I have come to the end of the road there.

AMA playback is poor for me using 5D clips in MC5.0. Anyone having the same trouble?

Avid Community say to lower the playback quality to yellow, set AMA playback video settings to highly compressed (as against the quality setting), turn off hyper threading and use 25 fps.

The frame rate setting didn't help much.

I tried all of this last night and got improved results. I even installed Win 7 (64 bit) dual boot, hoping to squeeze just enough out of my old dual 2.8ghz Pentium Xeon Intellistation with Quadro FX 1400.

Playback is I guess maybe useable. I can scrub the timeline and get maybe every 5th frame. Playback will work for about 0.5 seconds of every second, ie: move, then freeze, move then freeze. Sound plays smoothly.

They say AMA is CPU heavy and I guess that editing machine upgrade I have been putting off (due to budget) has caught up with me. To go higher than what I have in a new quad core machine will be £5k or £4k build your own.

Anyone having more sucess with AMA playback. What machine are you using?

With regards

Jeff

Hi Jeff,

I don't have any 5D files but am using AVCHD files. They play back very well. My set up is a I7 with 6gigs of ram. The only thing it doesn't play full screen smoothly when on green . My friend is going to give me some 5D files next week, let you know how they play back then. By the way my system was only $1500.00 by a local builder.



Dan
Forever Moments Video Productions (http://www.forevermomentsvideo.com)

Hi, yes the same reply on the Avid Forum - get more RAM - I have 4 Gig and will update to 8.

Will let you know how that goes.

Yes the i7 builds can be done reasonably - the dual Xeons are a bit more expensive.

With regards

Jeff

It's been a while since I posted this. I canned the idea of more ram and am currently building a quad core i7.

It's been a while since I posted this. I canned the idea of more ram and am currently building a quad core i7.

Good, because that is what you need. Avid is a 32bit program and wouldn't use more than 3GB of RAM anyway.

I will caution you that using AMA for cutting 5D video is a BAD idea. If you're just trying to review your footage then it's fine. But I wouldn't cut anything other than the simplest of projects using AMA.

Perrone,

Just curious. What are your specific concerns about editing a project using AMA? I haven't had any problems so far editing quick turn-around projects,one even had 75 35Mbit XDCAM QT clips imported from HM 700. Cut my import time down from 3/4 of a day to instantaneous. Have others had issues?

Again more curious than anything.

David I think its the 5D linked AMA files that performance isn't great. I know with XDCAM is smooth as.

I have cut several projects with 5D AMA linked files and found that its only best for shorter clips (3-5min), playback is totally fine but when cutting in clips the computer goes busy longer and longer every time I insert a clip as my timeline gets longer. Not sure what it is but its very annoying.

So transcoding it all is still the best way to go, also transcoding AMA linked clips seems to be a lot faster than importing them.

Peter pretty much nailed it. XDCam is Mpeg2 which decodes pretty quickly. If you aren't doing a bunch of grading, and just your basic cuts, dissolves, and maybe some color correction, then all is well. But with the H.264 based stuff, it's painful. I batch convert my DSLR files into DNxHD for the most part and just work that way. Takes longer, but I'm much happier with the workflow.

I am currently cutting a film that was shot in XDCamEX. Timeline performance is ok, until I start stacking effects, like repositioning frames, using BCC Pan/Zoom, and MB Looks. Then things slow to a crawl. The same stuff transcoded to DNxHD absolutely fly on the timeline.

Interesting and makes sense. We're seriously about to purchase a Panasonic AF-100 (end of year money yea) and moving to ProRes record. Our tests so far with ProRes HQ show a little lag in playback compared to DNXHD, especially after color correction.

Does linked AMA clips change the load to be more processor intensive vs. DNXHD which sort balances the workload between processor, graphics card, and memory?

AMA linked clips are absolutely more CPU intensive than video that has been injested into the project. It gets much more so once you put an effect on an AMA linked clip.

I use AMA for my XDCam stuff and it works great. Once I know what I'm going to use in the project I import the AMA clips and transcode to NDxHD. I don't do any color correction or apply any effects till I have the basic timeline built and the footage transcoded.

For my 7d video I don't even try to use AMA. I just transcode to NDxHD from the start.

The computer I'm using is reasonably fast. Its an i7 running at 3.2ghz and 12gig of ram on Win7/64bit. I'm working on getting an Quadro video card but so far the GTS260 is working OK. I'm sure my real time performance would be better with the Quadro but I have NO problems with several layers of DNxHD footage playing in real time.

AMA is great for bringing things in and doing some rough editing. Its performance isn't good enough in my opinion to use for end-to-end processing on a complete project.

Strictly my opinion.

AMA is great for bringing things in and doing some rough editing. Its performance isn't good enough in my opinion to use for end-to-end processing on a complete project.

