Gideon Kiers

pmac-quad-4xdv-playback-trouble

Nothing changed in the performance settings, all default.

> I havent looked at the clips or patch, but if quicktime can play 

> back all files fine it rules out a disk bandwidth bottleneck. Im 

> curious if you might have changed any of the jitter queue 

> performance settings, and Jitter is doing something with the low 

> priority or high priority queues when you get that stuttering? Is 

> it periodic? Just a totally off the bow shot in the dark.

> I havent looked at the clips or patch, but if quicktime can play  
> back all files fine it rules out a disk bandwidth bottleneck. Im  
> curious if you might have changed any of the jitter queue  
> performance settings, and Jitter is doing something with the low  
> priority or high priority queues when you get that stuttering? Is  
> it periodic? Just a totally off the bow shot in the dark.
>


I'm afraid there's nothing that can be done on the max.programming 

Like I said in my first post, this uyvy mixer has worked fine in the 

past, and somehow doesnt work fine anymore.

A couple of weeks ago I allready stumbled upon a videoplane texture 

problem, that problem has not been solved either it seems.

I've been doing these patches for theatre for the past 4 years now, 

I'm quite aware where solutions might or might not be..

And this one sure doesnt look like something I can solve with 

Problem is, this big opera premier is on tonight .. With the 

Of course this problem should 've come up before, but is very much 

More brightness, more trouble, or something of the sort ..

I've been working on the quick fix since last tuesday when trouble 

started showing, thought setting the resolution to 800x600 had solved 

It helped to get rid of most of the stuttering, but not all. Which is 

weird enough as it is, because usually it doesnt really matter, 

especially on a quad, if it works in 800x600 or 1024x768 ..

So I'd still really like to solve this one .. asap .. if possible ..

Sorry for the grumpy tone, getting a bit tired of this.

> Just a totally off the bow shot in the dark.

I'm afraid there's nothing that can be done on the max.programming  
side..
Like I said in my first post, this uyvy mixer has worked fine in the  
past, and somehow doesnt work fine anymore.

A couple of weeks ago I allready stumbled upon a videoplane texture  
problem, that problem has not been solved either it seems.

I've been doing these patches for theatre for the past 4 years now,  
I'm quite aware where solutions might or might not be..
And this one sure doesnt look like something I can solve with  
preferences or nifty patchwork.

Problem is, this big opera premier is on tonight .. With the  
stuttering playback.. On 8 screens ..

Of course this problem should 've come up before, but is very much  
clip specific like I said.
More brightness, more trouble, or something of the sort ..

I've been working on the quick fix since last tuesday when trouble  
started showing, thought setting the resolution to 800x600 had solved  
it, but no ..
It helped to get rid of most of the stuttering, but not all. Which is  
weird enough as it is, because usually it doesnt really matter,  
especially on a quad, if it works in 800x600 or 1024x768 ..

> Just a totally off the bow shot in the dark.


Its odd. Im working on a very large performance patch, and i dont see 

Ive got access to a few G5s today, and I can easily download and try 

out those patches. If I have time ill see if I can hop on an unused 

Im curious, did you upgrade quicktime, or the OS in the interval 

Do you have any background processes running, like file sharing, web 

run Activity Monitor and see if you notice anything else touching the 

CPU when the spikes happen? (or top, or lsof via terminal which can 

On Sep 29, 2006, at 12:08 PM, Gideon Kiers wrote:

> I'm afraid there's nothing that can be done on the max.programming 

> Like I said in my first post, this uyvy mixer has worked fine in 

> the past, and somehow doesnt work fine anymore.

> A couple of weeks ago I allready stumbled upon a videoplane texture 

> problem, that problem has not been solved either it seems.

> I've been doing these patches for theatre for the past 4 years now, 

> I'm quite aware where solutions might or might not be..

> And this one sure doesnt look like something I can solve with 

> Problem is, this big opera premier is on tonight .. With the 

> Of course this problem should 've come up before, but is very much 

> More brightness, more trouble, or something of the sort ..

