My facility has been noticing more and more bugs with our new setup of Symh Nitris DX and Interplay. Here's another one (or,rather,two):

When placing titles/gfx in a nested effect, and then 3D warp on top to resize pix smaller over a background, 2 things happen:
First: the titles &/or gfx resized w/pix are extremely fuzzy,and the video in the box itself is fuzzy,though less so.
Second: any dissolves---rendered or not...within the nested efx show the layer BELOW the nested effect (I know I'm explaining this poorly)for a brief duration during the dissolve. What the heck?
These problems DID NOT OCCUR using the SAME EFFECT BUILD when we were using Classis SYymphony Nitris.
If I replace the 3D rezise with XPRESS 3D effect 3DPIP, the softness dissapears and the dissolve renders properly,so it's a workaround.
What the heck is wrong with 3D WARP that it would have such a negative effect on pix quality and dissolves in DX?

We have changed over from Classic Nitris/Media Manager to a newer (not THE newest) version of Nitris DX, running Win Xp on HP8600s,with a newer (again,not the NEWEST) version of Interplay.
With this probelm (above) and with my (earlier posted) issue of having to fully render every longform output(unless I take video effect safe mode off)...so far DX has been not much fun to work with.

Can anyone think of any reasons why 3D warp would negativeyl effect resize??
Thanks
Rob NYC

The Nirtis DX has a draft mode, unlike the Nitris Classic, it sounds like you're in draft. This would explain the drop in picture quality.

In 3.5 the Polyphase render setting was added, it was a console command for years: "setresizetype 9". Its the advanced option in the Render settings.  Any type of resize, that's rendered, will be very high quality. In 4.0 this option was added for real-time effects.

The benefit and the ultimate bottle neck of Nitris Classic classic is the hardware boards. The benefit is there are custom designed boards in the computer that have the Avid codecs and chips dedicated to specific effects on it. Because of this, there’s a certain level of guaranteed performance. So for a lot of base band SD/DNxHD the Nitris Classic is fantastic.

But this level of performance can never be increased; only a specific number of streams will every be able to pass through the board and only the codecs that are on the board. Because of the PCIx slots required for the Nitris Classic, the xw8400 is the fastest computer it will run on. It's very expensive to engineer these boards especially in light of rapid advancement of GFX and CPU Processor technology. 

Symphony is a 32 Bit application. With Windows XP the hardware, which uses 1.5 gig on its own, and Symphony software have to live in 2.5/2.7 gig of RAM. This doesn't leave much RAM for the Symphony.

But with Vista 64, Symphony (Media Composer and NewsCutter) was specifically written so that the software and hardware can live on different layers. Symphony will use 4 gig on its own and the hardware, Nitris Classis or DX, will use an additional 1.5 gig.

This is a dramatic improvement in performance.

With every release, additional effects are multi-processor aware. So the more powerful the computer and GFX cards are, the faster the Symphony will operate.

Thanks for the quickly reply,Bob. You're always very helpful!

Rob

Bob...just tested the same problem out.My settings WERE set to polyphase. 3D with resize degrades video. Changing to 3D PIP (Express 3D effect) does NOT degrade signal when resizing.

???

rob

What version of SN are you using? What project type, raster setting and what video format are you working with?

Are you certain you're in full quality and not draft?

Turn off any parameters in 3D Warp you aren't using and try promoting it to advanced keyframes. Have you tried the PIP effect? Are you changing the format: i.e. 16:9 to 4:3? Have you tried a Reformat Effect?

Did you render the effect? The Polyphase setting is for rendered effects.

bob;

We're running:

Symphony Nitris (DX) 3.5.4.11
Isis 2.0.4.1480
Avid Framework 1.2.0.148
Windows XP -SP 3
HP8600 PCs

Format where 3DWarp resized- picturre degradation occurs is in both SD and 1080i projects. NO mixed-rez sequences and all sequences are fully rendered.

Render set to:
Image Interpolation: advanced-polyphase (not draft or standard....both of these other choices,when enabled,make the degradation in video even WORSE when resized/shrunk using 3D warp). Not to mention any effect nested within (title dissolve,blur-on,etc): in all seperate effect INpoints, you could "see through" the dissolve or effect to layer underneath nest. VERY VERY wierd.
I took away all original 3D paramaters from former saved effect icon and re created 3D resize /border effect from scratch. 

In aLL cases, the workaround is using Xpress 3D effect 3D-PIP instead of 3D Warp. Picture looks fine (so do gfx or titles) in this instance.

And,finally,when we did these same builds using Classic Nitris, there was never a problem using 3D warp for this effect.Not once.

So,for now,we're using 3D pip. I havent had a chance to try other methods as I'm too busy getting our 5 systems to run for everyone,as well as refreshing everyone with interplay (which i LOVE,by the way). Just want to know why 3D warp is so funky with our system.

But did you render the effect.  It sounds like it runs in low quality till rendered.  I think Pan and Zoom behaves in a similar manner.

Yes,entire sequence is fully rendered.

This has been reported to Avid;there is something wrong with certain 3D parameters with DX and interplay,as well.

When dragging in an older sequence from interplay (from a previous day's project), not only does the 3D warp resize effect create disturbingly soft and fuzzy video, but even in a nested effect within the 3D resize box,the render shows through to the unnested video layer below. Avid suggested we use a different effect, so we used Xpress 3D PIP. THis maintained our pix quality(mno more blur or fuzziness), but the rendered effect within this box still shows thorugh to the layer below. VERY wierd.

Solution is to re-create the entire sequence,replacing the video and effects. See-through is then GONE. VEry wierd. If I do the unthinkable and file-open-bin the older sequence,then duplicate it and drag it into my day-of project sequence bin (instead of dragging and duplicating it from Interplay), all problems cease. I think it's a problem with Interplay sequences. It's being looked into.

It sounds like something is happening to the sequence when its checked-in to Interplay. The traditional Post/Project Sharing workflow is fully supported with Interplay.  For good reason the workflow designer might have instructed you to not use Project sharing, but if you're having this issue, for the time being at least, you should be using project sharing to share sequences.

Not sure of the answer. I"ll pass it along to our media manager. Thanks again,Bob.

Rob

Hi Rob,

Just to let you know, this case has made it to the highest levels now and is being worked on with Customer Success as we speak. Check with your Engineering Manager for status and let us know how things progress.

Thanks,

Will do,and thanks Todd.

RR