system usage problems with HD upres

[jerbear]

greetings, am currently mixing a feature film project
things were going well until the editor sent the newest cut: an upres from HD.
now it seems the addition of the new video file is maxing out my SYSTEM USAGE meter
and causing insanely erratic / slow / delayed playback. it's a quicktime mov at 430 x 230
H.264, about 1GB in size, playing from the internal HD. the project in on an external
firewire GLYPH drive. everything plays well with no movie present, but of course
i need to edit with picture!

i have turned off all other programs and processes [via activity monitor] and all tracks/ plugins
that are not essential. it helped a little, but still playback is slow. set to: 1024 samples / 85% CPU
DAE level 2 playback.

any advice on streamlining system usage?
will more ram help?
any advice on reexporting the quicktime with a codec that takes up less system processing?

much appreciated

----
iMac G5 1.8GHz / 1GB
PTLE 6.2.3 / MBox 1

[The Dougfather]

I used to have that iMac so i know resources are limited.

What kbps/mbps is the movie, command I while its playing to find out?

Have you tried putting the movie on the external drive?

Have you tried reducing the quicktime playback priority in the prefs to low, if your versions support that pref?

Do you have quicktime pro so you potentially change the codec with ease, motion jpeg is receommended but i've found mp4 ok?

Cheers

[jerbear]

tried on external drive, still no help

checked in QT the data rate...holy $#!^ - 1566 kbps!

using quicktime pro to re-export a motion jpeg now. should be a few hours
but will post an update....

[Slim Shady]

You want to use uncompressed DV format only for video in PT. Motion JPEG will give you the same issues as H.264 did, it will slow down the system. And yes, you should definitely have more than 1GB of RAM for doing this type of work.

[jerbear]

cheers slim,

more ram is on the way as we speak...

the motion jpeg export crapped out anyway. am trying a new DV export now.
by uncompressed DV you mean DV/DVCPRO NTSC codec, yes?

[The Dougfather]

Hi, my recommendation for motion jpeg was based on a digi post, i've tried DV on an old iMac and it's a struggle because 230mb of video per minute before you even add audio and midi is a tall order.

Cheers

Quicktime Movies in Pro Tools

[Slim Shady]

I've been sent motion JPEG by accident by several AVID guys over the years, and it defintely slows down a PT system noticeably (and looks like poop to boot). Re-exporting to uncompressed DV makes it run much much better. Basially, there's no codec/compression for the CPU to have to uncompress, so even though the file size is bigger, the CPU doesn't have to work as hard to show you the video. Uncompressed DV is THE recommended format for working with video in PT, DP or any DAW on a Mac, hands down. It's also the only format that will work if you're using a Canopus or other firewire-out video box.

I'd be interested to know when the article you linked to was written. I have a feeling that's pretty old. Either that, or maybe it's to address what to do if you MUST compress a movie file (like to send it over the web or something). I'm gonna email Digi about it and see what they say, having innacurrate info on their support pages isn't a good thing. Because I support several big film composers, I've done pretty extensive testing with quicktime video codecs and PT - I arrived at the DV thing on my own through all the testing, but it has also been confirmed over and over again on these forums and elsewhere on the net as well.

by uncompressed DV you mean DV/DVCPRO NTSC codec, yes?

Yep, that's the one.

[jerbear]

so finally, after a day's wrangling with the h.264 codec and quicktime updates
the video export is done.

slim is correct, DV codec seems to be the way to go! even though the final video ended up around 16GB
compared to the 1GB h.264 file.

i ended up re-exporting the entire quicktime with DV/DVCPRO NTSC to half size,
then digging out my old DAC-100 [firewire to video converter] and running the video
through it to a broadcast monitor.

very few cpu / system slowdown issues so far...compared to every few seconds before.
and i haven't even installed more ram yet.

lets hope it stays that way

cheers to all