jtshavitz

I've always been a mac user - but because of playback issues with Jitter & my MBP 17"- I was thinking maybe the grass is greener on the "other side"? ...I'm thinking - buy a PC and customize for realtime video playback? 

(like a nice high-end 768mb video card & RAID)

Maybe Quicktime and Jitter are happier in PC land? smoother - better frame rates? or not?

I was hoping someone could point me in the right direction as to which version of Windows (jeez so many) would be best for a Max/Jitter set up. My main patch is a polyphonic video 'instrument' (or mixer) which can play up to 5 or 6 SD (640 480 JPEG) video streams, smoothly - video output will go to a separate machine for recording. (mac / FCP )

any pointers / comparisons, experiences etc would be greatly appreciated!

Hi, 
I've always been a mac user - but because of playback issues with Jitter & my MBP 17"-  I was thinking maybe the grass is greener on the "other side"? ...I'm thinking - buy a PC and customize for realtime video playback? 
(like a nice high-end 768mb video card & RAID) 

Has anyone else taken this route?
Maybe Quicktime and Jitter are happier in PC land? smoother - better frame rates? or not?

I was hoping someone could point me in the right direction as to which version of Windows (jeez so many) would be best for a Max/Jitter set up. My main patch is a polyphonic video 'instrument' (or mixer) which can play up to 5 or 6 SD (640 480 JPEG)  video streams, smoothly  - video output will go to a separate machine for recording. (mac / FCP )

best-max-jitter-windows-pc-desktop-setup

5 to 6 streams might have a harddrive bottleneck depending on the 

bitrate of each movies and the max bitrate of your drive combined with 

Unix's (OS X's) everything is a file paradigm.

Id suggest looking at your patch and optimizing as much as you can. I 

hate to say it but not much is greener on the other side as far as I 

am aware. Id say your best bet is optimization and external drives 

(eSata with a 3/4 expresscard beats FW 800 for throughput btw).

Check out my optimization patches, they can be helpful and follow 

regular Max programming guidelines. Without a patch no one will have a 

> I've always been a mac user - but because of playback issues with 

> Jitter & my MBP 17"- I was thinking maybe the grass is greener on 

> the "other side"? ...I'm thinking - buy a PC and customize for 

> (like a nice high-end 768mb video card & RAID)

> Maybe Quicktime and Jitter are happier in PC land? smoother - better 

> I was hoping someone could point me in the right direction as to 

> which version of Windows (jeez so many) would be best for a Max/ 

> Jitter set up. My main patch is a polyphonic video 'instrument' (or 

> mixer) which can play up to 5 or 6 SD (640 480 JPEG) video streams, 

> smoothly - video output will go to a separate machine for 

> any pointers / comparisons, experiences etc would be greatly 

5 to 6 streams might have a harddrive bottleneck depending on the  
bitrate of each movies and the max bitrate of your drive combined with  
Unix's (OS X's) everything is a file paradigm.

Id suggest looking at your patch and optimizing as much as you can. I  
hate to say it but not much is greener on the other side as far as I  
am aware. Id say your best bet is optimization and external drives  
(eSata with a 3/4 expresscard beats FW 800 for throughput btw).

Check out my optimization patches, they can be helpful and follow  
regular Max programming guidelines. Without a patch no one will have a  
clue.

>
> Hi,
> I've always been a mac user - but because of playback issues with  
> Jitter & my MBP 17"-  I was thinking maybe the grass is greener on  
> the "other side"? ...I'm thinking - buy a PC and customize for  
> realtime video playback?
> (like a nice high-end 768mb video card & RAID)
>
>
> Has anyone else taken this route?
> Maybe Quicktime and Jitter are happier in PC land? smoother - better  
> frame rates? or not?
>
>
> I was hoping someone could point me in the right direction as to  
> which version of Windows (jeez so many) would be best for a Max/ 
> Jitter set up. My main patch is a polyphonic video 'instrument' (or  
> mixer) which can play up to 5 or 6 SD (640 480 JPEG)  video streams,  
> smoothly  - video output will go to a separate machine for  
> recording. (mac / FCP )
>
> any pointers / comparisons, experiences etc would be greatly  
> appreciated!
>
> thanks!
> - jt
>


thanks vade - yeah I've used your patches (excellent /thanks!!), and I have optimzed as much as possible - I have a dual 2.0 G5 - with an internal SATA RAID (very fast) + 8 GB of ram -

(which I realize only 2GB it useful if I were ramloading clips) + 256 video card - best i can get for this machine.

