video/Audio > Arranger setting - sorry I was not clear - I meant put the tick in the "simple object" selection.

Automatic interlace - I am not sure about what should be reported in Media Info about your footage but have a look at the objects properties in the timeline - the second tab. Anyway if your footage is interlaced and you deselect Automatic processing in Video /Audio you will see comb structures (Mice's teeth) around moving objects. This should not affect your export but it may cause unnecessary fringing when tuning your Chroma key settings in the preview monitor. 

BTW that skeleton effect is an Prodad Adorage effect not New Blue.

Cheers

Peter

Hi Peter

Here is are 2 images of my folder structure and MEP project settings

A hi res version is here

As you can see everything goes inside the individual project folders so if I move the project folder or back them up the internal structure stays the same - no complaints from MEP 'about missing files from wherever I open the project.

My second internal drive is designated as W:  X,Y and Z drives are my external hard drives for backup.

The MVP file, AFAIK, only contains the database data and a few program settings and once loaded is not accessed until you save the project.  All changes you make during editing are written to the Firebird database used by MEP.

The error message did come from the Calculate video effects on GPU in the pane directly under the error message.

You will probably notice from the project folder image above I use a Contour HD sportscam - it is made of aluminium and is virtually indestructable only downside is you need access to a computer to reprogram the settings. I have a good shot of my head hitting the piste .    I anm going to try the 'Ski Sunday' angle - fasten the camera to my boot !!!

Will PM with link to a video from it.

Cheers

John

Hi Terry

So do I take it that you have your video data on an external USB2 drive..........I thought we were all agreed that is a no no.

No! What made you think that?

All my data is on the same HD as my OS and Program Files, i.e. C: (See my illustration of drives up-thread.)That's why I was interested in John's different approach of locating it all on another internal drive. In my case that would be I:.

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Sorry Terry for misunderstanding your post - Because you did not actually say it was on the OS drive, I wrongly assumed that because you were not using the second internal drive for Video data that it must have been on an external HD.

John

Thanks for clarifying the point about the MVP files.

With those folders you have setup in the program settings, wouldnt you have to go through every time on a new project and set up all those subfolders in your explorer shot? Otherwise they would all end up in one big folder covering multiple projects.

Actually I guess that is why Magix have created that new splash screen dialogue box  that gives you an option to set up a new folder for all the project content, which has at least a separate My record folder already there by default.

Hi Peter,

My typo can't have helped!

(I've just corrected it.)

750 MB would have been a tad small even for USBs!

If I was starting from scratch, my organisation would be very different. When bought (over 4 years ago) this PC had just the two large internal HDs. Neither were partioned by the OEM supplier (MESH UK)  and it was a major mistake on my part that I didn't partition at least the OS drive myself, because I let impatience get the better of me. Because of that I've never got into imaging. All my backups are 'conventional' copying, mainly using SecondCopy. Initially these were all from C: to I:, nightly. With the acquisition of K: then more recently E:, these were supplemented by  weekly and fortnightly backups to those My Book external drives. DVD archives and other major stuff are also on the external drives. So it's evolved and could now do with a good sorting. But without partitions that's hard and potentially risky work!

I'm very interested in the discussion you've just started with John about file locations. Maybe we could come up with some consistent test to measure the relative performance of the alternative configurations?

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Hi Terry

I'm very interested in the discussion you've just started with John about file locations. Maybe we could come up with some consistent test to measure the relative performance of the alternative configurations?

Yes John is such a model of good housekeeping ( disc management) and I have been very lax, but it is an area I would like to sort out once and for all, as well.

I have just been keeping copies of my Video data on 2 additional 1TB internal sata drives and saving copies of my whole C drive, where my project and audio files reside, (infrequently) to an external 2TB USB2 drive. I was dead lucky that I had a fairly recent complete disc image ( created through Windows Vista Ultimate) on the external, when my C drive failed recently, that got me up and running with minimum sweat and loss. 

I am seriously considering building a new system and just dedicating it to Magix MEP editing so it would be good to have a definitive test to tell me what will offer the best performance when configuring the discs and folders, with the added complication that I will probably include an SSD for OS and Programs. At present I am utilizing the fact that the 3rd internal drive is only used during back up so I have placed my swap file on that on the theory that nothing else will be affecting its read write access that could slow paging. While, as I said before, it would be best to have the swap file on a fast SSD it is considered unwise to have it on the system SSD drive so not wishing to lay out more cash for another drive I will probably continue with the 3rd Internal Sata backup drive, for page file duties. 

I guess I have shyed away from definitive performance comparisons because I have thought that any setup would need to be tested under a variety of projects and conditions but maybe I am just trying to make hard work of it.

All ideas welcome on a good way to test different disk / data configurations and the simplest to use file setup to put all your project's "ducks in a row",  though.

Best

Peter

Hi Peter

'With those folders you have setup in the program settings, wouldnt you have to go through every time on a new project and set up all those subfolders in your explorer shot?'

If you look at the folder structure image again you will see there is a folder called Blank - this is an empty master folder with the base structure as shown below

When I start a new project I copy and paste the Blank folder and the rename it, followed by importing all the video and image files from my cameras.

I then add any other folders I need within the project.

Because my Project folder path in MEP is 1 level up from these this is what I see when I click the My Media, Projects link (highlighted in the image)

Note the folder    x-2012...   is my way of indicating a folder that is to be deleted.

John