@CubeAce

Hi Ray

. . . . content form my copy of MEP 2021 has completely gone from my XAR folder. It is still in my VPX 11 copy. . . . .

Gone for MEP, still there VPX 12.

John EB

@johnebaker

Hi John.

Ha! and I'd only recently knew of its existence thanks to John CB.

So now I have Boris Titler effective in MEP and Xara in VPX. Fun.

Ray.

@Scenestealer

Hi Peter

. . . . have you tried Smart Copy recently, or Smart Render, to see what this will do compared to what Mike is doing in Virtual Dub . . . .

Looks like Smart Copy has an issue - tested 6 times with different .m2ts videos on the timeline - it is crashes every time with an error:

On a single, 16 min long clip, took 55 secs, however in the context of @pmikep test with VDub the comparison is, IMHO, meaningless

John EB

@browj2 @johnebaker

Again I would have added more people to this but no additional links present.

Back to my interest in Disks and how they are used.

So, in one instance I have all my source files on a hard drive (I) WD Black SATA 7,200rpm. And exporting to a second WD Black SATA 7,200rpm. (H) (Both internal) With MEP Premium and its contents on Drive C: M.2 drive.

The files are all the same. 4K, 50fps, Base recording settings but in auto for ISO and white balance etc.

All files were transferred from the camera to that disc at the same time to the same folder. The disc was not fragmented at the time of transfer.

Files in MEP were not copied into the project but you will notice I have preview rendered the whole timeline to try to get a smooth playback. At the end of the project between the last two clips there is an unexpected halt in both playback and record while the (I) drive I presume has to hunt for the next file. This does have an impact on the export time as well as adding any effects etc.

So I was wondering if I put my MEP content onto a 4th drive, whether that would stop the pause or is MEP or the drive just having difficulty in finding the next video clip?

Watch the drive pauses.

Ray.

@johnebaker

Hi John.

I can't get smart copy to appear as an option despite export setting options.

Ray.

@CubeAce

Hi Ray

. . . . Again I would have added more people to this but no additional links present. . . . .

I have found the reason why - the list is only users who have posted in the page you are on.

. . . . I can't get smart copy to appear as an option despite export setting options . . . .

It only works for .m2ts files - AVC/h.264 and MPEG-2 h.264 video formats.

. . . . Back to my interest in Disks and how they are used . . . .

Where is the Export folder located in MEP settings?

I have seen this used to create a temporary file while export rendering which is then copied into the destination file created on the destination drive on completion of export

John EB

@johnebaker

Hi John.

How did you get Peter's?

Ah! OK. Don't have any of those file types.

To the file export destination at present. Is that a problem?

Ray.

@CubeAce @johnebaker

. . . . Again I would have added more people to this but no additional links present. . . . .

I have found the reason why - the list is only users who have posted in the page you are on

Typing the @ will bring up a list of users hraving already commebted on that page. If you then immediately start typing letter (no space) , the list will change to a list of any forum user starting with that letter. Continue to type the user name of the user you want to include and it will be there (provided you remember the user name correct)

Edit: You can your comment from any side in the thread, so if you want to use the "Quicklist" simply write your comment on the bottom of the page including all the contributions. End-edit

. . . . Back to my interest in Disks and how they are used . . . .

 

Where is the Export folder located in MEP settings?

 

I have seen this used to create a temporary file while export rendering which is then copied into the destination file created on the destination drive on completion of export

I believe you are absolutly right, John. Magix, in general, uses temporary file location a lot (like when download and install programs/patches) and as I have seen Magix software uses folder from system location (as they shoul) like &%LOCALAPPDATA%\Magix or %LOCALAPPDATA%\Temp\Magix

That means actual rendering might be performed on the disk where your user profile resides, which for most of you are C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData

@CubeAce

Hi Ray

. . . . To the file export destination at present. Is that a problem? . . . .

Yes and no - it depends where the setting is pointing to - if to a drive without a lot of free space it could be an issue.

I found this when I was exporting to the SSD drive yet there was no write activity until the export had finished, on repeating I found the rendered file was stored in the Export folder location which happened to be on the same drive as the project files.

This tied in with your quest on the best drive configuration as I had seen the same drive switching read/write and the export times and drive activity did not have a significant difference on the export times.

