Performance Issues

emmrecs wrote on 12/8/2012, 6:19 AM

Hi.

Looking at the specs of your computer I agree with you that it should handle AVCHD pretty easily. However, adding crossfades and color correction does add two quite "heavy" effects to place additional demands on your system. (I run W7, 32 bit with Intel Q9650, so quite a lot lower spec than yours; AVCHD without "effects" added runs fine, but more than one effect will cause it to stutter.) Have you tried using preview render to check the "real-time" result of what you are wanting to do?

As to the more general question of why AVCHD tends to not play well on most NLEs, my understanding of the problem is that the format is compressed on record. In order to play it on any computer the NLE must simultaneously decompress and "stream" the footage. Pretty demanding!

However, one thing about your stated specs does make me wonder whether your system is really optimised for video: do you really have only one HDD? Even though it is an SSD the normal recommendation is to have OS and possibly apps on one drive, with video footage on a separate one. For me I have the OS on one IDE, apps on a second IDE and video files on an external USB (this latter is somewhat "frowned upon" by other posters here but works well for me.)

HTH.

Jeff

stevenlorenzo wrote on 12/8/2012, 6:47 AM

Thanks for the info Emmrecs.

I agree entierly with what you are saying, however my current NLE does all these things without batting an eye. The features of what MEP 2013 has is what draws me back to it, but if performance is always going to be this slow then that is where it fails at the first hurdle.

My PC setup uses an SSD with a 3 TB Harddrive.

OS on SSD along with Programs and Video files

Once project is complete, move to 3 TB for storage.

My SSD is 250gb so I can run up to two projects at the same time if i wish.

johnebaker wrote on 12/8/2012, 7:28 AM

Hi

. . . . . My SSD is 250gb so I can run up to two projects at the same time if i wish.

With which NLE?

I am one of those who frown upon using external USB drives for editing .

I would not recommend using an SSD drive for doing the video editting on - mainly because they have a limited number of write cycles,

I know this is a very high number , however video editting is very disc intensive and I would expect the life of the SSD to be severely reduced, just as a hard drive is, when used for video editting. HD drives are currently cheaper to replace as well.

I feel part of your performance issue, is the single SSD drive.

You have MEP and other software that is running eg Antivirus competing with Windows for reading and writing and IIRC Windows will take priority over the software.

John

stevenlorenzo wrote on 12/8/2012, 10:49 AM

. . . . . My SSD is 250gb so I can run up to two projects at the same time if i wish.

With which NLE?

No no, just saying that I can store two projects worth of video footage without the drive blocking up.

Everything you have about the use of SSD for video editing seems rather odd given the fact that video editors have been using SSD for a number of years now and the benefits are fantastic. If indeed your logic was correct, why have most mainstream camcorders moved to SD and Compact cards which work from the same principle?

My other NLE Corel does not suffer from performance issues since moving to SSD, it has improved dramatically and so far I can't find one effect that brings the speed down.

I open MEP 2013, crossfade two AVCHD clips and apply minor colour correction and it performs poorly, to the point that i can't see the crossfade.

Also when the program was run there was no other software in the background running.

terrypin wrote on 12/8/2012, 11:45 AM

Hi Steven,

It might be worth methodically trying various program settings. There are several which are potentially relevant. You could start by reading this thread
http://www.magix.info/uk/mep-2013-preloading-slow-ineffective.forum.884485.html
and comparing your settings against mine.

In particular the H/W Acceleration feature in MEP 2013 is buggy, as you see from studying my other recent posts here. The nature of the bug(s) are so far still obscure, and it may have no bearing on your performance issue, but until it's fixed I remain suspicious!

I also believe Color Correction is buggy, or at least unstable, as you see from my post here:
http://www.magix.info/uk/mep2013-color-correction-buggy.forum.892933.html

This sort of discussion is always handicapped unless we have a common, easily accessible test. Could you perhaps upload two small files which consistently exhibit this performance issue? I personally think hardware differences (above a certain minimum) have less influence than settings and project content.

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Scenestealer wrote on 12/9/2012, 4:50 AM

Hi StevenLorenzo

An interesting topic for me as I am thinking about building a similar system to yours.

A couple of points, comments, questions from my research so far:-

SSD's do not like to be too full. Performance drops off a lot quicker than on a Hard disk.

Some of the German experts on Magix Info forum believe SSD's do not lend a performance advantage to MEP.

Where is your page file located? Opinion on the web believes it is not a good idea to have it on the SSD - not sure why - maybe it is just as John says, because it is constantly reading and writing, it is just shortening the life of the drive. BTW the reason they are used in cameras is because they are compact, swapable and do not suffer from shock damage. They also only have to handle relatively few read and writes compared to a Windows System disk.

In my experience MEP always works best with the program on a separate drive to the video files. I have also placed my swapfile (pagefile) on a third HDD.

Is your Geforce GPU actually active during preview and file export ( check with GPU-Z utility from Techpowerup). I have heard from other members that the newer 6xx series does not function for GPU Hardware accelerated tasks. Colour correction and a lot of other tasks have been optimised for GPU rendering on MEP2013.