Strictly my opinion.

And one I share completely. Even with a VERY fast Quadro card.

AMA is great for bringing things in and doing some rough editing. Its performance isn't good enough in my opinion to use for end-to-end processing on a complete project.

Strictly my opinion.

I guess it depends on the project and how you define "rough editing". Not that I'm a MAC fan boy, but the project we quick turn-arounded (I know really bad) for our NASA customer was edited on a 3 year old eight core MAC with 8 Gb memory off of a 4 Tb G-raid FW 800 and 75 AMA clips. We noticed a huge performance improvement moving to Snow Leopard and version 5. I'll do some tests on our much slower 3 year old HP notebook for "unfair but curious" comparison. :)

The test for me is how vulnerable are the AMA volume links if you move projects from computer to computer or open bins in other projects.

But, in my opinion the performace will improve over time as always. I just like the speed and flexibility of AMA.

I guess it depends on the project and how you define "rough editing". Not that I'm a MAC fan boy, but the project we quick turn-arounded (I know really bad) for our NASA customer was edited on a 3 year old eight core MAC with 8 Gb memory off of a 4 Tb G-raid FW 800 and 75 AMA clips. We noticed a huge performance improvement moving to Snow Leopard and version 5. I'll do some tests on our much slower 3 year old HP notebook for "unfair but curious" comparison. :)

The test for me is how vulnerable are the AMA volume links if you move projects from computer to computer or open bins in other projects.

But, in my opinion the performace will improve over time as always. I just like the speed and flexibility of AMA.

What was the source footage? That is what we are saying here. Some sources work just fine. Others, not so much.

The source footage was 1080/24p XDCAM 35 Mbits per sec.
I need to get some 5D footage and do a test on the MAC.

MPEG2 performance with AMA is great. No problem there.

H264 as implemented on the 7d and 5d will bring most computers to their knees. The performance in MC5 is totally unsatisfactory for anything other than just playing clips. Then there are the colorspace conversion problems AMA linking or importing directly into MC. They are real, serious, and have not been fixed yet.

My advice for working with 5d and 7d footage is skip AMA completely (other than to maybe preview the footage). Do a transcode outside of Avid to an Avid native format then fast import. Otherwise you'll have crushed blacks and clipped whites.

I have access to a T2i today. Is the data rate/compression the same as the 7D and 5D?

Going to do tests with our setup on AMA.

Yes, they are all very similar.

I have access to a T2i today. Is the data rate/compression the same as the 7D and 5D?

Going to do tests with our setup on AMA.

It's the same as the 7D, and similar to the 5D.

So here's what my experience is with shooting 10 clips on a T2i of scenes around our building 1080 24p.

MacPro with 8 Core Processing, 8 Gb ram, 256 Mb Nvidia (3 years old don't remember the actual card number) Snow Leopard OS.

1. AMA direct linked clips G-raid 4Tb via FW 800: No issues
2. Plackback of clips: No major issues; Had caps lock on with audio scrubbing, very small lag, reminded me a little of HDV playback with version 2.5 about four years ago but not as bad as then.
3. 24p in 1080i Timeline mixed with 30p HDV mixed in: No issues, real-time playback..smooth .. even with the pulldown with 24p I didn't even have to refresh the pulldown.
4. Color issues: None: Needs to come in as as 709 not YBR.
5. Added V2 with titles: real-time playback no issues
6. Moved titles to V3 added V2 video cipls added superimpose; required rendering, but rendered very fast. Certainly fast enough to finish with.

So, overall on the MAC I would have no reservations editing Canon DSLR footage other than the fact i didn't like the camera itself.

So, Chris, not to be argumentative, but the following rhetoric and statement for my use is way over the top. I can't say this was my experience at all.

"The performance in MC5 is totally unsatisfactory for anything other than just playing clips.
Then there are the colorspace conversion problems AMA linking or importing directly into MC. They are real, serious, and have not been fixed yet."

So, what you guys are saying is that you need to beefy hardware to edit DSLR footage via AMA.

Even Premiere Pro and the Mercury playback engine requires some beefy hardware. So, don't blame the software.

The real test was can you easily re-link AMA clips if you move them. And my test says no. That makes sense. So, in my mind AMA is for projects that need to be ingested quickly where media management is not as critical.

I don't know about you guys but it works great for me. Next i'll test on 3 year Centrino Pro HP notebook.

Cheers.

Not taking your info as argumentative at all. It closely mirrors the discussion that has been going on over at Avids forum for a while now. MC5 on MAC users have not had the same trouble with Canon DSLR video that PC users have had.

Sorry if my frustration with importing 7d footage in MC5 boiled over a bit. Let me take a deep breath and communicate the issues a bit better.

