Forward compatible card for win7, cs5 and cineform

[Rich Perry]

Can anyone recommend a new video card that currently supports cineform, CS3 and windows 7 but also will be forward compatible with CS5 and the new mercury engine? Ideally it would support 2 or 3 monitors plus overlay to an HD display or HDTV. Currently I use a Matrox APve which works great with CS3 and Vista but this is an old card now and there is discontinued support for Windows 7

The Abobe blogs seem to recommend the Nvidia Quadro cards (perhaps GeForce GTX 285 or better still Quadro FX 4800) is there still an issue with nvidia, overlay and cineform in CS3?

Any recommendations would be appreciated!

[Perrone Ford]

Originally Posted by Rich Perry

The Abobe blogs seem to recommend the Nvidia Quadro cards (perhaps GeForce GTX 285 or better still Quadro FX 4800) is there still an issue with nvidia, overlay and cineform in CS3?

I wish I could tell you man, but what I can say is I absolutely LOVE my FX4800. GOOD GRACIOUS is that card fast. If the Quadro cards will work for your application, I have no problem recommending them.

[Rich Perry]

Perrone, the FX4800 looks to be an awsome card, not out of the question for a new purchase and it seems it will be supported in CS5. I am assuming I can run 2 display port monitors + DVI out to an HD monitor for video overlay. Question, how does this work with CS3, CS4 and cineform, are there any issues with overlay to an HD monitor? - I need 2 large work station monitors and also an HD monitor but have read some issues about cineform and overlay with nvidia, is this still the case, thanks for the advice!

[Perrone Ford]

Like I said, I can't answer your question. I neither use Cineform, nor Premiere. Hopefully, someone else can answer your question.

[Rich Perry]

No problem Perrone, anyone with any info on this?

[Chad Haufschild]

Hey, Rich. Well, your question has a couple of layers and one is still in the speculative stage at best, so I apologize if things get a little convoluted.

If you want Mercury engine compatibility you have to get NVidia, no other choices right now. The engine as it stands now (remember it hasn't been released yet so things can change) is dependent on CUDA enabled GPUs. That's NVidia stuff. The issue you read about between Cineform and NVidia isn't a Cineform issue. It's NVidia's problem and I'd be shocked it this isn't about to be or hasn't already been fixed in a driver update.

The good news is that anything you buy new will work with the Windows 7/SC3/Cineform combo (assuming the NVidia issues have been fixed). What no one can really tell you is what CS5 and the Mercury engine will require upon its release. We can all speculate and guess and over-buy just in case, but we really don't know...

As for the HD monitor output, you may consider a separate AJA card for that (cs3 supported). It means an added expense, but I think you'll be much happier with the output signal. If you're using the HD monitor for critical color correction or even for Client presentation you'll appreciate the quality improvement and the expense will be worth it.

[Mike Harrington]

in regards to the overlay...i hear ATI/AMD is better at handling this

if you are using windows 7 you can run 2 different brands of graphics cards and get the best of both worlds....i.e. run a quadro and pick up a cheap ATI for overlay support

[Rich Perry]

Thanks for all the help guys... much appreciated!, video card hardware is not my strong point. It seems no one is really too sure on NVidia anymore and overlay with CS3 and Win7 although it will likely be the only game in town for for CS5 GPU acceleration from what we have been told.

For a short term solution, are there any ATI cards anyone can recommend that will feed 2 dvi monitors and an HDTV, that works with cs3/cineform/windows7
(Radeon 575?)

[Adam Gold]

Originally Posted by Chad Haufschild

The issue you read about between Cineform and NVidia isn't a Cineform issue. It's NVidia's problem and I'd be shocked it this isn't about to be or hasn't already been fixed in a driver update.

I'm not sure how current my info is, but here's my understanding of the overlay issue, based on responses I've gotten from both NVidia and Cineform. I hope someone will clarify if I'm mistaken.