> I've been working on the quick fix since last tuesday when trouble 

> started showing, thought setting the resolution to 800x600 had 

> It helped to get rid of most of the stuttering, but not all. Which 

> is weird enough as it is, because usually it doesnt really matter, 

> especially on a quad, if it works in 800x600 or 1024x768 ..

> So I'd still really like to solve this one .. asap .. if possible ..

> Sorry for the grumpy tone, getting a bit tired of this.

>> Just a totally off the bow shot in the dark.

Its odd. Im working on a very large performance patch, and i dont see  
any issues with textures/videoplanes.

Ive got access to a few G5s today, and I can easily download and try  
out those patches. If I have time ill see if I can hop on an unused  
machine.

Im curious, did you upgrade quicktime, or the OS in the interval  
right when the issues started happening?

Do you have any background processes running, like file sharing, web  
sharing, shell access?

run Activity Monitor and see if you notice anything else touching the  
CPU when the spikes happen? (or top, or lsof via terminal which can  
be super handy to debug with)

> I'm afraid there's nothing that can be done on the max.programming  
> side..
> Like I said in my first post, this uyvy mixer has worked fine in  
> the past, and somehow doesnt work fine anymore.
>
> A couple of weeks ago I allready stumbled upon a videoplane texture  
> problem, that problem has not been solved either it seems.
>
> I've been doing these patches for theatre for the past 4 years now,  
> I'm quite aware where solutions might or might not be..
> And this one sure doesnt look like something I can solve with  
> preferences or nifty patchwork.
>
> Problem is, this big opera premier is on tonight .. With the  
> stuttering playback.. On 8 screens ..
>
> Of course this problem should 've come up before, but is very much  
> clip specific like I said.
> More brightness, more trouble, or something of the sort ..
>
> I've been working on the quick fix since last tuesday when trouble  
> started showing, thought setting the resolution to 800x600 had  
> solved it, but no ..
> It helped to get rid of most of the stuttering, but not all. Which  
> is weird enough as it is, because usually it doesnt really matter,  
> especially on a quad, if it works in 800x600 or 1024x768 ..
>
> So I'd still really like to solve this one .. asap .. if possible ..
>
> Sorry for the grumpy tone, getting a bit tired of this.
>
> best,
>
> On 29-sep-2006, at 16:46, vade wrote:
>
>> Just a totally off the bow shot in the dark.
>


> Its odd. Im working on a very large performance patch, and i dont 

> see any issues with textures/videoplanes.

Well, If you have the time, find a quad, download the files i put 

> Im curious, did you upgrade quicktime, or the OS in the interval 

> right when the issues started happening?

Definetely. Last time I used a similar patch was in may.

> Do you have any background processes running, like file sharing, 

Filesharing is on. Rest is minimized. But that absolutely shouldnt 

matter in this case. The process is really very very minimal.

> run Activity Monitor and see if you notice anything else touching 

> the CPU when the spikes happen? (or top, or lsof via terminal which 

Did all that. Nothing out of the ordinairy.. I can run quicktime 

player at the same time, playing the same two clips fullscreen, 

without any stuttering in qt player, and all the stuttering still in 

> Its odd. Im working on a very large performance patch, and i dont  
> see any issues with textures/videoplanes.

Well, If you have the time, find a quad, download the files i put  
online, and you'll see the same issues.

> Im curious, did you upgrade quicktime, or the OS in the interval  
> right when the issues started happening?

> Do you have any background processes running, like file sharing,  
> web sharing, shell access?

Filesharing is on. Rest is minimized. But that absolutely shouldnt  
matter in this case. The process is really very very minimal.
2 a/b players with crossfader ..

> run Activity Monitor and see if you notice anything else touching  
> the CPU when the spikes happen? (or top, or lsof via terminal which  
> can be super handy to debug with)

Did all that. Nothing out of the ordinairy.. I can run quicktime  
player at the same time, playing the same two clips fullscreen,  
without any stuttering in qt player, and all the stuttering still in  
jitter..


