smooth jitter playback / max in vista on MBP
Hi
recently purchased a 17' MacBook Pro and Jitter - in hopes to gain some increased performance & to use shaders for video. I've been a long time Max/softVNS user, and my performance apps run SUPER smooth with an older G5/10.3.9/Max 4.5 set up.
When I started using Jitter I encountered a serious playback 'hiccup' or 'stutter', when playing even 1- 640x480 photojpeg (med quality) movie.
- I tested GPU & CPU based example patches.
- I made super simple patches as well.
(1 jit.qt.movie & jit.window or jit.qt.movie & videplane)
- I've tried RAM loading & RAM Disks.
- tried metro, qmetro, qlim
- tried tweaking Performance settings for Max
- tried standalone apps
NO MOVIES will play smoothly, PERIOD.
Even when mixing 5 video streams on GPU, the stutter happens at similar intervals, in each movie.
I've tried every optimization, read every tutorial, downloaded every sample I could find, read every thread on playback issues -
( just mentioned this to avoid replies like "did you read the manual" o r" id you try the eample patches". I have. I've spent hours and hours researching)
-- OR, of course - is it this machine?
(Mac 17" 2.4 10.4.10/ 2gb ram / 256 - GeForce 8600M GT, had last version of QT - and recently tried 7.3.0)
- I optimized the OS - cut every CPU task I could (SpotLight, Dashboard Network, OS window shadows, etc etc -)
still the same jump in playback every 3 - 4 seconds a stutter.
I then tried the example patches on 3 diferent G5s (dual 2.0 & quad core & intel G5) -all with same results!!!
Dont mean to be a wise ass here, but - Is this where the name Jitter comes from?
The stutter is very visible, in my opinion unacceptable for producing DVDs or exhibition - and I just cant believe other artists would just live with this!?
---- Support ----
so then I turned to Cycling74 - and their response was to give a detailed account /specs etc. - I did & took 2 hours explaining/writing, etc.
the got a simple, deadend, frustrating, response from Andrew B:
"Smooth playback is one of the things that we will be
exploring as we develop future versions of Jitter."
Does this mean when it was released ( for $$$) it wasnt even playing 1 movie "smoothly"?! - it wasnt explored prior to selling the software?
----
I've read many threads on low-priority queue - threading etc -
and even read about the video card being "underclocked" by apple for design / heat reasons. - that it runs better, faster on PC's
SO -
I was wondering if anyone has tested or regularly runs Max/Jitter in Windows Vista on a MBPro - and if the video playback is better? (different drivers, and more control over video card)
As I've just invested over 4000$ buying this machine FOR live video + 2 weeks developing, I jast cant afford to spend $ and time buying Vista & installing etc, just to realize theres no improvement - the stutter is still there...
thanks in advance for any help in this matter - I have hit a brick wall and am running out of time for product on a project!
thanks-
jt
- or, has anyone compared
Vista/Max/Jitter on MBPro vs. WindowsXP/Max/Jitter on MBPro
i reeeaaaly don't think xp or vista will make much of a difference. there are inherent problems with jitter's quicktime engine when it comes to playing back hd movies smoothly, as implied by andrew's response.
however, playing back 1 640x480 movie without stutter should not be a problem.
try the following patch, which has several optimizations for qt playback, and see if you get better results with some 640 x 480 photo-jpeg clips.
thanks for your response -
I tried this patch, and the jumpy playback is still there -
>don't think xp or vista will make much of a difference.
it certainly was a last resort idea - I read a thread about GL problems w GeForce 8600M GT on the MacBook Pro 2.4 17" - something about 'underclokcing' - there was also mention that the GeForce in Windows has a control panel with many settings - I was thinking I may be able to dig around there /
I'm sure there a few users out there with same machine & set up that I have - Is anyone else experiencing this problem?
-
maybe some CPU clock OS thing running thats causing the hiccup?