Overlay (full screen monitoring of the timeline to an external monitor during playback [and I may even have this definition wrong but that's how it's been explained to me]) works fine natively within Premiere with most any card at this point. Cineform's products break this and they have no plans to re-enable software overlay, relying on the card's hardware overlay to accomplish this. NVidia removed this ability from their cards in a driver/firmware "update" a while ago due to HDCP issues and they have stated they have no plans to re-enable hardware overlay, ever, in any 64-bit OS nor any version of Vista or later. So in a sense it is a Cineform issue and it won't be "fixed" because in NVidia's mind it is a feature, not a bug. If you search back a while among the threads I quoted their email to me in full that explains this.

If you still use an old 32-bit XP driver (now a couple of years old ) you can still have this under Cineform.

ATI cards still work but the Cineform guys aren't crazy about the way they handle color. And as noted above, the whole MPE stuff apparently won't apply to ATI cards (yet).

I bought a Quadro card a while ago that specifically had this ability because the GeForce cards didn't. When NVidia killed hardware overlay, I switched to an ATI and now have a very expensive Quadro sitting on my shelf.

Even though most ATI and NVidia cards these days have three outputs, I believe only two can be active at a time. I could be wrong about this.

[Rich Perry]

Adam, Thanks so much for the detailed update, now the series of events that have occured with overlay (timeline monitoring) cineform and Nvidea make perfect sense.

[Chad Haufschild]

Originally Posted by Adam Gold

NVidia removed this ability from their cards in a driver/firmware "update" a while ago due to HDCP issues and they have stated they have no plans to re-enable hardware overlay, ever, in any 64-bit OS nor any version of Vista or later. So in a sense it is a Cineform issue and it won't be "fixed" because in NVidia's mind it is a feature, not a bug.

I am officially shocked! Wow! What a classic example of passing the blame. If anyone, we should blame HDCP. It's caused all kinds of problems and headaches for developers.

Truth be told I'm an AMD/ATI guy. The fact that a large portion of CS5 performance is built around the Intel/NVidia platform irritates me.

Anyway, Adam's right about the outputs. Most cards will do a main DVI and then an either/or DVI/HDMI. There are quad cards out there built more around gaming that have 4 DVI, one being the DVI or HDMI variety. There are a few workstation cards with DVI or D-sub. No HDMI option on those. These are dual GPU cards usually. Lots of horsepower and the price to go along with it.

[Perrone Ford]

Originally Posted by Chad Haufschild

Anyway, Adam's right about the outputs. Most cards will do a main DVI and then an either/or DVI/HDMI. There are quad cards out there built more around gaming that have 4 DVI, one being the DVI or HDMI variety. There are a few workstation cards with DVI or D-sub. No HDMI option on those. These are dual GPU cards usually. Lots of horsepower and the price to go along with it.

I think mine does dual DVIs with the adapter, and also 1 or 2 display ports. I know it does at least three heads, just not sure about a fourth. But no doubt, you pay through the nose for it.

[Rich Perry]

OK my wallet took the plunge and bought an Nvidia FX4800 in anticipation for CS5 - I hope thats not something I will regret knowing Adobe's track record.

I was looking into the Black Magic Intensity Card for monitoring timeline output to an HD monitor or HDTV but I am reading about possible issues with the X58 chipset (socket 1366) and Intel i7 processors. Is anyone running the BM intensity card with an ASUS P6X58D Premium mother board, i7 -960 by any chance with windows 7?

I had read that Nvidia disables PhysX support if an ATI card is detected so using an ATI card for timeline may not be the best option.

[Brant Gajda]

I probably would have waited for a final list before making a purchase. I think you will be safe with your choice. Adobe said that it would be compatible with CUDA enabled cards then they gave examples. However most of the nVidia 200 series is CUDA enabled. My guess is that they figure the others will work, but were giving examples. After all, they say a 285 is compatible but there is a 295 on the market. Are they seriously going to say a 295 wouldn't work?

[Rich Perry]

A bit of an impetuous decision agree but I have had my eye on an FX4800 for a while and I picked one up cheap. I know the following cards seem to be good options for timeline monitoring:

AJA Xena-LHe
AJA LHi
Xena HS

As far as the following cards, is anyone using them with CS3, prospect HD and Win7 ?

Matrox MX02 Mini
AJA I/O Express