I just ran a test on a Dual G5 2.7, 4.5Gb ram and an XServe Raid for 

Definitely saw glitching. I edited the patch around, to try a few 

things, and couldnt pinpoint what was causing the glitches. I tried 

making the movies uncompressed and running it off the XRaid, still 

glitches. Tried loadramming shorter movies, it wasnt obvious, but I 

I was getting 500fps, but it was definitely not updating the 

videoplanes at that rate, and it would hiccup all the way down to 60 

pretty frequently, and quite periodically.. Ive got a few things/ 

tricks Im going to try, but its def. reproducible over here.

Ill update if I find anything interesting.

On Sep 29, 2006, at 12:32 PM, Gideon Kiers wrote:

>> Its odd. Im working on a very large performance patch, and i dont 

>> see any issues with textures/videoplanes.

> Well, If you have the time, find a quad, download the files i put 

> online, and you'll see the same issues.

>> Im curious, did you upgrade quicktime, or the OS in the interval 

>> right when the issues started happening?

> Definetely. Last time I used a similar patch was in may.

>> Do you have any background processes running, like file sharing, 

> Filesharing is on. Rest is minimized. But that absolutely shouldnt 

> matter in this case. The process is really very very minimal.

>> run Activity Monitor and see if you notice anything else touching 

>> the CPU when the spikes happen? (or top, or lsof via terminal 

>> which can be super handy to debug with)

> Did all that. Nothing out of the ordinairy.. I can run quicktime 

> player at the same time, playing the same two clips fullscreen, 

> without any stuttering in qt player, and all the stuttering still 

I just ran a test on a Dual G5 2.7, 4.5Gb ram and an XServe Raid for  
storage.

Definitely saw glitching. I edited the patch around, to try a few  
things, and couldnt pinpoint what was causing the glitches. I tried  
making the movies uncompressed and running it off the XRaid, still  
glitches. Tried loadramming shorter movies, it wasnt obvious, but I  
could discern things werent smooth.

I was getting 500fps, but it was definitely not updating the  
videoplanes at that rate, and it would hiccup all the way down to 60  
pretty frequently, and quite periodically.. Ive got a few things/ 
tricks Im going to try, but its def. reproducible over here.

>
> On 29-sep-2006, at 18:22, vade wrote:
>
>> Its odd. Im working on a very large performance patch, and i dont  
>> see any issues with textures/videoplanes.
>
> Well, If you have the time, find a quad, download the files i put  
> online, and you'll see the same issues.
>
>> Im curious, did you upgrade quicktime, or the OS in the interval  
>> right when the issues started happening?
>
> Definetely. Last time I used a similar patch was in may.
>
>> Do you have any background processes running, like file sharing,  
>> web sharing, shell access?
>
> Filesharing is on. Rest is minimized. But that absolutely shouldnt  
> matter in this case. The process is really very very minimal.
> 2 a/b players with crossfader ..
>
>> run Activity Monitor and see if you notice anything else touching  
>> the CPU when the spikes happen? (or top, or lsof via terminal  
>> which can be super handy to debug with)
>
> Did all that. Nothing out of the ordinairy.. I can run quicktime  
> player at the same time, playing the same two clips fullscreen,  
> without any stuttering in qt player, and all the stuttering still  
> in jitter..
>


You should try running Shark. It will often show you where your 

You should try running Shark.  It will often show you where your 
processing bottlenecks are.

I did some more tests, but unfortunately was booted off the system by 

I updated to 4.6.2, 1.6.2 and ran in the runtime (the demo on this 

Setting things to automatic 0 and explicitly setting the render order 

seemed to help, but it still had glitches, and I saw the jit.fpsgui 

drop down to 60 from 500 quite often, but I didnt see a direct 

correspondence between fps guis reported framerate and the timing of 

the glitches. I also made shorter DV movies and loaded them all into 

I didn't have a chance to profile with Shark or anything else of the 

sort. I think this is the most I can do for now. Good luck! Im 

curious to know what it is, and if ill get hit by it eventually.

