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  #1  
Old 03-21-2002, 08:40 AM
Styles Bitchly Styles Bitchly is offline
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Default Quick Time Question for Mr T. . .

Mr. T.,

I've searched some of your posts concerning quick time issues, and you seem to be the resident authority. I need some information if you would be so kind as to lend me some help.

I recently started working with quicktime - small 30 sec. & 60 sec. ad's - and I've noticed that it really chokes my performance while trying to score to the video. When I try to advance in the play window it takes about a second per frame (if I'm zoomed in to the point where I can actually see the frames and what's happening in them). I'm wondering if this is because I have only one hard drive. (?)

My system is a G4 733, Quicksilver, with a 40g ata, 7200 rpm. I'm assuming (although I know how dangerous assumptions can be) that reading video and audio from the same drive is choking my system. I have my buffer size set as high as possible, and I have about 400meg of ram allocated to PTLE use. So it appears I've got my system at its highest possible performance.

Do you feel it would increase my performance if I were to install another ata drive and dedicate it to video only? I've searched until my eyes hurt and can find nothing that pertains to ata drives and quicktime - perhaps I missed something in my fatigued state. Any information you can offer would be greatly appreciated.
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  #2  
Old 03-21-2002, 01:50 PM
fresler fresler is offline
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Default Re: Quick Time Question for Mr T. . .

Hi there,
first the good news: all you need to do is set the display of your video track from Frames to Block, this way everything is going to play out smoother. BTW if you need to zoom in on a frame, just togle or scrub through your quicktime movie and look at the actual movie window rather than the frames in the edit window. If you own a video editing card like Aurora Fuse or Pinnacle Miro DC30 you can actually watch your video on your TV, freeing up you computer's monitor.

To improve your performances having separate drives for audio and video is always the best option. I opted for 80 gigs ATA as secondary drive for audio, along with an 18 gigs SCSI that I mostly use for audio.
Last tip is to keep your video data rate to 800/1000 Ksec.

Good luck
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  #3  
Old 03-21-2002, 01:59 PM
Styles Bitchly Styles Bitchly is offline
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Default Re: Quick Time Question for Mr T. . .

Sounds good to me. I thank you so much for the information. I'll be installing a new 60gb drive this evening, so I'll definitely try your advice.
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  #4  
Old 03-21-2002, 02:14 PM
Mr T Mr T is offline
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Default Re: Quick Time Question for Mr T. . .

Seems like someone was quicker than me...anyway here's my humble opinion:

"you seem to be the resident authority"

I wouldn't say that but...say it again?...
just kidding.


"When I try to advance in the play window it takes about a second per frame (if I'm zoomed in to the point where I can actually see the frames and what's happening in them). I'm wondering if this is because I have only one hard drive. (?)"

I don't really get your point...assuming that what you call the "play window" is the edit window, when you say "it takes about a second per frame" I hope you're not talking about the Video track...If you've read my posts on the subject, you're probably not, since I've said many times that this track is useless and known to slow processing in a drastic way. Use only the movie window, hide that stupid video track.

"My system is a G4 733, Quicksilver, with a 40g ata, 7200 rpm. I'm assuming (although I know how dangerous assumptions can be) that reading video and audio from the same drive is choking my system. I have my buffer size set as high as possible, and I have about 400meg of ram allocated to PTLE use. So it appears I've got my system at its highest possible performance".

It's not so much that it's choking your system...it's more a matter of drive access. When using the same drive for audio and video, your drive will quickly get fragmented thus giving you a crappy picture and slowing down of the general processing (audio+video). Also, your G4 will have to process both video and audio from the same drive which will be difficult given the IDE access speed.

"Do you feel it would increase my performance if I were to install another ata drive and dedicate it to video only? I've searched until my eyes hurt and can find nothing that pertains to ata drives and quicktime - perhaps I missed something in my fatigued state. Any information you can offer would be greatly appreciated".

Indeed, having dedicated-separated drives for audio and video will definitly help but that won't be enough. It also depends on what picture resolution you're using. I'm using iMovie to capture the movies delivered on DV. I choose the optimal setting in iMovie (full resolution or something like that...the highest setting). Then I open the resulting file in QT, resize the window (this is very important since a huge window will really slow down processing in PT and since you won't be able to resize the movie window once the movie is imported in PT->choose a size that allow you to work properly without the picture being too huge) and then export using Cinepack codec.
Let's be clear, the result in PT is not a full screen-great looking picture but I don't care, all I need is a reliable movie=>no sync problem ("sliding frames"), enough quality to be able to edit FXs or music...
Just in case you'll be considering SCSI, I've tried using SCSI drives along with Adaptec Ultrawide II card but got many "PCI too busy" messages, so I stick with IDE. Just my personnal experience, others will tell you SCSI works great.
One last advice: make sure to ask the people delivering the movie to put some black before the movie's starting point and after the movie's ending point. This will avoid a freezing picture at the end of the program (= hard to be sure where it really ends) and you'll also be sure where it starts...
Hope that helps.
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  #5  
Old 03-21-2002, 02:22 PM
Styles Bitchly Styles Bitchly is offline
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Default Re: Quick Time Question for Mr T. . .