Probably not related to performance but make sure you download the latest patch for the trial version ( yes the main program patch does need to be added to the trial version too!).

Review those program settings as Terry has advised as they can make a difference.

Your system is a desktop - not a laptop? What Ghz is your processor?

Happy to help getting to the bottom of your issue.

Regards

Ss

johnebaker wrote on 12/9/2012, 5:06 AM

Hi

. . . . . why have most mainstream camcorders moved to SD and Compact cards which work from the same principle? . . . .

As Ss said plus cost - they are a lot cheaper then HDD cameras.

@Ss do not suffer from shock damage - I think the optics would be put out of alignment before the HDD breaks.

I accidentally pulled my camera off a table, when I caught the safety cable I use when videoing, only a couple of weeks after I got it on to a hard floor it bounced once and luckily no damage, it is still fuctioning well 2 years later.

John

stevenlorenzo wrote on 12/9/2012, 6:48 AM

Appreciate all the help here. A lot of different approaches to take.

Currently i'm away offshore at the moment and wont be back till late December. But this is what I think i will try when i get back:-

- Re-install the program on my Harddrive (not SSD) - try same two clip sample and test

If that fails

- Monitor what access the program is making to the card's GPU and measure that against Corel Videostudio.

if there is no difference

- Try tweaking some of the settings related to hardware acceleration.

I do not operate a page file for the computer as this is unecessary given the 16gb RAM

I was advised to do this when I bought it.

johnebaker wrote on 12/9/2012, 11:50 AM

Hi

. . . . . I do not operate a page file for the computer as this is unecessary given the 16gb RAM

I was advised to do this when I bought it. . . . . .

The advice is correct - it eliminates Windows read/writes reducing the life of the SSD drive.

I can see that as you load up the RAM with Windows, Antivirus and MEP + other bits needed to run the computer, and then throw in some video editting clips at the same time you are going to get a performance hit as RAM fills up.

I do not think it is necessary to put everything on to a HDD, it should be sufficient to move all your video files etc onto the HDD and point all MEP file/folder paths for projects etc to the folder(s) on the HDD.

Also try creating a page file on the HDD and set Windows to use this and compare the performance.

Comparing MEP performance to your other NLE may not give you a true result - you need to make sure that the 'other' NLE is not using its Smart Proxy feature for HD video, if it is then it will need turning off before you can compare performance.

It would be interesting to know if it is using this feature even though you have a high spec computer.

John

stevenlorenzo wrote on 12/10/2012, 2:31 AM

"I do not think it is necessary to put everything on to a HDD, it should be sufficient to move all your video files etc onto the HDD and point all MEP file/folder paths for projects etc to the folder(s) on the HDD."

I'm confused by this? I thought the whole point of an SSD was so that the video files could sit on that drive and be able to edit them faster. When I render files with Corel from the SSD it is crazy fast. Most projects that are not too complicated, Corel can render the output at twice the speed of the project. i.e. 20 minute project = equals 10 minute render.

When I have rendered files from my HDD it would be nearer realtime.

I'm not trying to be akward but I just don't understand why I'm not supposed to use the SSD for the very thing I got it for and was recommended by virtually every person I spoke to in the bsuiness.

stevenlorenzo wrote on 12/10/2012, 2:33 AM

o i forgot to add that I do not use smart proxy in Corel. It works a charm but since moving to SSD and graphics card upgrade i no longer need it.

johnebaker wrote on 12/10/2012, 4:18 AM

Hi

No question of whether you are being awkward - I understand very well where you are coming from on this.

There are a lot of 'experts' who have conflicting opinions about how to use SSD drives.

The main reason for turning off the page file system is to maintain the life span of the SSD drive. The number of Read cycles for a SSD is exccedingly large and they will last a long time.

The problem comes with the writing to a SSD drive, each 'cell' in the solid state memory has a finite number of write cycles before they become useless and will not hold the data - an analogy would be a rechargeable battery - after a large number of charges you start to lose capacity - the same happens with SSD memory cells - note RAM is of a different construction as it does not need to remember anything when switched off.

Here is a good article about why you should not turn off the page file system.

Cheers

John

Scenestealer wrote on 12/10/2012, 5:19 AM

Yes John, that is a good article and fits well with my own experience from tinkering with the page file. When I had set a custom size and I ran Magix's PC check and tune utility it always told me my Swapfile was not configured optimally untill I switched it to "Let Windows manage it....". I mention and take heed of this because I assume Magix have created this utility to optimise your PC for their programs (and it seems to be doing that).

One thing that would be interesting to try is to put the swapfile onto a dedicated small SSD and see how it goes. Also has anyone tried setting up a small SSD cache using Intels "Rapid response technology"?

I do not know if it is just Vista but often when I look at the Disk Performance monitor in TM after a restart, it shows it is writing old files I have not accessed for literally years into something - either the Pagefile or Superfetch - What's that about? That really seems like disc thrashing for no good reason.

The point apart from all this is, though, that I do not think the disks are the bottle neck.

Interested to see what you GPU-Z says you GPU is doing Steven. What speed is your processor clock at.

Cheers

Peter