> I just ran a test on a Dual G5 2.7, 4.5Gb ram and an XServe Raid 

> Definitely saw glitching. I edited the patch around, to try a few 

> things, and couldnt pinpoint what was causing the glitches. I tried 

> making the movies uncompressed and running it off the XRaid, still 

> glitches. Tried loadramming shorter movies, it wasnt obvious, but I 

> I was getting 500fps, but it was definitely not updating the 

> videoplanes at that rate, and it would hiccup all the way down to 

> 60 pretty frequently, and quite periodically.. Ive got a few things/ 

> tricks Im going to try, but its def. reproducible over here.

> Ill update if I find anything interesting.

> On Sep 29, 2006, at 12:32 PM, Gideon Kiers wrote:

>>> Its odd. Im working on a very large performance patch, and i dont 

>>> see any issues with textures/videoplanes.

>> Well, If you have the time, find a quad, download the files i put 

>> online, and you'll see the same issues.

>>> Im curious, did you upgrade quicktime, or the OS in the interval 

>>> right when the issues started happening?

>> Definetely. Last time I used a similar patch was in may.

>>> Do you have any background processes running, like file sharing, 

>> Filesharing is on. Rest is minimized. But that absolutely shouldnt 

>> matter in this case. The process is really very very minimal.

>>> run Activity Monitor and see if you notice anything else touching 

>>> the CPU when the spikes happen? (or top, or lsof via terminal 

>>> which can be super handy to debug with)

I did some more tests, but unfortunately was booted off the system by  
an editor returning from lunch :P

I updated to 4.6.2, 1.6.2 and ran in the runtime (the demo on this  
machine had expired).

Setting things to automatic 0 and explicitly setting the render order  
seemed to help, but it still had glitches, and I saw the jit.fpsgui  
drop down to 60 from 500 quite often, but I didnt see a direct  
correspondence between fps guis reported framerate and the timing of  
the glitches. I also made shorter DV movies and loaded them all into  
ram, and still had the issues.

I didn't have a chance to profile with Shark or anything else of the  
sort. I think this is the most I can do for now. Good luck! Im  
curious to know what it is, and if ill get hit by it eventually.

> I just ran a test on a Dual G5 2.7, 4.5Gb ram and an XServe Raid  
> for storage.
>
> Definitely saw glitching. I edited the patch around, to try a few  
> things, and couldnt pinpoint what was causing the glitches. I tried  
> making the movies uncompressed and running it off the XRaid, still  
> glitches. Tried loadramming shorter movies, it wasnt obvious, but I  
> could discern things werent smooth.
>
> I was getting 500fps, but it was definitely not updating the  
> videoplanes at that rate, and it would hiccup all the way down to  
> 60 pretty frequently, and quite periodically.. Ive got a few things/ 
> tricks Im going to try, but its def. reproducible over here.
>
> Ill update if I find anything interesting.
>
>
> v a d e //
>
> www.vade.info
> abstrakt.vade.info
>
>
> On Sep 29, 2006, at 12:32 PM, Gideon Kiers wrote:
>
>>
>> On 29-sep-2006, at 18:22, vade wrote:
>>
>>> Its odd. Im working on a very large performance patch, and i dont  
>>> see any issues with textures/videoplanes.
>>
>> Well, If you have the time, find a quad, download the files i put  
>> online, and you'll see the same issues.
>>
>>> Im curious, did you upgrade quicktime, or the OS in the interval  
>>> right when the issues started happening?
>>
>> Definetely. Last time I used a similar patch was in may.
>>
>>> Do you have any background processes running, like file sharing,  
>>> web sharing, shell access?
>>
>> Filesharing is on. Rest is minimized. But that absolutely shouldnt  
>> matter in this case. The process is really very very minimal.
>> 2 a/b players with crossfader ..
>>
>>> run Activity Monitor and see if you notice anything else touching  
>>> the CPU when the spikes happen? (or top, or lsof via terminal  
>>> which can be super handy to debug with)
>>
>> Did all that. Nothing out of the ordinairy.. I can run quicktime  
>> player at the same time, playing the same two clips fullscreen,  
>> without any stuttering in qt player, and all the stuttering still  
>> in jitter..
>>
>


i fiddled around on my 2.33 dual core g5.

