Hi,

I have just installed/upgraded to Media Composer 6 and the playback is very sluggish compared to 5.51. The playback stutters playing a sequence linked via AMA which previously played perfectly prior to upgrading from 5.51.

I am running Media composer on an iMac 2009 Quad Core i7 which dual boots between Windows 7 (Media Composer 6) and Mac OSX Snow Leopard (Media Composer 5.52). I have 16GB of RAM installed and a GRAID 2TB Drive connected via FW800 holding all my prores hq footage which I AMA into my system.

As I mentioned before, the project I was working on ran smoothly as expected on Windows 7 & MC 5.52 via AMA but as soon as I upgraded to MC6 the sequence no longers plays back without stuttering.

To eliminate my hardware I restarted in Mac OSX SL, started up my old MC 5.52 and the sequence plays perfectly.

I have reinstalled the Codecs PE but no improvements. I am stumped and wondered has anyone else had this issue?

Thanks in advance for any adice on how to solve,

Tris

 

 

 

I found the opposite but I don't work on MAC so I can't be sure.

Just in case have you enabled the Fast Srub at timeline settings?

Hi George,

Thanks for the response but no I havent enabled fast scrub. Also to clarify, I am working on a fast iMac but running Windows 7 Ultimate, so it's a Windows PC for trouble shooting purposes. It did take me a good 10 hours to get the install/upgrade to launch as it kept crashing out giving the AMPI error. I fixed this by uninstalling and then rinstalling my Pace drivers, then MC6 launched successfully. 

However since then it is not snappy at all, unless of course i reinstall 5.52 onto windows 7.

My guess is that there is some driver hogging up the pipeline, though it all ran beautifully prior to the upgrade.

If you enable fast scrub does things go better or they stay the same?

Hi George,

The fast scrub makes no difference it still sticks throughout. If I disable all the audio tracks it plays well enough, though the same applies if I turn off the video tracks - so mabe something is drastically eating bandwidth i don't know. 

After spending a full day installing and uninstalling the software to actually get it to launch in the first place (replacing the Pace drivers did the trick) I am going to uninstall it all again, removing the extra folders by hand and try a fresh install.

I will report my progress here. It's very frustrating, why does avid fragment everything so much that we have to spend such a large amount of time updating all the components/hunt for licences etc.

Avid simplify, because the Media Composer experience starts the minute you decide to install the editor and the world now expects to work in nice enviornments that are user friendly.

Tris

Tris,

PC editing is a very difficult work as it isn't one thing only to blame.

You really never know what is to blame 100%.

I am sure you know that.

Here I don't have any difficulty running MC6.

I did nothing special I tell you.

I just uninstall the previous version and install the new one.

Uninstall everything that has Avid's tag on it.

ALL the Suite, Pace drivers and everything!

Then delete all the folders and inside ProgramData (hidden folder).

Run a regclean (you can find a simple one inside CCleaner).

After you are sure there are no trace of Avid (in reality there will always be unless you

delete all traces by hand in registry which is a difficult task to do) install the new one.

Thanks George, I am currently uninstalling by hand and appreciate the recommendation to remove reg entries which I would have omitted. I do realise that PC editing is fraught with many different issues that can effect successful installs but surely an Avid uninstaller could be designed? Though this is a discussion for another board and time! I am grateful for your advice on fixing this issue, which is the important point here, I will let you know how I get on. Thanks, Tris

The redesign of the uninstaller would be a great idea.

I hope they will listen to you.

I hope also everything goes well for you.

As someone once told me when I was just starting out as an engineer, that true speed of software = software speed / version number. I know it doesn't help you tris but I thought might give you a little giggle.

I've put MC6 on a test parition and I'm comparing it MC5.5.3.1 on my main partition with a known test sequence that I've created. I haven't noticed any major differences but I felt that MC6.0 was a bit slower. It's difficult to test when it's not side-by-side as I have to boot in different partitions but I didn't see any benefits from the 64-bit architecture (yet).