- with my softVNS/max/10.3.9 setup, I can get 4 streams playing smoothly - (smoother than 1 stream using Jitter on my MBP intel machine). I have a 'semi-accurate' multislider graph that records my frame rate over time and its pretty good n steady round 27/29 fps. nothing visibly noticeable - which is whats most omportant to me..

My movies are Photo JPEG - 75% quality - ranging from 7500 kbits/s - to around 12000+ kbits/s depending on the clip.

I also made a setup where I duplicated my video library on 4 different drives - then each time I selected a video, my patch would select it from a drive that wasnt playing anything. That has some slight improvements - but not as much as I thought. maybe it was a pipeline limitation? hmmm

I was hoping with a new system (PC) and some more video ram I could squeeze maybe 5th and 6th stream in there.

The PC 'custom' machine thought was basically cuz -

A. Jitter on my intel Mac (in my experience) is useless for realtime recording / cuz of this 'hiccup' issue. (which I understand is in queue for a fix (hopefully) and is a priority @ cycling74)..

B. more hardware customizing options on PC. - mainly videocard options.

I havent posted a sample patch cuz its not really needed. At least in this case - as the Jitter problem - stuttering happens with the all the help files, optimization files, examples patches etc. anything and everything - a movie will start smooth and within a few seconds it'll chug then smooth out then repeat - this happens with all patchs on my MBP 17", and intel G5, and my PPC G5 - with almost ALL compressions on the QT movie.

I've already given up on trying to fix this/optimize. I believe I've done everything I can to eliminate the glitch, but have accepted thats its a core problem with jitter and I'll hve to wait for a fix -

thanks vade - yeah I've used your patches (excellent /thanks!!), and I have optimzed as much as possible - I have a dual 2.0 G5 - with an internal SATA RAID (very fast) + 8 GB of ram -
 (which I realize only 2GB it useful if I were ramloading clips) + 256 video card - best i can get for this machine.

- with my softVNS/max/10.3.9 setup, I can get 4 streams playing smoothly - (smoother than 1 stream using Jitter on my MBP intel machine). I have a 'semi-accurate' multislider graph that records my frame rate over time and its pretty good n steady round 27/29 fps. nothing visibly noticeable - which is whats most omportant to me.. 

A. Jitter on my intel Mac (in my experience) is useless for realtime recording / cuz of this 'hiccup' issue. (which I understand is in queue for a fix (hopefully) and is a priority @ cycling74).. 

B. more hardware customizing options on PC. - mainly videocard options. 

-- regarding a sample patch:
I havent posted a sample patch cuz its not really needed. At least in this case - as the Jitter problem - stuttering happens with the all the help files, optimization files, examples patches etc.  anything and everything - a  movie will start smooth and within a few seconds it'll chug then smooth out then repeat - this happens with all patchs on my MBP 17", and intel G5, and my PPC G5 - with almost ALL compressions on the QT movie. 

I've already given up on trying to fix this/optimize. I believe I've done everything I can to eliminate the glitch, but have accepted thats its a core problem with jitter and I'll hve to wait for a fix -


if you are triggering your clips with QWERTY-KEYBOARD instead

of MIDI input... that might be a culprit of jittery playback...

how are you triggering your clips... or rather... with what

are your clips being triggered - midi notes or keyboard?

if you are triggering your clips with QWERTY-KEYBOARD instead
of MIDI input... that might be a culprit of jittery playback...

how are you triggering your clips... or rather... with what
are your clips being triggered -  midi notes or keyboard?


the jumpy playback happens when using mouse clicking / start metro / midi triggering / qwerty - 

best Max / Jitter / Windows / PC desktop setup?