PT 5.01 when?

[sounddefects]

I heard a couple weeks ago that 5.01 was being beta tested and a few days away from release. Any ETA? Also, will the new version allow you to disable the picture from always following your region moves, while still leaving the movie online? I have stopped using 5.0 because it was very apparent that, in very large sessions, the performance of PT took a major hit when the movie was engaged (not the performance of the movie itself, just incidental stuff like deleting a region from a track, or dragging and dropping a region from the region list onto a track took way longer than usual). It was way too much trouble to keep taking the movie on and off line, and way too annoying to have to wait 2 or 3 seconds every time I did something simple like deleting a region. I'm hoping there will be a preference to disable this feature, as handy as it may be. Or maybe at least when you are using 'seperate timelines' disable it, since it is supposed to disable the movie from the edit timeline anyway, but the movie obviously keeps 'looking' at your edit locations when it doesn't actually need to. Hope I'm clear on this.

[DigiTechSupt]

sounddefects
You can have the movie on-line and have no in track picture by changing the track from
frames to blocks. The "official" word on the release of Pro Tools ver 5.0.1 is end of May
first of June.
Mj

[stevegalante]

ok techsupp, give us some 'previews' of the new features...

[sounddefects]

<<<<<You can have the movie on-line and have no in track picture by changing the track from frames to blocks.>>>>

TechSupt: thank you for the reply, however, this is not at all the problem I am talking about. I always do use block mode- frame mode would of course be unbearable. I've been using digital picture with PT for 3 years now and know all the ins and outs of what will speed up, slow down, casue problems etc.
What I am talking about here is this: Unlike all earlier versions of PT, 5.0 added a feature that essentially makes the movie follow along when you drag regions around. 4.32 and earlier would keep the picture still until you actually dropped the region, at which point the picture would then snap to the new location.
Without repeating my entire post above, my main question was "Will the new version allow you to disable the picture from always following your region moves, while still leaving the movie online?" IOW, work just like 4.32 and earlier. This feature is apparently what is causing the performance hit on my system. I have talked to a beta tester who has told me that other users have reported this same problem and asked for a preference to disable this new feaure. I am asking for the same. I thought it was a VERY cool feature when I saw it demo'd at DigiWorld, but I didn't realize what a difference it would make performance-wise on my 9500 w/ G3/400 card. If anyone knows any other reason why this is having such an impact on my system, or fixes for it, I would love to hear them.
thanks

[DigiTechSupt]

sounddefects
Thanks for clarifying your problem.
I verified your question and the information
that I got is there is not going to be a preference to turn that off in PT 5.0.1
I wont state the obvious about work arounds.
I will keep you posted if anything changes.
Just curious, why do have such a performance
hit in your configuration when using PT 5.0
with Quicktime movie? What is the DATA rate
and picture resolution and version of OS/computer and Quicktime. Remember, just
trying to get an idea of what your working with.
Thanks
Mj

[Bryan]

sounddefects...

At the risk of feeding you stuff you've already tried, I have successfully whipped the sluggishness you refer to by doing the following:

1. limit movie data rate to about 700k/s

2. hide the movie track

3. place the movie window in my second monitor...which is being fed by an additional graphics card, not the main mac video out.

4. keep my video hard drive (which is running off the main external scsi) extremely clean and optimized.

Works like a charm, with the addition of the new spotting 'feature', which I now like.

[biege g3/300 in marathon chassis, magma 13 w/ mix++, samplecellx3, 320 megs ram, miro dc30+, adaptec 3940, macos 8.6, pt5.0, video drive on external scsi: barracuda 9 gig, audio drives on 3940: cheetahs of various sizes]

[sounddefects]

Mj and Bryan-
thanks for your help, it is much appreciated
When using any version besides 5.0 my video playback is close to perfect- very fast, no stutters, no problems (actually there is one that I won't go into here), etc.- as well as the overall speed and performance of PT itself. When I encountered my performance hit in 5.0 I spent a couple days trying to nail down the problem and tried everything I, or anyone else, could think of, including changing disk cache, different miro drivers, removing any unneeded plugins, memory allocation, different screen resolutions, pic sizes, trashing display and driver prefs, reinstalling software, changing movie priority, booting with bare system and extensions, and probably 20 other things I can't think of right now. As a rule I keep my movies at between 400k to 500k, 320x240 (even 160x120), use a DC30+ outputting to ext monitor only, use block mode, hide the movie track, etc, and, as I mentioned, my video plays fine, even in 5.0.
I just can't figure out why the drastic sluggishness in 5.0. When I actually hit play there is no lag in playback or anything like that- no problems that are picture related, but any edits I do (and I do a TON) each have a very perceptible delay after them. Delete a region-wait 2 seconds (3 if there's a large region bin). Paste a region- wait 2 seconds. I'm used to being able to do about 10 edits in the space of about 5 seconds so the slowdown was just unbearable. Once I take the movie offline everything is great- edits are very quick, etc. But a lot of what I do consists of doing a few edits, hit play (watching pic) for a few seconds, stop, edit for a few seconds, hit play, etc, so taking the movie on and offline (the only option I can think of) is not a workable solution. I am using a 9500 with a G3/400 card, 256mb ram, OS8.6, mix+, DC30+, (2) seagate 47gb drives for audio, 2 seagate 9gb drives for video, adaptec 3940 dual UW SCSI card, allocating tons of memory. In general, the speed of the computer smokes my stock G3/233 and I have a friend with an almost identical system except his 9500 only has a 604e/225 card and he is not experiencing this problem with 5.0. I'm baffled, other than the fact that I can't help feeling this is ultimately tied in to the new feature of the movie following region drags. When I click and hold a region you can sort of 'feel' the program constantly 'looking' at the region (or timecode of the region). There's an almost imperceptible flickering that is probably due to the processing that is going on while it's doing this. Turn off the movie and it's gone (it also wasn't there in 4.32 or earlier). Anyway, that's it. Hopefully something else got tweaked in 5.01 that will inadvertantly get rid of this problem. Otherwise, I'll keep using 4.3 and save up for a G4e/1000 and expansion chassis

[Vector Warrior]

I had the same problem although on a digi 001/G4 system, nobody had any real good ideas as to the problem.

I then downloaded the beta version of the newest DC30+ driver (I think it's version 2) and since then I havent had any problems. I should imagine you have already tried this but if not good luck.

[Lion]

will this update include better midi handling? I need the midi editing of Logic!

[sounddefects]

<<< I should imagine you have already tried this... >>>
Yup. I downloaded the beta drivers '2.0.0b5' and they wacked out my system big time!! Don't know why though (maybe they only work with 'real' G3's, not 9500 w/G3 card). Everything seemed ok when I opened PT but after opening a session with a movie it wouldn't pop up any pop-up menus, such as frame/block mode, volume/waveform/pan, etc. and finally crashed. I would have tried recording a new movie to see if maybe my old movies were incompatible with the new drivers, but it said that the beta drivers would work with Premiere 5.1c ONLY. I of course have 5.1 but not 'c' and Premiere wouldn't recognise the drivers, so I'll have to finally register my copy of Premiere and then get the upgrade. Til then I put in my old drivers. I don't really have time to deal with this now anyway. Also noticed that the beta driver info said "will only work with DC30+ hardware rev 7.1 or 9.0". I have 7.1 but am wondering what is the difference between the two? Maybe the difference between solving this problem or not?
BTW, I have also tried driver versions 1.1, 1.1.2, 1.2, and 1.2.1. If you know of any others, I would like to try them as well just for the hell of it.