Hi James,
Don't waste your time and energy. Others did it already. (Including
myself). the hickup won't disappear. But the good news, since I promised
to buy some beers for Jeremy and Joshua they promised to look into the
problem as soon as Max 5 is released.
in the meantime, the most effective playback I got is with NTSC encoded
Material. It is way better than PAL performance. Stupid? Yes, but try it.
Windows Machines are not better, try bootcamp if you like.
David Rockeby is also working on softVNS for Intel. I wonder who will
win the race.
John.
james schrieb:
> thanks for your response -
> I tried this patch, and the jumpy playback is still there -
>
>> don't think xp or vista will make much of a difference.
>
> it certainly was a last resort idea - I read a thread about GL problems w GeForce 8600M GT on the MacBook Pro 2.4 17" - something about 'underclokcing' - there was also mention that the GeForce in Windows has a control panel with many settings - I was thinking I may be able to dig around there /
>
>
> I'm sure there a few users out there with same machine & set up that I have - Is anyone else experiencing this problem?
>
> -
> maybe some CPU clock OS thing running thats causing the hiccup?
>
>
>
I'm not sure that "as soon as" was part of the deal, but we are
intending to look closely at this issue at some point.
jb
Am 14.11.2007 um 12:24 schrieb John Dekron:
> I promised to buy some beers for Jeremy and Joshua they promised to
> look into the problem as soon as Max 5 is released
thanks for the replies - and clarifying, i spent a lot of time digging around and would've apprecieted a detailed response right off the bat - especially since this was a "known issue"!
>but we are intending to look closely at this issue at some point
at some point?
This problem makes ALL (!!!) output form Jitter unusable.
flat out. no work arounds.
Is there a get this addresses asap?
I've now spoken/emailed with others, that are having the same problem, and they're quite disappointed with the lack of interest/attention by Cycling74 on this matter.
In my opinion, this is an absolute priority issue.
please fix this!!!
my work with max/jitter and consequently all my live video production work has stopped dead in its tracks because of this.
re beers:
I'll buy a months work and drop ship to the office in SF if you get this fixed!!!!!!
promise.
-sorry -
a month's WORTH -
... uh well, maybe a 6 pack a day :)
> This problem makes ALL (!!!) output form Jitter unusable.
> flat out. no work arounds.
er, that's a bit dramatic.
with the patch i gave to you, i can playback a 640x480 movie with no hiccups and no stuttering.
is your movie exported with a very high data rate perhaps?
Hi James,
I gather that you are under the impression that we are ignoring this issue, or that it isn't a priority for us.
In actual fact, this particular issue is of great concern for those of us in Cycling '74 that work on the Jitter project, and we sincerely hope to be able to fix it soon. We have had numerous internal discussions about possible causes or solutions. Nevertheless, at this moment all of our development resources as a company are devoted to finishing Max 5 as soon as we can. Cycling '74 is a small software company with a very small team of full-time engineers, and sometimes we need to focus our efforts on finishing one project before we can address issues with another one.
Please know that we take everyone's bug reports and messages to the forum very seriously, even when you don't hear us chiming in. I promise you that this issue is being researched and hopefully resolved for a future version of Jitter.
Thanks for your patience.
Best regards,
Andrew Benson
--
Cycling '74 Support
> gather that you are under the impression that we are ignoring
> this issue, or that it isn't a priority for us.
- well, from the initial response thru c74 support weeks ago, I DID get the impression that it was not priority. The reposne to my detailed email/report after being told to send that by phone support - was minimal, general, and inconclusive... which led me to nearly a week of testing, digging around etc.
as many others have also experienced.
SO, a mention in the response that it was important and a priority would've at least saved me hours and hours of valuable time.
maybe a general posting about this, officially!!!, so others dont waste the time as well is in order?
(maybe it will hurt sales(?), but thats business right?)
--
actually - to clarify further - is this problem related to specific machines/video cards?
some people report smooth playback/"no problems on my machine" -(without posted machine/system specs etc)
> er, that's a bit dramatic.
no is scientific fact. (i have witnesses) ;)
not one movie will playback without hiccups.
and when playing multiple movies they all have the same hiccup - with plenty of CPU to spare..