Since MC5.5 doesn't have an AMA plug-in for AVCHD, I did try this on MC6.0. I've got  2 x Xeon 5150's at 2.66GHz each with 2 cores in them. All cores hit 100% and then they drop rather rapidly after a good bit of time - I think it was about half-way through the clip or so. This is 1920x1080/50i at around 17mbps. Before the drop in CPU usage, there is the stuttering as you would expect with the CPUs at 100%.

mtahir:

I felt that MC6.0 was a bit slower. It's difficult to test when it's not side-by-side as I have to boot in different partitions but I didn't see any benefits from the 64-bit architecture (yet).

In contrary @i5 or i7 the difference is more than obvious and especially with some of Avid's plugin.

Exports and transcodes are way faster. Some plugins also are more than RT at rendering.

Not all but some. Illusion RT plugins were using 20% then and now they hit the roof.

I have some tests to my MC 6 Diary (sensore now) thread.

I did notice imports/exports/transcodes were quicker because now I can see all the CPU cores being utilised to 100%. I think that's the key difference that I see i.e. the ability to for MC to use all of the CPU available. Certainly that's a huge step forward. Obviously, I now realise I don't have enough cores!

Unfortunately, for me, I use the Avid Analog Mojo for capture and downcoverts to my client monitor, so MC6 use is out for me at the moment since it doesn't support it. I do use a lot of AVCHD footage and I really like the AMA side of it but I'm content with letting it all import. With MC6 all this would be a lot quicker too.

The irony is that I the Pioneer DVR-520H which is extremely old now is recognised and can be used to view downconverted footage but of course there is that delay. That's one of the reasons I bought Mojo. Prior to this, I used to use the Matrox P750 triple head video card which wasn't supported with AXP5.x so I had to change to nVidia and get a Mojo. Now, Matrox is supported again through the Matrox Mini. Seems like I'm on a carousel...

Right Guys,

I uninstalled Avid MC6 completely, deleted residual files and folders and purged the registry (thanks for the software tip George) but once I reinstalled MC6 I still have stuttering playback!

I reinstalled all AMA plugins and updated QT to 7.7 tesing each stage but no change. To remind everyone I am dual booting Windows 7 and Mac OSX. Windows 7 running MC6 stutters playing basic AMA seuence running of a G-raid whereas dualbooting into Mac OSX SL running MC 5.52 playing the same sequence via AMA running off the same G-Raid plays beautifully. 

The AMA footage has all been transcoded to ProRes HQ so should be no problems there.

I ran the sequence and did CPU and Memory tests as it stuttered; the CPU peaked at 30% and the Memory was 4.69GB of 16GB so tons of headroom.

Could there be either an AMA plugin error or an Audio Driver error which is conflicting? As I said I have spent 2 days uninstalling and reinstalling everything on a clean system and out of ideas.

I am at a loss and very frustrated.

Surely others are having this issue?

All help welcome!

Tris

The small amount of video memory you have is a large detriment to performance. You need 1 gig of DDR5...

TVJohn I have 16gb of fast ram installed so plenty of headroom. The memory test as detailed above showed 4.69GB used of 16GB during playback.

Ram not the issue.

Tris

edit

I missread your post. You are sugesting my video card can't cope. Again, this is not the issue as this sequence played on the same machine prior to upgrade on BOTH Windows 7 and Mac osx partitions. So we can eliminate the iMac. It is a fast machine, handles Red AMA like a dream and I run it through it's paces on every tapeless job with no real issues. To recap this is a basic sequence of ProResHQ material linked via AMA. Nothing stressful it should cope better than 5.52 considering it is a 64bit App!

I speak of memory on the video card. Read this article and consider that there may be similarities in the way the NLE applications utilize the Graphic card.

http://www.studio1productions.com/Articles/PremiereCS5.htm