DV rack HDV or Broadcast monitor ?

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

Originally Posted by Ken Hodson

I think it should be noted that HDVrack has an easier time with monitoring if you use the 720p HDV. Our P4 2.6 with 768mb handles it quite well. I use HDVrack on the laptop and svideo out to SD TV at the same time. Works great.
We use a firewire 800 card so I'm not sure if that plays into it or not?

How so? I use DVRack/HDV daily, and notice no performance difference between 720p and 1080i at all. I'm using a 3.06 GHz machine with a gig of RAM. (VAIO K37) Had both the JVC and the Sony cams on in Australia, noticed zero diff. Latency is the same on both when using firewire out (which is the only way you can use Rack).

[Ken Hodson]

Well Douglas, considering many are saying they are having problems getting full frame rate monitoring, I thought I would pass on my experience using the lower resolution HDV1. I glad your system has the ability to handle both resolutions well, but considering the HDV2 requires twice the bandwidth it is not surprising some laptops struggle at times. Heck our laptop can't even display 1080.

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

I'm not disputing some folks have less than perfect playback on some systems. But, your point was that Rack handles 720 "easier," which it does not. Straight from Serious Magic's tech support "Not possible, it's the same with either format" which is exactly what I experience both in production and demonstration.

[Ken Hodson]

From a HDD standpoint sure. But from a display monitoring angle it has an effect. That is why HDVrack has options to restrict the display for lesser systems. Being that 720p is smaller it should handle this easier than 1080 by default. Correct?

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

Originally Posted by Ken Hodson

From a HDD standpoint sure. But from a display monitoring angle it has an effect. That is why HDVrack has options to restrict the display for lesser systems. Being that 720p is smaller it should handle this easier than 1080 by default. Correct?

No, they display identically, in terms of size. They'll vary based on camera, sure. Color will be different, luma will be different, but that's based on what the camera says.

Get both cams, plug em' in side by side. The HD 100 doesn't display any "better" or "easier" than the HC1, A1u, FX1, or Z1. I've had all 5 camcorders in DV Rack, and can't say there is any "easier" or "better" about any one of them.

If you are referring to the fact that there are likely more laptops that are 1280 x 720 than laptop displays that are 1900 x 1200, that would be absolutely true. But Rack correctly scales the vid anyway, and playback size is no different, unless you set it up to be as such.

[Ken Hodson]

Well it would be my guess that one would always try to get the exact same rez for monitoring as what is being captured.
"Get both cams, plug em' in side by side. The HD 100 doesn't display any "better" or "easier" than the HC1, A1u, FX1, or Z1. I've had all 5 camcorders in DV Rack, and can't say there is any "easier" or "better" about any one of them."
Douglas your laptop is powerfull enough that it is not stressed by either. I never stated that you were going to get something magically better from 720. Its going to play it full rez or it is going to drop frames. Thats it.
I am talking about a system that stuggles with full 1080. There are many that have this problem with laptops that are higher spec than mine. Yet mine has no problem with 720. That is why HDVrack has options to restrict the monitor size. So if your system can't play full rez you can back it down. Right? So if you are trying to display 720p would this not be easier on a lesser machine that yours, then full 1080?

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

I guess I couldn't say. A VAIO k37 is a dog by current standards, and given that it's barely above the required minimum for DVRack with the HDV plugin and I'm not having probs with it, I suppose someone with a slower machine might be dropping frames. I can't see 720 being any better, but looking at the PROC, which tells the whole load story, the proc is displaying the same weight for 720 vs 1080 on my system. That's the only thing I can really go by.
Either way, it's really a moot point. Either your laptop can manage it or it can't. If the weight on the proc is the same, it doesn't really matter which proc you have, does it?

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

One thought just struck me...and I need to get the JVC back in my hands to verify this...
DVRack/HD only reads the I & P frames. Whether at full or half rez.
Therefore in theory, and Serious Magic tech support just backed this theory up...JVC's short GOP is actually LESS efficient than the long GOP of 1080 from Canon/Sony.
Whether at half or full rez, the more I frames in the decode, the more challenging the decode is.
Remember due to the lack of pixels, Rack is NEVER displaying the full signal no matter what on capture.

[Ken Hodson]

Are you saying your laptop doesn't display full 1080?

720p at a short GOP and 1080i in long GOP might be very much the same to the cpu, although this has not been proven out in the NLE world. It is the video system that is getting taxed. If you are not monitoring at full 1080 and 720 then comparing how the system handles it, then the comparison is sort of worthless I would think.

[Colvin Eccleston]

Note there is a new release of HDVRack that has changes to the way video is displayed on the monitor.

[John Hartney]

I'm using a Dell 9300 with a GO6800 card, 2gigs of matched ram, only a 1.6Mprocessor on board and get full frame rate and no drops to external drives.

[Sean McHenry]

To back up a notch or two, I think we decided on another forum that one of the best reasons to use DVRack was that you are depending on the D/A sections of the cameras to give you a true representation of what's happening in the DV/HDV digital streams. With the newer more expensive cameras this is probably more accurate than the older smaller cameras like mine, the PDX-10.

For similar reasons one wouldn't trust thier flip-out displays, one might not want to fully trust the D/A circuits in their cameras to be 100% spot on. If you watch the 1394 output with DVRack, you should be seeing a digital representation of the digital signal on the 1394 line, the real stream.

That's why I use it when I can for DV work.

Sean