@AAProds

Hi Alwyn.

No fear of me altering my machine in any way. I have it set up just right for me at present.

The problem is I think if anyone is thinking of upgrading you have to realise you are always playing catch-up. I have no idea about the current Intel GPU chip-sets or the next generational ones about to come out. Would they fair better or worse or will the next release of MEP change everything again?

I think John EB has the system sweet spot, both for cost and effectiveness but even there the newer nvidia cards seem to have much more bang for buck than his now if you can get your hands on one.

This is the problem with tech in general and why reviews and forums play such an important part when trying to figure out what to get for a given systems intended purposes.

The second problem is a good gaming rig is not necessarily going to make a good video editing work station, so where Ryzen processors shine in one activity they probably won't shine in another although MEP has never been in the top five for speed of exporting regardless of processor choice.

As a lot of the project seems to get loaded directly into ram does ram speed also contribute?

There are lots of questions most of us will never know the answer to.

Ray.

@AAProds

Hi Alwyn

. . . . John, could you redo your export test with HWA enabled now and compare the times for the MP4 (MPEG-4)? . . . . .

The results are:

MP4 FullHD preset with no adjustments other than framerate and no HWA, I get the following times - I have rearranged the text a little for better comparison reading

exporting to 25fps - no HWA 1m 05 secs - with HWA 25 secs
exporting to 29.97 fps - no HWA 1m 15 secs - with HWA 30 secs

HEVC - full HD preset no changes

exporting to 25 fps - no HWA 1m 31 secs - with HWA 29 secs
exporting to 29.97 fps - no HWA 1m 46 secs - with HWA 34 secs

. . . . It looks like the MP4 time without HWA beat the HEVC time with HWA . . . .

I did not quote any HWA figures.

Edited/added (changes highlighted)

MP4 (h.264 encoded) should be faster - it is less compressed and requires less processing power - HEVC (h.265) uses much complex algorithms requiring more processor power to encode and decode, this is where the appropriate GPU(s) excel as they have dedicated 'units' within them for doing this (not CUDA cores which are something else).

However if you look at the export in terms of output framerates , which is my preferred method rather than time which can be deceiving, the picture is somewhat different when changing frame rates

MP4

25 fps - no HWA render speed 23.0 fps - with HWA 60 fps

30 fps - no HWA render speed 24 fps - with HWA 60 fps

HEVC

25 fps - no HWA render speed 16.5 fps - with HWA 51.7 fps

30 fps - no HWA render speed 17 fps - with HWA 52.9 fps

As you can see the difference between export 30 fps and 25 fps export is actually negligible, however HEVC is still slower than MP4 h.264.

HTH

John EB

@Scenestealer @johnebaker @jonboy834 @me_again @browj2 @emmrecs@emmrecs

@AAProds

Hi Peter.

I tried using the main concept for MP4 export but can't get the exported file size to match the MEP one despite trying to copy the bit rate values etc. I'm just not practiced enough I think to know what I'm doing with the main concept encoder and there are no presets for 4K to start from. In short I think I am in over my head on this one.

The export took two hours twenty one minutes this time around but the resulting file was only 1.32GB in size. Edges were not as well defined in straight lines and looked jagged. No serious banding or blocking of large areas of colour though.

Ray.

John EB: Re your request to define the Input before MEP edtiing: "When testing like this please include details of the source video format frame rate and encoding, the preset used for export and any changes you made to it "

. . . . I just test-rendered a 1 minute movie (no contrast, brightness, sharpness etc no transitions,no titles etc) to MP4 at 29.97fps 1920x 1080 etc With no hardare encoding, it took 1 min 40 secs approx. Based on Magix comments re h.265 advantages, I then downloaded the patch for HEVC and rendered the same movie (no effects, no transitions,no titles etc). It took approx 1 min 53 secs. . . . .

The Source video for these very basic i-minute tetst was from a Canon EOS DSLR - filmed at 1920x1080 29.97 fps with no audio and saved to External Hard drive in MVI format then uploaded to MEP from there.

I took care that there were no effects, transitions nor titles and no audio thus a basic comparison rendering (1) in HD 1080p to MP4 then (2) to MP4 using HEVC. Rendering with HEVC probably took slightly longer due to the greater compression. As others have stated, inclusion of normal, real "editing" ie effects, templates, transition, titles and adusio etc would be more realistic - but make comparison more difficult.

Still awaiting more clarification from Magix (Berlin) whom I have contacted separately regarding their adverts - but suspect it is the old story ie "caveat emptor" . . .

@jonboy834

Hi

Thanks for the additional info.

. . . . saved to External Hard drive in MVI format then uploaded to MEP from there. . . . .

Is MVI (Musical Video Interactive) format a typo?

Are you rendering back to the external hard drive - if so do you get better speed when rendering from/to the internal drive?

John EB

@johnebaker

John, thanks for the numbers. It looks like the iGPU increases rendering speeds by around 3 times. That's pretty impressive.

Cheers, Al

John EB: (1) Test Movie was originally shot with a Canon T6i DSLR at 29.97fps 1080p.

They were downloaded from SD card to PC then stored on my External HD to await editing. Movies on the Canon are apparently "stored in MP4 format, using an MPEG-4 AV/H.264 codec for video." However, the saved movies show up with the MVI label/MP4 (see attached)

(2) When editing with MEP I am rendering to the internal drive on my PC - not to an external HDD. I have not compared speeds.

@jonboy834

Hi.

Look at the details tab and not the general one. Better more useful data is found using the MediaInfo app using the text view. The MVI designation is probably just a file tag naming system for the files.

Ray.