What machine are you using? / version of Max / video card / etc - I'd like to know, I'd go buy your setup tomorrow if I could confirm this problem is machine specific - (prob with my MBP)
I've tested on 5 differnt machines (ppc g5's, intel g5, powerbook & macbook pro)
same problem everywhere!
even different recent versions of Quicktime.
-
whereever I can run my VNS patches, they play super smooth - no hiccups.
> with the patch i gave to you, i can playback a 640x480 movie
> with no hiccups and no stuttering.
I wish :)
>
> is your movie exported with a very high data rate perhaps?
nope - med quality 720 480 photojpeg / 30fps
Well, Id just like to say I am currently using Jitter to drive 4
projectors off of a single machine, bringing in 720p HD over HDMI @
uyvy and playing back a 2460x480 pixel movie with UYVY + shader
mixing, simultaneously, with midi input/control, at a pretty solid
30fps. Framerate does judder a bit, but I can say it is barely
noticeable unless you look for it. I was surprised it was not as bad
as I had usually experienced. This was on a quad intel @ 2.66.
Id say this is pretty decent.
What ive found HAS to be done to get things working well when dealing
with any fairly large video sizes.
Performance Options:
Set UI update to a measly 5 Hz
Overdrive On
UYVY to OpenGL
jit.qt.movies with @unique 1
jit.gl.slab @file cc.uyvy2rgba.jxs for UYVY 2 rgba conversion
faith.
:)
On Nov 16, 2007, at 7:06 PM, Robert Ramirez wrote:
>
>> This problem makes ALL (!!!) output form Jitter unusable.
>> flat out. no work arounds.
>
> er, that's a bit dramatic.
> with the patch i gave to you, i can playback a 640x480 movie with no
> hiccups and no stuttering.
>
> is your movie exported with a very high data rate perhaps?
> Framerate does judder a bit
I realize frame rate does fluctuate during playback - I'm not necessarily looking for perfect frame accuracy for broadcast etc..
- and with my 5 simultaneous video streams using VNS, frame rate fluctuated for sure - but video playback was almost perfectly smooth
> barely noticeable unless you look for it
well, this could vary from video to video - depending on the content.
I am working on a piece with VERY steady motion control camera tracking, and the jumps in jitter playback are very obvious - to anyone -
on the other hand, some of my other other abstract clips, yes, its hard to notice, but still there.
I'm workin on 2 DVD projects recording live video performances, so the masters containing this glitch is unacceptable by my standards :) ..for me - it ruins camera work - and overal impact of the piece.
- 1 720x480 photojpeg video stream on my old titanium 500mhz using Max and NATO plays back smoother than my brand new MBP!!
----
re "faith" - :)
well, i had faith when I jumped into my switch from VNS to Jitter - as I read and heard many good things about Jitter I certainly assumed 1 movie would be smooth - but, well...
I just made a standalone on a non-intel G5 - with 5 - 640 480 softVNS streams mixed to one output / ram loaded the movies - and opened that on my MBP 2.4 17" - video clips playback perfectly.
hmmm? seems like its not this machine, its Jitter!?
so confusing.
-
anyone out there running this exact setup:
MacBookPro 2.4 17"
10.4.10
256 GeForce 8600M GT
2GB RAM
MAX 4.6.3 / Jitter 1.6.3
Quicktime 7.3.0
(problem also was on last version of QT as well)
* all the obvious CPU optimizations have been tried / dashboard/sotlight / shadows all killed ..etc
---
I realize this may just be a Jitter problem, but I cant rest until I know I've tried everything... :)
thanks in advance//
---
I dont think you will get much better from my experience, ive tried
everything as well. I will humbly admit to looking into Quartz
Composer in the mean time. I look forward to Jit 2.0 eagerly.
On Nov 16, 2007, at 10:07 PM, james wrote:
>
> I just made a standalone on a non-intel G5 - with 5 - 640 480
> softVNS streams mixed to one output / ram loaded the movies - and
> opened that on my MBP 2.4 17" - video clips playback perfectly.
