I’m working on a documentary with quite a lot of files and about 250 hours of footage. I find the performance in the timeline quite sluggish after a day of work. The only thing that seems to help is to delete the database files (msmMMOB, msmDB) and have MC rebuild the database. But this takes about 20 minutes, so it’s not something I want to do in the middle of the day.
All files are stored on a 16 TB Thunderbolt 3 raid drive using an iMac Pro (see my specs).
Anyone have suggestions to improve performance ?
Is there a console command to rebuild all drive's database at once ?
rebuilding databases shouldn't have any effect on perfomrance unless they become damaged.
Those databases are loaded into RAM and used while the session is active.
Are you sure just quiting MC and restarting aren't helping performance? Or any other apps running that are eating resources?
Rebuilding a database that isn't damaged just makes a new copy exactly the same as the alst one.
AMA databases can cause a drain and can be deleted (they live on your boot drive)
Broadcast & Post Production Consultant / Trainer Avid Certified Instructor VET (Retired Early 2022)
Still offering training and support for: QC/QAR Training - Understanding Digital Media - Advanced Files * Compression - Avid Ingest - PSE fixing courses and more.
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+1 for Pat's suggestion of clearing AMA management folder on the regular.
OP, you may also consider cleaning up your unity attic or adjusting your autosave settings, as large attic folders can cause system sluggishness.
Dave
Post Production Infrastructure Engineer
"A very big network"
Unless you have an unusual amount of MXF folders, media database usually have minimal impact to overall performance. And if you do have unusually high amount of MXF folders (>50) only certain behavior are affected. It is usually opening, closing, saving and renaming bins or timelines.
Do you have a lot of unrendered FX? How much RAM do you have?
DQS
www.mpenyc.com
A few tips (which you may know):
1) Make sure you're not using any linked AMA files in your sequence. Go to clip-color in the timeline submenu (bottom left) and turn off everything except "linked clips" – should be easy to spot any AMA clips.
2) Render everything (all your video and audio tracks).
3) Select "draft quality " in the video quality menu on timeline (lower left green/yellow square).
4) Turn off dupe-detection, particularly if you have "audio dupe detection" on. I love dupe-detection but have made keyboard shortcuts to turn it off so I can work faster. It takes extra time everytime you move the timeline for the Avid to draw the dupes. This is much more pronounced on network storage though.
5) Turn off dissolve icons, color, space and time icons in you timeline. Even turn off Effect Icons if you want (I find that too crazy). Same reason as #2. Timeline sub-menu for these things.
6) Enable Playlength. You can do this in the console or use the button from the command palette. Under the "Play" tab, it's called "Playlength Toggle". This makes it so you can only play 1 minute of your sequence and definitely speeds things up. Gotta be careful because sometimes you screen for someone and forget it's on and 1 minute into the film it stops.
Thanks for the help.
This is my first project in 4K (DNxHR LB). Talking about effects, is it normal that a simple title made with New Blue Titler (no shadow, no nothing) require a render to play real time (in draft yellow/green mode) ?
Mixed frame-rates also will slow down the timeline a lot. So, for instance, if you have a 23.98 project and use a bunch of 29.97 footage that was transcoded to keep the clips frame-rate (a good idea) it will be slow. If you have a ton of green dots on your clips you can render them.
Not sure if this is your issue, but when you mentioned DNxHR LB I thought of this (because that's when I use it).
You are right, I do have mixed frame rates... I'll do a test with only project native fps clips in a sequence to see if it makes a difference.
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