@jonboy834

Hi

Thanks for the clarification - the MVI, is as @CubeAce has commented, part of the file name, not the format, presumably an abbreviation of Movie.

John EB

Re MVI Movies:

(1) "Movie clips taken with IXUS 1000 HS, PowerShot Elph 500 HS, PowerShot SX 200IS, PowerShot SD 780IS and many other Canon cameras are normally saved as MVI_xxxx files. These MVI files are actually Motion-JPEG/H.264 encoded video with .AVI or .MOV as file extension. The SD MVI videos shooting at 640x480 end up as .avi files and HD MVI files at 1280x720 or full HD 1920x1080 .mov files. While, the MVI format does not playback or edit very well. To make Canon MVI videos playable on your PC with media player, editable for video editing programs like Window Movie Maker, you need to change MVI first as the above users mentioned.

"Using Canon digital for videos and my clips come up in mvi format which does not work for sending etc." 

(2) MVI stands for Musical Video Interactive, a DVD based means of packing audio, video and interactive visual content (for example lyrics) onto one disk. Canon PowerShot and other digital cameras save recorded movie files with a name beginning with "MVI_." 

Per @CubeAce: Here is the MediaInfo report on the MVU movie file:

@jonboy834

Hi

Please use the Text view in MediaInfo - you can then copy and paste the data to a comment - it also gives a more detailed picture of the file contents.

. . . . many other Canon cameras are normally saved as MVI_xxxx files. These MVI files are actually Motion-JPEG/H.264 encoded video with .AVI or .MOV as file extension. . . .

The MVI at the front of the file name is not relevant - it is the file extension, which you cannot see because Explorer has not been set to show them, that is the video file format.

In the case of the example above the full name of the file is MVI_6151.MP4 as you can seen in the Media Info information.

It is a .MP4 file which is a 'container file' format, ie it it can contain video and audio encoded in a range of different encoding format. In this example the video is encoded as AVC (h.264) - this should import directly into MEP with no issues.

John EB

John EB: So, in summary, a Canon DSLR MVI_xxxx file is actually a Motion JPEG/H.264 encoded video in an MP4 container - but may have an .AVI or .MOV extension . . . Now that is easy to understand - for some - but beyond me! Glad this is just a hobby!

@johnebaker @jonboy834

From the manual for the Canon PowerShot SX200 IS.

And Canon Rebel T6i DSLR

Ray.

CubeAce: Thx. The multiple system acronyms can be confusing..

@jonboy834

Hi

. . . . a Canon DSLR MVI_xxxx file is actually a Motion JPEG/H.264 encoded video in an MP4 container - but may have an .AVI or .MOV extension . . . .

Correct.

Acronyms can be a pain - especially if the area they are used is not within your day to day experience, hence my original question about MVI, however they do save a lot of typing. 🙂

John EB

Hi all: I finally received some confirmation from Magix that they will review their advertising as it may be misleading some gullible folks like me:

(1) 28.01.2021 To Magix, Berlin. Christopher: "(3) Re Magix' adverts: They contain the following statement: "INFUSION Engine 2 The new engine that powers Movie Edit Pro 2021 now offers hardware support for graphics cards by Intel, NVIDIA and AMD. The result is a seamless project preview without the need for time-consuming rendering or creating proxy files. Discover the INFUSION Engine 2" However, several Magix Forum Members have already agreed that confusion is frequently created by your marketing texts. One Forum Member also pointed out the subtle/clever use of words in your sales pitch. He suggested that the Magix' INFUSION Engine 2 can use graphics cards by NVIDIA and AMD - but only to provide a "seamless project review"!  In other words - Magix' wording is intended to convey the impression that hardware acceleration for rendering will be possible with NVIDIA or AMD graphics cards - but, in fact, this is only true for preview???  Please indicate if this is the case?"

(2) Here is the reply: From: MAGIX Support <support@magix.net> Berlion, Germany  February 4, 2021 1:37 AM
Subject: Magix 2021 Movie Edit Pro Plus - Slow rendering

"Dear Jon,Thank you for your message. WIth regards to your questions, a) I can confirm that your Nvidia GeForce 1660 GTX supports NVENC. That means you can use NVENC hardware encoding via h.265 (HEVC) in Video Pro X b) NVENC encoding via h.265 is only possible in Video Pro X (ie not in Magix Editing Pro . . )
Thank you for your feedback regarding our marketing. I will pass it on and I agree with you that some of the information could be more clearly. 
Best regards,MAGIX Software GmbH
Supportmanager Berliner Str. 13 01067 Dresden - Germany

The Forum should keep an eye on future Magix advertising . . . in the hope that honesty and clarity will prevail.

Greetings @jonboy834

Well done. It's a step in the right direction, but not to dampen spirits too much though it is only one person's opinion versus The Mighty Magix Marketing Managers.

Obviously what the 4 Ms want is for we Nvidia people to buy VPX. For me, MEP is far too much really; I only use about 10% (if that) of the editing power I've purchased.

What would be a result is that they respond by making NVENC hardware encoding available in MEP.

That would swing me over to renewing my service contract later this year.

AndyW

@me_again

Hi Andy

. . . . Obviously what the 4 Ms want is for we Nvidia people to buy VPX. . . .

IMHO that would a small minority, HEVC has not got to the stage yet where is it replacing h.264/AVC as the 'standard' universal codec to go to, that belongs h.264/AVC which will be around for a very long while.

HEVC requires a lot of processor power for playback at high resolutions which can push mobile and IoT devices to their limit and beyond

John EB

Greetings @johnebaker

Possibly crossed wires here. I was talking about NVENC hardware encoding, whether it be for HEVC or H.264, being made available in MEP.

Or I may have missed the point of the Magix reply.

AndyW