Thank you, Mr. T. I'm sure I probably did read your advice concerning the video track, but I haven't slept since last night, so I'm battling a lack of coherence. It's great to have so many people help, I thank you all.
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  #6  
Old 03-21-2002, 02:32 PM
Mr T Mr T is offline
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Default Re: Quick Time Question for Mr T. . .

You're welcome. As David-Kickin said in your other post, that's what we're here for. I'll help you if I can, somebody will help me if he can, and so on...Good luck and keep us posted.
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  #7  
Old 03-22-2002, 08:16 AM
Styles Bitchly Styles Bitchly is offline
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Default Re: Quick Time Question for Mr T. . .

Fresler & Mr T,

You guys rule! I finally got quicktime to work with PTLE, and it cruised along smoother than greased owl poop. Way cool!

I have one more question if anyone cares to render aid. How do you, personally, figure out a tempo for videos you score? I was working on a web intro, and I just kind of played with the "tap" tempo button in PTLE, but I ended up having to tweek it for about an hour to get the right tempo so that all the elements of the video would sync up with the music. Is there an easier way?
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  #8  
Old 03-22-2002, 08:38 AM
Mr T Mr T is offline
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Default Re: Quick Time Question for Mr T. . .

Huumm, interesting question...
If you don't have too many cuts to follow and a program that's not too long, I would roughly locate the cut points, place an audio region on every one of them(could be anything, even silence recording->this wil just be used as a "location display") or a marker (I think the "audio region trick" is faster though...).
Then I would put the edit window in wide zoom mode (thus giving you access to a frame by frame video window display).Now, clic on the track you've placed audio regions on, and go to the first audio region by using the Tab to transient arrow. Clic on the region; now that you are in wide zoom mode, you should notice that the region is not really on the precise video cut point; just nudge the region so that it's placed on that precise point. You're done. Go to the next region (still using Tab to transient), and so on...
I have to admit I'm giving you this advice based on different other edits I had to perform (SFX, foleys...), since I never had to write music precisely following a video editing (cut points) as it seems to be your case. My experience is that if a client wants the music to follow the video, the music is always made first and it's the videoediting that will have to follow (wayyy easier).
Hope that helps and doesn't confuse...
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  #9  
Old 03-24-2002, 03:27 PM
Mr T Mr T is offline
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Default Re: Quick Time Question for Mr T. . .

To Styles B. : Update...if you're still interested...
Today I had to work on an 8 minutes movie. I've captured the movie via DV+Firewire in iMovie (as usual) and then exported the movie using the highest setting. From then I've opened the resulting 1,85 Gb file in QT. Since I had to work on some music without needing my G4, I had time to experiment different processing (they took amost an hour each).
#1: export the QT file using Cinepack X1. This resulted in a 85 Meg file; once imported in QT, the quality was really poor (pixels...).
#2: export the QT file using Sorenson X1. This resulted in a 58meg file which quality, once imported in PT, was much better (furthermore, I've exported a bigger window than with the Cinepack file). So, Sorenson gives better quality, takes less space , even with a bigger window size!
#3: no export at all. I've just imported the original 1,85Gb in PT. It works great with a good quality (slightly better than with the Sorenson file but not that far).

Since I had not been working on movies for a month or so, I thought I had to make sure my previous statements were reliable. Well they were, except for the Sorenson vs Cinepack thing (now I remember having always worked with Sorenson for the best), for the "mandatory" export from QT process (which doesn't seem to be that mandatory after all...probably depending on the size and the original quality of the movie) and (yes there's more...) for the SCSI vs IDE thing. Having recently re-initialized and reformated my SCSI drives, I've decided to give them a shot (again) for use with the video files and they worked great.
Just thought you might like to know.
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  #10  
Old 03-24-2002, 03:50 PM
fresler fresler is offline
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Default Re: Quick Time Question for Mr T. . .

Hi there,
I'm hundred percent with Mr T on this.
I usually spot SFX or musical cues, cutting through an audio track bang on the frame, and using the edits as markers to lay down whatever I need.
I have to admit thou that, unless I'm playing to some beats, I try to "freewheel" a little when I'm working on music for video rather than SFX, I'm afraid that's mostly due to the fact that my last project was with a string arranger on a movie soundtrack, but then again it feels so good just playing to a scene rather than to a clock.
Anyway as soon as I'll get to a more "rythmic" project and I think it will be me coming back for some fresh advice. [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

Bye,
Luca
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