I have two performance related issues with my Avid MC 8.6.0 (Perpetual License) that I have been struggling with:
1. Working with Linked Media is painfully slow, forcing me to import / transcode all media before I can work in the timeline. This affects both HD and 4K projects.
2. It is nearly impossible to render a 4K video from a 4K project. Rendering a 2-second sequence on the timeline in a 4K project shows render time as 2-3 hours and as the render goes on, keeps increasing the time it will take. In this scenario hitting Ctrl+. doesn't abandon the render, leaving me no choice but to do a force shutdown on Avid.
Does anyone have any insight as to where the bottleneck might be?
Have you run the OS resource monitor and looked at whats using resources and how much? That should be a good start.
You could try moving a small amount on media to the OS drive and rendering to that drive to eliminate the external drive.
Whats your project format? Its not RGB is it?
What codec are you rendering to?
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Hi,
This sounds like a quicktime issue. Not much you can do about that.
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You don't mention what sort of media you're linked to.
Something like Red Raw will tax your system far more than (say) ProRes.
Even so, the render times you quote seem to indicate you have some sort of problem - possibly hardware related.
Most modern laptops can handle 4K reasonably well, although with Raw footage, you're unlikely to get full playback speed.
Thanks everyone for your comments. I am going to try and answer everyone here in order.
Pat Horridge -
1. Yes, I have run the OS resource monitor, I see plenty of memory available. During the render, I see 100% CPU utilization for a couple of seconds, which then drops back to nothing (same behavior as a 2K successful export). However, on the 4k export, I suspect there is a deadlock as immediately after my Avid MC gets hung and is unresponsive to Ctrl+. or any other key strokes. This happens after the dialog box that shows file rendering goes to the 2nd pass of render.
2. I should have clarified that the 2TB SSD IS my internal OS drive.
3. My project format is UHD 3840x2160. Colorspace YCbCr 709.
4. I am trying to render a 3840x2160 file in H.264 format. I have been testing exporting various resolutions. I am able to render files of resolution all the way up to 3264x1836 but not much larger than that as when I try to render 3282x1846, I encounter this error and Avid becomes unresponsive.
Jeroen van Eekeres - Would it be a Quick Time issue if I am able to render 4K in other formats (such as .AVI and MPEG4) but not with the H.26 codec? Some internal error or deadlock seems to be occuring which makes Avid itself unresponsive.
Bruno M-
I actually imported the file (to remove any issues with linked media) so I am working off DnxHR LB Avid Transcodes. Both my source and destination is the same 2TB Internal SSD drive I mentioned in my original post.
I am aware modern laptops can handle 4K. I am trying to figure out why mine isn't. As far as I can tell this shouldn't be a hardware issue as I have a robust system, fast internal drive for both source and destination, and I don't see any glaring problems in the Resource Monitor either. I suspect a deadlock issue or else why would Avid become non-responsive as well? As I wrote above, I am able to render all the way up to a resolution of 3264x1846 but trying to render 3282x1846 or higher resolution makes Avid unresponsive.
Any other insights you all might have would be helpful.
Thanks,
Swati
Hi Swati
It looks as if you've ruled out everything else and your system is working as expected, except for exporting H.264 at UHD resolutions.
To be honest, I've not used Avid's inbuilt H.264 codec for years. It's slow and (I suspect) not utilising the multiple cores in modern CPUs. You mentioned the 2nd pass, so I'm guessing you have 'best quality' switched on in the codec options. This makes matters worse with completely ridiculous render times. I suspect this codec hasn't been updated by Avid for many years, and as Jeroen has commented, may be tied to the (now) obsolete Quicktime codecs.
I would recommend you follow what many other people do (and what I recommend to my students) and export Same-as-Source (which should be pretty quick) and use a separate encoding application to do your H.264 files. I can recommend Handbrake - it's free and available for multiple platforms. Make sure you get it from the official site as there's some web sites that scam you into paying out cash. the site is as follows...
https://handbrake.fr
Yup I'd go along with Bruno.
It may even be a limit of the 32bit quicktime process and the amount of data to process.
Export as same as source and use an external H264 encoder like shutter encoder
The newer 2020 MC has a reworked export engine that doesn't need Quicktime and thats much better for H264 (but little help to you)
Thanks Bruno and Pat.
Ok. I can render Same as Source for Avid and then use Handbrake (which seems to have the render size limitation of UHD 3860 x2160 without any bitrate limitation) or Shutter Encoder (which can render upto full 4K 4096x2160). For a moment I thought the Shutter Encoder had a bitrate limitation of 50Mbps becuase the dropdown for bit rate shows the max option of 50Mbps, but I realized that it allows entering a higher bit rate manually. A higher bit rate at full 4K is important to me as I sometimes need to export for DCPs, which are recommended to have a maximum bitrate of 250Mbps.
The other problem I had was really slow performance when working with linked files in both HD and especially UHD/ 4K timelines. I can see the linked files often have .H264 codec so I guess Quicktime issues are the underlying cause for this too, and I will need to import/ transcode any H264 input files. It's a bit of a pain but at least workable!
Thanks for your help and insight with this.
Hi Swati,
swati.filmmaker:Would it be a Quick Time issue if I am able to render 4K in other formats (such as .AVI and MPEG4) but not with the H.26 codec?
It could. Please have a look in the resource monitor if you see quicktime using up resources during play/transcode/render and how many cores it utilizes.
Back in the days when we were selling MC 8.6.x many customers found HD h264 media coming from Canon 5D camera's was already unworkable on most multiprocessor workstations. Often disabling numa and hyperthreading in the bios would improve (single core) performance combined with updating quicktime to 7.7.9 but never to anything good enough.
DCPs are indeed 250Mbps but thats with the Jpeg2K codec not H264. You can't compare datarates across different codec families. I'd say H264 isn't suitabel for DCP deliveries. I'd be looking at DNXHR HQX
Pat Horridge:I'd say H264 isn't suitabel for DCP deliveries. I'd be looking at DNXHR HQX
I'm in agreement with Pat here - not sure why there's this desire to stick with H.264, especially if you're creating Long GOP.
An intraframe codec such as Prores or DNxHD/HR is better suited for delivery and used by most professionals.
Frame.io have a clear 5 min discussion on editing codecs that explains the issues...
https://workflow.frame.io/guide/editing-codecs
Pat Horridge:DCPs are indeed 250Mbps
I've heard (through forums such as LiftGammaGain) that DCPs with 250Mbps data rates can cause problems with projectors - especially older units that may not be able to consistantly handle the very highest bit rates. There's no need for anything like 250Mbps when you're creating 2K flat/scope DCPs. Even for 4K, the recommendation seems to be that you don't go much above 210Mbps.
Thanks Bruno should have remembered that. 250Mbps is the max.
I think I've heard 200Mbps as the set it and forget it datarate. If you can't see any visual compression artefacts (that aren't source related) then you don't need more.
Thanks Jeroen for the pointer on disabling numa and hyperthreading in the bios. Now that I have become aware of the issues with Avid and Quicktime codec, I am likely to render same as source and use a conversion software. However, I am tempted to do the exercise with disabling hyperthreading just to see how that changes performance and will do that test at my end.
Thanks Pat for the reminder about the Jpeg2K codec for DCPP I was so down the hole with making sure that I had a handle on all types of H264 conversions that I totally forgot about that! Indeed, for DCP render I would be using Prores or DNxHD/HR, not H.264.
Thanks Bruno for sharing the article on editing codecs, it served as a good clarifier and reminder.
I think I am all set, thanks to you all!
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