Specifically the issue with colorspace conversion is this - when bringing video into MC5 (on the PC) the luminance valves are not mapped correctly but are instead truncated. The Canon DSLRs record full gamut 8 bit but when you bring that into a 709 colorspace project (on a PC with MC5) it gets truncated to 16-235 instead of being remapped to that range causing loss of highlight and shadow detail. This is the main reason why I recommend against using AMA with Canon DSLR files. Secondly is the amount of horsepower needed. Avid recommends dual quad core xenons to do it in real time (which your machine has).

On the EX1 I use Cinegama 4 which lets whites go above 235. MC5 when using AMA to access the BPAV folder of an archived memory card correctly interprets the luminance values and there is no loss of highlight detail.

Also there has been some stability complaints regarding XDCam footage and AMA. I personally have not had that experience on my machine.

And lastly my projects of late have been indie movies and have required more color correction to achieve the specific look the director wants. I have found that transcoding to a 10bit codec is better for such workflows. AMA would not be good to use here regardless of the editing performance of the machine.

OHHHHHHH!!!

I now see and feel your pain. I transferred three of the ten clips to a FAT 32 1 Tb G-raid via FW 400
and AMA imported on 3 year old Centrino notebook with 2 Gb Memory and 256 shared Nvidia graphics.
OS is Win XP, (I'm surprised version even runs on it.)

At "solid yellow on playback the direct import 1080/24p clips would start and stop in 1080i/60. Granted this is an older PC.
I linked the same clips into a 24p project(23.978) and timeline and had the same playback issues. In fact, they seemed to hang in the same exact frames.

I ingested into DNXHD 115 the same clips (boy it took nearly 15 minutes) and had no playback issues at all.

Now the strange part is that I played the clips in quicktime player on the same PC and they played fine So, I guess it is an Avid issue and not just a quicktime issue.

So I understand your frustration, I only plan to edit with AMA when I'm in a rush even on our XDCAM footage. Otherwise, we're doing direct ingest on larger projects for media mgt. reasons anyway.

I have access to a T2i today. Is the data rate/compression the same as the 7D and 5D?

Going to do tests with our setup on AMA.


I have an 8 core Dell PC, with a Quadro 4800 (1.5GB or RAM) and 8GB or system RAM. And I can tell you without question, playing files out of the 5D or my T2i isn't smooth. Particularly once I start adding some effects. Yes, it's fine for playback, I have no issues there. But once the work starts (indie films), AMA falls down for me. Transcode to DNx and I couldn't ask for a better editing experience.

Interesting and makes sense. We're seriously about to purchase a Panasonic AF-100 (end of year money yea) and moving to ProRes record. Our tests so far with ProRes HQ show a little lag in playback compared to DNXHD, especially after color correction.

Does linked AMA clips change the load to be more processor intensive vs. DNXHD which sort balances the workload between processor, graphics card, and memory?

David,

I'd suggest considering the nanoFlash over a ProRes recorder for the AF100. That's b/c:

1) The AF100 is 8-bit out, so any extra bits that ProRes uses aren't going to add quality.

2) The nano can make Avid compatible MXF files for native, non-AMA editing. I'd check over on the nano board for the exact workflow. I believe it is at worst, a fast import and at best, a drag and drop into a bin.

3) The nano is very small and well tested.

4) The low cost of batteries and recording media somewhat offsets a somewhat high price.

HTH.

Good advice. However, we have to consider the fact there are also FCP installs in a couple of NASA directorates. So, we feel like the KiPro mini and more importantly Quicktime currently represents a flexible post standard.

We have to play well with others.

Dave,

Just to clarify my post, the nano also makes Quicktime files as well and can be used directly in FCP.

I agree with the current debate that AMA is a disaster.

There were three things I wanted to acheive with the upgrade from Dual Pentium Xeon to i7.

1. Improve editing render speeds from FX.
2. Play AMA smoothly.
3. Improve mp4 render speeds.

1 Is a tick - improved render 300%.
2. Is an much better but not useable - especially since I am getting a CORE_CONSISTENCY_CHECK_FAILURE error - which is a disaster. Avoiding AMA for now.
3. Is a tick but I trashed Sorenson for a cheap renderer with CUDA functionality = TMPGEnc.

Not sure why everyone goes for the high end NVIDIA cards I can see no impact on the GPU editing or rendering in MC5. CPU is critical. GPU isn't and as Peronne said 4GB RAM is all one needs from what I can see.

Regards

Jeff

BTW, I edited linked AMA QT XDCAM 35 Mbits/sec on Macbook Pro w/4Gb of memory 256 Mb graphics w/o any hicccups over the weekend. So for me and the MAC side it is a stretch to call it a disaster. However, I think it is safe to say that native higher bit-rate H.264 editing is still not baked yet on Avid or FCP. It is just too processor intensive for now. So it is not for everyone.