>
> hmmm? seems like its not this machine, its Jitter!?
> so confusing.
> -
>
> anyone out there running this exact setup:
> MacBookPro 2.4 17"
> 10.4.10
> 256 GeForce 8600M GT
> 2GB RAM
> MAX 4.6.3 / Jitter 1.6.3
> Quicktime 7.3.0
> (problem also was on last version of QT as well)
>
>
> * all the obvious CPU optimizations have been tried / dashboard/
> sotlight / shadows all killed ..etc
>
> ---
>
> I realize this may just be a Jitter problem, but I cant rest until I
> know I've tried everything... :)
> thanks in advance//
>
>
>
>
> ---
>I look forward to Jit 2.0 eagerly.
me too - I'll take a small update that just fixes this too!!!
(i realize it may be no 'small' task!... but maybe?)
---
Quartz Composer playback is perfect / but building my live app/patches - its just not ready for that :)
---
I wonder.. whats the different between how softVNS plays back/controls quicktime - VS - Jitter?
why is there any difference?
isnt it all the same commands etc underneath??
I have done some serious looking into this. Of course our needs will
be/are different, ive seen very little that could not be re-created
with some initiative. QC 3.0 in 10.5 is leaps and bounds ahead of QC
2.x in Tiger as far as I am concerned.
On Nov 16, 2007, at 11:19 PM, james wrote:
> Quartz Composer playback is perfect / but building my live app/
> patches - its just not ready for that :)
On Nov 17, 2007 2:57 AM, james wrote:
>
> I'm workin on 2 DVD projects recording live video performances, so the
> masters containing this glitch is unacceptable by my standards :) ..for me -
> it ruins camera work - and overal impact of the piece.
>
>
Hi James,
Have you considered using offline rendering? I get the impression you're not
doing any live editing on this piece. It is possible to render your final
master frame by frame using something similar to render_node:
http://www.2uptech.com/render_node.html
It might require some work to make your patches compatible though.
My 2c,
Thijs
> Performance Options:
> Set UI update to a measly 5 Hz
mmm interesting, i've never tried this before..this one i can set with the message:
[;max enablerefresh 1,setrefreshrate $1]..?
thanks a lot
we are also looking forward to the day this issue is no more, it has
been a problem way too long.
we tried different strategies to get a decent result with 3 outputs,
but nothing turned out acceptable sofar.
but for the meantime, would you consider sharing this patch with us
vade, maybe your approach does the trick ?
best lucas
On Nov 17, 2007, at 3:06 AM, vade wrote:
> Well, Id just like to say I am currently using Jitter to drive 4
> projectors off of a single machine, bringing in 720p HD over HDMI @
> uyvy and playing back a 2460x480 pixel movie with UYVY + shader
> mixing, simultaneously, with midi input/control, at a pretty solid
> 30fps. Framerate does judder a bit, but I can say it is barely
> noticeable unless you look for it. I was surprised it was not as bad
> as I had usually experienced. This was on a quad intel @ 2.66.
>
> Id say this is pretty decent.
>
> What ive found HAS to be done to get things working well when
> dealing with any fairly large video sizes.
>
> Performance Options:
> Set UI update to a measly 5 Hz
>
> Overdrive On
> UYVY to OpenGL
>
> jit.qt.movies with @unique 1
>
> jit.gl.slab @file cc.uyvy2rgba.jxs for UYVY 2 rgba conversion
>
> faith.
>
> :)
>
> On Nov 16, 2007, at 7:06 PM, Robert Ramirez wrote:
>
>>
>>> This problem makes ALL (!!!) output form Jitter unusable.
>>> flat out. no work arounds.
>>
>> er, that's a bit dramatic.
>> with the patch i gave to you, i can playback a 640x480 movie with
>> no hiccups and no stuttering.
>>
>> is your movie exported with a very high data rate perhaps?