I also tried changing the Export folder setting to a 4th drive and it too made very little difference to the export time, however it did mean the project drive was not switching read/write modes - ultimately it comes down to personal preference as to whether you go for a multiple drives working in one way data transfer or just using a single second drive for projects and export.

@shgrude

Hi

. . . . That means actual rendering might be performed on the disk where your user profile resides, which for most of you are C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData . . . .

I have not seen that happening, I have always used a second drive for projects, and a third for exporting to.

Watching a long export the majority of the writing to the OS drive is logging, with the occasional write to the pagefile.

John EB

@johnebaker

Hi John.

Other than my C: drive that has 127GB of free space, none of my other drives have less than 303GB of free space. The drive I am rendering to had 532GB of free space. I think for now I'll stick to using three drives. The prior problem is a bit of an anomaly and crops up very seldom. Again just curious as to why it could happen and wondering what the optimum amount of drives in use would be. MEP never seems to get the drive working anywhere near optimum read / write speeds. Even that pause didn't send the drive to it's maximum file transfer rate. Just seems odd.

Ray.

@johnebaker

On a single, 16 min long clip, took 55 secs, however in the context of @pmikep test with VDub the comparison is, IMHO, meaningless

His comparison with Magix, or my comparison with his?

Peter

@Scenestealer

Hi Peter

. . . . His comparison with Magix, or my comparison with his? . . . .

This was in response to your comment -

. . . have you tried Smart Copy recently, or Smart Render, to see what this will do compared to what Mike is doing in Virtual Dub . . . .

Unless I am missing something, I do not see a comparison from you with what@pmikep. was doing doing with Virtual Dub.

John EB

@johnebaker

Hi John

I was looking at it from the point of view that both programs were carrying out a basic trim and then what appears to be virtually a file copy - but then I don't really understand what is occurring in Magix or VDub when the respective exports occur.

BTW - you said MEP crashed six times when you tried Smart Copy and then said you were able to export a single file successfully - does this mean you could not achieve a successful export when there were more than one clip in the timeline?

I know we have discussed SR / SC before and found it unreliable but I also successfully exported a single, trimmed .mts clip even though the SR / SC window did not indicate it was going to do it ( interesting that the MPEG4 export window says "Try Smart Copy"!). The success SR window showed it had done it to the frame and the 60 sec clip was done in 7 seconds.

Peter

@Reddwarf4ever

Hi,

Good question, but totally unrelated to this thread. Please open your own thread and include the version of MEP that you are using.

John CB

@Scenestealer

Hi Peter

. . . . MEP crashed six times when you tried Smart Copy and then said you were able to export a single file successfully - does this mean you could not achieve a successful export when there were more than one clip in the timeline? . . . .

It is a little random, however the general 'theme' appears to be the export proceeds until the first clip, which has not been trimmed, is encountered causes the Smart copy to stop and post the error message.

Another issues is when the Smart copy does complete the program randomly hangs trying to close the file.

@pmikep

. . . . I routinely trim TV movies using VD2. It takes about 5 seconds to process a 1.5 hour movie. . . . .

What do you mean by trim - cutting the start and end or taking sections out in the middle as well?

John EB

@Reddwarf4ever

Hi,

Good question, but totally unrelated to this thread. Please open your own thread and include the version of MEP that you are using.

John CB

I have deleted the comment and created a new post, thanks

@johnebaker

I usually trim the end. (After it goes to black screen after the movie is over.) Sometimes the start. Never the middle in VirtualDub. (I used PD for those. (Intermissions, too long scenes, etc.))

I found a setting that seems to have caused my earlier reported pause of the drive being written to.

In all previous versions of MEP I had I had always ticked the box 'Overload optimization for real time playback'.

On browsing through the manual it said to tick the box on less powerful systems, So I tried unticking it. It had never occurred to me not to use it.

Not only has it stopped the pause and the unexplained reading of the write to disc I had previously, but my playback in 4K no longer needs to be rendered on complex sections where effects have been used or stuttering across complex fades. I don't have to reduce frame rates or resolution in my Editing preview monitor any more or need to pre-render odd sections.

It has made no impact on export times but playback no longer needs extra help to play smoothly and being able to get a better image in the preview monitor is really good taking some of the guesswork out of how much of an effect to apply.

[Edit]

I've also tried exporting the same projects from both MEP 2021 and VPX 11 using HEVC and export times are identical (Plus or minus a couple of seconds on projects around 7 minutes in length.) despite MEP not showing signs of using the nvidia card for video encoding. Playback also still needs the resolution to be lowered in VPX on 4K material for me to get smooth playback.