They will fix this as PC's get more powerful. And by then we will have 3 and 4K footage that we will complain that we can't edit easily. :)

Agree 100% David. AMA has been anything but a disaster for me. I can pull my selects faster this way than with anything else I know of. In a proxy workflow it's VERY fast. And working with XDCam or similar I don't even have to transcode for smaller jobs.

No, real time playback of 5D and RED isn't great. But I don't need it to be. I wouldn't want h.264 on the timeline even if I could put it there.

But to each their own. AMA works great for me and for many others. Just depends on needs and workflow.

For me the core consistency error is a disaster. I cannot render my video out without a lot of dramas.

When AMA linked clips don't error in this way it will be very useful indeed.

Regards

Jeff

For me the core consistency error is a disaster. I cannot render my video out without a lot of dramas.

When AMA linked clips don't error in this way it will be very useful indeed.

Regards

Jeff

Have you contacted support about your problem? I've never seen this on either of my Avid machines. Don't know anyone else who has either.

There are two long threads about it on the Avid forums on Mac and PC.

Seems to be related to any external drives connected - perhaps by eSata. And any rendering done on those drives. AMA transcode is a re-render. I blew away my AMA transcoded files and it helped but still left with me about 25 frames at a key point I couldn't use.

Patch 3.0.5.5 was supposed to fix it. 3.0.5.6 worstened it and they pulled that - 3.0.5.7 was due out before the holiday but they didn't make it.

My problem maybe related to bringing my RAID across from my old machine. I have files I cannot blow until I complete this project.

I was following some assistance Avid support was giving to a fellow with a similar problem in the forum - but they left him for the holiday. They'll get on top of it. For now its been problematic.

Regards

Jeff

Thanks for the update man. I haven't been following the Avid forums for a couple weeks. I have two externally connected drives (G-Tech 4TB RAID0) but they are connected via USB at the moment since my eSATA card is wonky.

Maybe that's why I haven't seen this issue. I did see something come across the AVID-L today about this new patch though. I am running a totally unpatched MC5 and it's been great for me.

I think runnning 5.01 is the most stable - when I finish this project I am definitely going to blow away these raids and roll back.

Avid have really got into an unstable patch between 5.0.3.4 and 5.0.3.5. For example on .5 the head and tail fades are not working. Although it was supposed to fix this error some of us are getting.

At the moment the best strategy is not to patch unless your getting some of the specific problems they are supposed to address.

I have to say this is the worst period of stability I have seen since using avid for the last six years.

With regards

Jeff

I think it's actually rather remarkable that the glitches we are seeing in Avid are even noteworthy. These would be daily occurrences in other products.

But I learned long ago to not patch things when I have a stable version. I am confident they'll get it sorted out, and then I might patch if it adds something I need. AVCHD transcoding is something I'd like to have, and I think they added that, but it's not important enough for me to move into an area of instability.

I may be being overly optimistic, but I think there is more going on with the MC code base than meets the eye.

I suspect some of the problems we are experiencing is a result of preparing the software to use a larger frame size, i.e. 4K, and for porting it to 64 bits.

My guess, wholly unsubstantiated, is that these changes were started in the MC 5 code and are causing some of the problems we are seeing right now.

That could be.. given that it seems at least to me that it is more stable on Snow Leopard MAC (64bit) than Win 7. Avid generally pre-writes in code for features and functions for future releases.

To be quite honest, there hasn't ever been a perfect release from Avid...but I haven't encountered any show stoppers since we worked with Avid software and hardware in the early 90's. In those days you just shipped boards and drives back and forth to Avid until the problem resolved itself. Ah those were the days.

I am like the old man looking back to his childhood and that walked 8 miles to the school yard in the snow and by golly ...we liked it.

Jeff...Have you tried consolidating from the drive in question to another drive that you know works with 5.03? Also, don't forget to promote your sequences if asked by MC.

It could be the port to larger frame size, or 64 bit. The error I was experiencing was on Mac and PC. In fact when I googled it the Avid MC- Mac forum was the first site that returned (due to there being more posts).

In the end I took a hint from Perrone and rolled back to 5.0 and these problems went way.

Avid are in a huge pickle with the patches and have admitted rolling new ones out on the basis of 6 customers (multi-user sites - maybe 60 users) testing them. All manner of breaks and fixes are going on. 5.0.3.7 the hailed resolution for the problems with .5 and .6 now breaks Alt C copy to monitor and a number of other things.

For now, all I can say is I am leaving the patches well alone and am happy that linked AMA clips play like transcoded DNxHD clips for me on 5.0. This is what I was searching for with my upgrade and will fast start my editing heaps.

I am happy for now.

Regards

Jeff