>
Telcosystems
PO box 174
3000 AD
Rotterdam
www.telcosystems.net
info@telcosystems.net
Vade.. Rob...
nice tips on optimization... the @unique thing defineatly helps immediately...
Vade can you go into more details on the UYVY to OpenGl thing. I have a patch I've been working on... it uses incoming video data from a firewire camera this gets some slab processing (your v001.film-technicolor3. so nice!! and the kaleido.jxs) and goes to a gl.mesh for further processing. The problem is with any video >320x240 all I can get is 20fps. My cpu is around 40% and gpu is 13%... 30fps @720x480 would be idea. Anywho any tips would greatly be appreciated.
t
hi.
Well, jit.qt.grab can do @colormode uyvy, so the patch might be
something like
1 qmetro 33
2 jit.qt.grab 720 480 @colormode uyvy
3 jit.gl.slab @file cc.uyvy2rgba.jxs
@dimscale 2. 1.
4 insert slab processing here if you want
5 jit.gl.texture @name mytexturename
and you can then send 'texture mytexturename' to the mesh.
# 3 converts UYVY to RGBA on the GPU with the shader. @dimscale makes
sure that the chroma macro pixel voodoo works.
#4, you'd put whatever slab chain stuff you want,
#5, it sounds like you want to texture your geometry, which you could
do by sending the output of your slab chain, or by making a named
texture and referencing however you want.
HTH,
On Nov 21, 2007, at 8:02 PM, Tyler Nitsch wrote:
>
> Vade.. Rob...
>
> nice tips on optimization... the @unique thing defineatly helps
> immediately...
>
> Vade can you go into more details on the UYVY to OpenGl thing. I
> have a patch I've been working on... it uses incoming video data
> from a firewire camera this gets some slab processing (your
> v001.film-technicolor3. so nice!! and the kaleido.jxs) and goes to a
> gl.mesh for further processing. The problem is with any video
> >320x240 all I can get is 20fps. My cpu is around 40% and gpu is
> 13%... 30fps @720x480 would be idea. Anywho any tips would greatly
> be appreciated.
>
>
> t
Just for the 'record' , here is what I tried:
Software :
OSX 10.4.10 , QuickTime 7.3 , Without FCP installed, but just with
the Quicktime HDV components
Hardware :
Apple G5 Quad , 8 gb ram + Sony HDV camera model HVR-A10
I am able to do 'live' capture from Quicktime 'new movie recording' @
full HDV1080i (about 1 second of delay, full framerate).
I have not been able to do HDV live capture from inside Jitter...
But it should be possible, as Quicktime does it so easily.
Cheers
JS aka Mixar
I'm having a simular problem.
The thing I try do is run a video in Jitter 1.2 using Max 4.5
The video is a file of 13 Gig, about one houre loung...
It has to run in a loop for houres, and I notice that after about 30 minutes it starts to stutter, they last about 10 minutes, then go away, and when it loops, the stutters come again for 10 minutes...
I have a PC AMD 2.0Ghz 2 Gig RAM
Is it possible to cut the file in for example 5 smaler files (so my computer doesn't have to play the full 13 Gig file) ???
Please help me... the expo opens on friday and it has to run smooth.
THANK YOU !
Here's a patch that decodes a movie's duration into frame-sized chunks of "time" and uses counter to advance the movie time. This does seem to make playback smoother (not as nice as in QT Player, but better), but is not without its inconveniences (sound, for instance, plays horribly with this method). I'm curious if anyone thinks this does play better, or, maybe I'm just imagining things. I also don't know if its long term stability.
I tried the "frame driving" method as well, but its pretty jumpy for me (on my dual 2.0 G5 / 256vram)...my macbook pro is at apple for repairs, i'll check this out when I get it back.
I found the best playback is to make a standalone / qmetro 16 / jit.qball - ramloaded movies - ALL updating UI elements eliminated, include the jitter FPS object.
I can play 5 SD video streams 30fps, but occasionally / every few seconds the jitter hiccup is still there.
really hope Cycling74 can address this soon!