Ray.

@CubeAce @johnebaker @shgrude @browj2

In all previous versions of MEP I had I had always ticked the box 'Overload optimization for real time playback'.

On browsing through the manual it said to tick the box on less powerful systems, So I tried unticking it. It had never occurred to me not to use it.

But it occurred to me, and I tried to warn you back in 21/3/2020 in a thread about "MEP System requirements":-

Ray I notice in other threads that you have a tick against Overload Optimisation in the first tab of your program settings which from earlier version help files described this as an option for systems with a weak processor. If I recall correctly this puts more work onto the GPU to assist so may be why you see more loading on your NV. I doubt this setting is beneficial in your case with all the horsepower you have under the hood, and there has plenty of evidence over the forum years that this creates a performance hit in any half decent system.

You responded:-

Hi Peter.

What a wonderful memory you have.😄

I looked and it's blanked out with a tick in it! Maybe it has to do more with the Graphics card than the processor.

My memory is still (mostly!) wonderful!😆

But there is something odd going on with this setting and I and others have commented on it at times and I think it was @pmikep who suggested MEP might be sniffing system capability and automatically ticking this. I know Magix has mentioned somewhere that MEP checks your system on installation but I don't know how it does that? It might be that thing called Simplicheck?? or something else.

I have never used that Overload thing in the past as like others found it did seem to have a bad effect but it does seem to have appeared in MEP2021 and VPX12 and I can only think that this may have been due to me opening your Tech Talk Project again recently, Ray. But...opening a project should not change the program settings I hear you say.... except that when I first opened you Tech Talk project earlier in the year I found that Overload setting ticked and greyed out, something I had never seen before - except in your screenshot!

Maybe it sniffed the complexity of the project and made that setting itself......but that seems too far fetched!

Can anyone else confirm that with the latest versions of MEP and VPX that this setting is ticked by default on installation?

Peter

@Scenestealer

Hi Peter.

Other things I notice with the 'Overload optimization for real time playback' not ticked is there is a half second pause between hitting play and the project playing. (Blue bar at base of MEP scrolls rapidly for a short distance during the pause.) This is obviously a prefetch cache not in action any more and my project which is on the WD black disk, That may be shorter or non existent if it were on an SSD or M.2 drive. May be, maybe not. The read and write speeds from and to the disks has also increased quite a bit (About x 4 for read) even though it has not improved the export times. I take it that is now down to me not having to reduce the resolution of the preview monitor.

I assume through necessity that MEP has to be quite complex to adapt to varying degrees of performance from various components within a system.

I'm equally sure due to past experience that if I made the project more complex that eventually I would have to start pre-rendering again or use proxy files so I don't think it is looking at the complexity of projects. Looking at the hardware on instillation on the other hand would seem a must to my mind. There is still an amount of prefetch cache going on though or you will find that scrolling will become unusable if you untick the 'Update in the background' in the arranger section.

Yes, your memory is quite incredible. I would need a notebook to keep up!

Ray.

Ho aggiornato Magix Video DP al 2021 ma non legge i filmati MP4, anche dopo aversettato nel programma compaibilità con Windows. La stessa coca mi è capitata co Magix Pro 12: ho restituito il prodotto e sono stato rimborsato. Da Magix nessuna risposta

@Scenestealer

Hi Peter

. . . . Can anyone else confirm that with the latest versions of MEP and VPX that this setting is ticked by default on installation? . . . .

Confirmed it is on by default in both MEP 2021 and VPX .

@cubase

. . . . Overload optimization for real time playback' not ticked is there is a half second pause between hitting play and the project playing . . . . This is obviously a prefetch cache not in action any more . . . .

This happens occasionally irrespective of the Optimisation setting and appears to depend on what effects are applied to the starting objects, eg fade in to image or video playback start is almost instantaneous, fade in to a video clip with Neat Video noise reduction applied the cache gets loaded over a 1 - 2 secs before starting playback. The program would have to be psychic to know which section you are going to play before you even start play.

. . . . if I made the project more complex that eventually I would have to start pre-rendering again or use proxy files so I don't think it is looking at the complexity of projects . . . .

Have you tried combining all the common elements of the Intro and Outro that occur in every Tech talk project, as I did here - when we were initially testing your project - the render time reduction is very significant?

John EB