Post Processing (Exporting)

Terrabytes wrote on 4/23/2013, 2:01 PM

Is there a way of speeding up post processing? I've noticed two versions such as Movie Edit Plus 15 and MX haven't really changed their export speeds by much despite their ads, especially when using 1080p footage. On my primary PC the specs are: Intel Core2 Quad Q6700, XFX MB 680i LT, three 300GB Velociraptors in RAID 0, 6GB RAM and GeForce GTX 650TI OC with 2GB memory. I've enabled the program's parameters to use GPU but even with this on, it barely uses no more than 2% of it despite having it OC'ed up to 1226 MHz. I've seen good fast and free programs such as Freemake Video converter which uses CUDA, it makes good use of my GPU and exports fast on HD. Despite my PC's specs in order to export anywhere from a 30 min. footage up to 45 minutes, exporting takes HOURS! Aside from the frustratingly long export times, when exporting edited .mov files (1080p) to .mov, the audio that was included with the original file is often out of sync. The only way to prevent this is to export to the gargantuan uncompressed avi, to which I don't have enough disk space (I'll have to dedicate another external HDD that holds over a terrabyte).

Comments

johnebaker wrote on 4/23/2013, 3:37 PM

Taking eveything you have said it sounds like you have a serious data transfer speed bottleneck - possibly caused by a combination of the following:

1. The RAID 0 is not a good configuration for writing, which is where you need maximum speed - performance will be slower than using a single HDD.

I also have some concerns over your hard drive arrangements - with a Raid 0 configuration, you are seriously risking losing all your data if just one drive fails.

2. . . . .I'll have to dedicate another external HDD that holds over a terrabyte . . .

Does this mean the Velociraptors are external drives? If they are, you are then limited by the USB port speed. and if they are on the same USB controller then you have an even greater reduction in data transfer speed - the data transfer rate is spread between the number of devices connected to a controller.

. . . . I've seen good fast and free programs such as Freemake Video converter which uses CUDA . . . .

You cannot compare a video converter to a program such as MEP they are designed to do very different jobs. Software which is also badly written can use more processing power than a well written one, so again the comparison is not valid. the only time you should worry about the processor usage is if all 4 cores are being maxed out.

My computer is of similar spec to yours except for memory (4GB) and disc conguration - I have a second 1TB internal hard drive for all data, projects etc and render to this drive as well as well as read from it.

Exporting an AVCHD or mp4 file takes approx 1 1/2 to 2 times the length of the video, depending on transitions, effects etc, - using CUDA on a GT630 2Gb graphics card - I have found overclocking it makes very little difference as does the setting for maximum performance on video rendering.

John.

Scenestealer wrote on 4/23/2013, 5:10 PM

The GPU load / usage when hardware (Cuda) encoding AVCHD H264 sits at 60 - 70% on my GTX460 card and is appreciably quicker than using just the CPU (Quad core Q9550, OC to 3.4Ghz). Encoding is still about 1.5x slower than realtime never the less.

According to Magix support (and other forum members) the Nvidia GPU's based on the latest Kepler architecture, the 6xx series I believe, can not be utilised by the Mainconcept encoder in MEP for Cuda acceleration. The 2% you are seeing is possibly a calculation of a video effect on a clip, which can still utilise the parallel GPU processing ability in the program. There have been improvements in the GPU utilisation with MEP2013 in this area, and in timeline preview performance, with AVCHD material.

Terrabytes wrote on 4/23/2013, 5:32 PM

Thanks but I doubt the bottleneck. I've done this in different combinations before. The external drive now is providing the source for the videos which is just a terrabyte SATA drive inside an enclosure which is connected to USB 3.0 . As far as the export I'm exporting it to my RAID drives which also hold my operating system. I rarely do this since most of the time I output to the SSD which I use only for light temporary storage. But even to the SSD I've noticed the post processing speed to improve very little if at all. Also regarding that external with USB 3.0 I mentioned it has also been used as the destination drive; results are the same. I have also used Magix with the OS installed on an SSD. The only obvious difference here is that the program can be deployed quicker, but after that the performance is the same.

Terrabytes wrote on 4/23/2013, 5:39 PM

By the way the comparison I made with Freemake is more about conversion speed rather than features, and the cuality is quite good despite it being free. Also that additional utilization of the CUDA cores it does makes overall speed quite efficient. In Magix over 70% of the load goes to the CPU and very little to the GPU. You could benchmark both just on conversion and Magix will undoubtedly lag behind.

Scenestealer wrote on 4/23/2013, 6:20 PM

"In Magix over 70% of the load goes to the CPU and very little to the GPU."

See my comment on your Graphics Card - it is obviously not compatible with Cuda encoding in MEP.

Terrabytes wrote on 4/23/2013, 8:10 PM

That doesn't help dude. I'm not about to go and buy another GPU therefore since I am paying for this software I would have to urge the fellas at Magix to make it compatible. Thanks for your input but this doesn't resolve the main issues.

Scenestealer wrote on 4/24/2013, 12:30 AM

"That doesn't help dude."

Nor do comments like that. I am just trying to give you some background to understand what is going on so that you don't waste your time making pointless comparisons....

I trust you are going to approach Magix with your suggestion as this is a user forum and it is not monitored by Magix. I think you will find that the problem of compatibility is with Main Concept who make the encoder plugin, so Magix hands are a little tied.

Good luck dude.