Video playback becomes slow and jerky.

[hedgerocks]

Pro Tools 10 running on Mac OS Lion.
4 x 2.88 GHZ Quad Core Intel.
My session i dedicate 15 processors to pro tools. Leave one processor for the OS. CPU usage limit at 99%

Heres is my process for importing a video into pro tools. Convert to DV-Pro NTSC. Defiantly not an H.264.
Move to a dedicated drive for videos. Not on the same drive as my pro tools sessions or the OS.

Keep in mind these videos are never really longer then 90 seconds. and not that large in size to begin with.

I then move the video file to my second monitor and "fit to screen".

Typically everything works fine for a little while. Lets say an hour or so. But then the video starts playing back stuttery. Jittery. Whatever you want to call it.

This bogs down the session. Makes playback impossible.

I'll blow out the prefs.

That sometimes helps.

I'll restart the system.

That sometimes helps.

But there really does not appear to be any rhyme or reason to it. Sometimes everything works fine. Other times it craps out. This is unbelievably frustrating.

I've searched the DUC and various forums and just can't seem to make sense of it all. there appears to be a a lot of conflicting solutions. If one at all. Is there a definitive answer? Something I'm doing wrong?

Please help me geniuses of the internet.

[Craig F]

Pt 10.?.?
Osx 10.7.?

[hedgerocks]

Os 10.7.5
pt. 10.3

[hedgerocks]

can anyone point me to a link that might further help me?
please?
I'll send you cosmic presents?

[Larold]

I have PT 10 HD on a Mac Pro 8 core 2.66 Ghz machine. I am using 3 monitors, one for video only.

I have found that converting my videos, (which are 50 minutes long) to DV was a waste of time, and actually degraded the quality, so I leave them as .mov files now.

Sounds like you are doing everything right. There is a preference for setting the quality of quicktime video playback...you might take a look there. Is your frame rate correct? Can your video card support your playback? Are there any other apps running, like time machine, etc, that kick in on a certain schedule? When you set your processor at 99%, if the computer even turns it's head and coughs, it may interfere with ProTools. That's why they recommend turning off Bluetooth, Screensavers, avoid spinning the hard drives down and all that stuff.


Hope that helps....

[hedgerocks]

yeah the HQ playback is unchecked - i only wish it was something so simple as that.

Time machine is disabled but I usually have my mail and instant messenger running in the back ground.

Do you think it could be that?

Should i set the CPU usage limit to 95%?

all screen savers and bluetooth are off.

This is my info on my graphics card

NVIDIA GeForce GT 120:

Chipset Model: NVIDIA GeForce GT 120
Type: GPU
Bus: PCIe
Slot: Slot-1
PCIe Lane Width: x16
VRAM (Total): 512 MB
Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)
Device ID: 0x0640
Revision ID: 0x00a1
ROM Revision: 3386
Displays:
Cinema HD:
Display Type: LCD
Resolution: 2560 x 1600
Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)
Display Serial Number: CY81723DXMP
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Rotation: Supported
Panasonic-TV:
Resolution: 1600 x 900 @ 60 Hz
Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Rotation: Supported
Television: Yes

[Larold]

In PT 10, the amount of RAM is the important thing...more important than the CPU speed. I have 16 Gig and have set the PT cache to 10 G. (You should always leave at a minimum, 3 Gig for the CPU to use whatever you do.) That way, the entire session loads in RAM, and the disc can deal with the video more easily. Then, I set the plug ins for either DSP or Native while watching the system usage bars. After some fiddling around I have a nice balance.

I would set the CPU thing to 95 or 90% and stop the mail and other background items. I think each of these things would help. I'm no expert, but my system is running nicely. The ProTools RAM cache setting made a big difference. I don't know what NORMAL is, but 10Gig runs well here. My sessions are 48 minutes or so...TV shows, 48K/24Bit.

Another thing that helped me, not really related to video, was the startup order of my studio. It's in the manual.

[Fish Horse]

Hi,

I had the same problem. The NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 doesn't handle ProTools + video very wel. In particular combined with HD cards there's a bandwith and/or memory problem I think.
We switched to ATI Radeon HD 5770 to drive 2 PT screens via DVI. Video out through a Blackmagic Design intensity Pro hdmi to flatscreen (200$). This combination works very good.

Strange enough, with the home rig (no HD core and accel card and no BM Intensity), video plays very smooth with the GT 120 connected to an old LaCie monitor (via DVI-SVGA adapter). ATI Radeon HD 5770 here as well, to drive 2 flatscreens.
If you want to use just one display for PT + video, I think the GT 120 is too light.
FWIW motion jpeg works best here. We convert with MPEG streamclip.

[hedgerocks]

Hey Larold,
Thanks for the input. We are running our sessions on RAM CACHE. Same thing. We set ours to about 10 gig. We pretty much never even come close to exceeding usage - our sessions rarely go over three gigs.

Fish Horse
This is really interesting. Two questions. How difficult is switching out the video cards? I get a little squirmy about getting into the guts of my boss' mac pro and potentially destroying everything.
Also why the need for the Blackmagic Design intensity Pro? Is it to get an hdmi signal out?

Same thing here. I use a much more pro-sumer rig - PT 10 on a digi 003 - and video playback is never an issue.

Thanks for the time and thoughts. I really appreciate it.

[Fish Horse]

Switching PCIe-cards in a mac is very easy. If you do it gentle it's really hard to destroy something. Check te Mac Pro manual before you start.
Why the BM Intensity Pro? I did some tests and it was the best solution to have our HD systems to be very responsive. It handles the video differently than a graphics card I think. Huge value for money.
One drawback could be that the combination of the ATI Radeon HD 5770 and the BM Intensity Pro leaves us no more than 2 PCI slots for the TDM cards. (unless you buy an expansion chassis) We switched from HD3 to HD2 just for that. A snappy system is more important for our daily work. When running out of power we switch to native plugins.