with some small (quick & dirty) modifications i get a smoother 

result; don't know if it will be of any help, but i sure hope so.

only things i changed is @automatic 0 for the videoplanes, plus an 

i fiddled around on my 2.33 dual core g5.
also for me it was quite shaky.
with some small (quick & dirty) modifications i get a smoother  
result; don't know if it will be of any help, but i sure hope so.
only things i changed is @automatic 0 for the videoplanes, plus an  
explicit banging order.

this is a measurement of the time-between-frames of your patch (with 

same with the modifications (metro @40ms):

the spikes are appearing at the looppoints of the movies, it seems..

this is a measurement of the time-between-frames of your patch (with  
the metro @20ms):

OK, thanks, glad someone else can reproduce.. Yes indeed, the thing 

that worries me the most is that the fps is constant, and pretty 

OK, thanks, glad someone else can reproduce.. Yes indeed, the thing  
that worries me the most is that the fps is constant, and pretty  
high, but playback is stuttering ..

> I just ran a test on a Dual G5 2.7, 4.5Gb ram and an XServe Raid  
> for storage.
>
> Definitely saw glitching. I edited the patch around, to try a few  
> things, and couldnt pinpoint what was causing the glitches. I tried  
> making the movies uncompressed and running it off the XRaid, still  
> glitches. Tried loadramming shorter movies, it wasnt obvious, but I  
> could discern things werent smooth.
>
> I was getting 500fps, but it was definitely not updating the  
> videoplanes at that rate, and it would hiccup all the way down to  
> 60 pretty frequently, and quite periodically.. Ive got a few things/ 
> tricks Im going to try, but its def. reproducible over here.
>
> Ill update if I find anything interesting.


yes the banging order is implemented in the bigger main patch, doesnt 

really make a difference on the stuttering indeed.

haven't put automatic0 in there, might help, allthough vade's testing 

am away from my studio for the weekend, but will have a look.

i doubt that this is the problem though. there's small glitches, but 

there are also major glitches, pauses for allmost a second, while the 

fps keeps displaying a framerate of around 40 fps. (by the way, i'm 

not playing 4 times the same file, i'm playing 4 different copies of 

the other weird thing is that, while max is stuttering away in the 

background, i can play 2 of the same videos (copies) in quicktime 

player, looping in fullscreen on two screens, flawlessly.

shark might shed some light, but i don't think this is a machine- 

specific problem, it shows on 5 different quad macs in our studio, 

and f.i. on vades testing machine as described in a previous mail.

On 29-sep-2006, at 20:10, Jan Klug wrote:

> only things i changed is @automatic 0 for the videoplanes, plus an 

yes the banging order is implemented in the bigger main patch, doesnt  
really make a difference on the stuttering indeed.
haven't put automatic0 in there, might help, allthough vade's testing  
didn't produce a signifant improvement.
am away from my studio for the weekend, but will have a look.

i doubt that this is the problem though. there's small glitches, but  
there are also major glitches, pauses for allmost a second, while the  
fps keeps displaying a framerate of around 40 fps. (by the way, i'm  
not playing 4 times the same file, i'm playing 4 different copies of  
the same file.)

the other weird thing is that, while max is stuttering away in the  
background, i can play 2 of the same videos (copies) in quicktime  
player, looping in fullscreen on two screens, flawlessly.

shark might shed some light, but i don't think this is a machine- 
specific problem, it shows on 5 different quad macs in our studio,  
and f.i. on vades testing machine as described in a previous mail.

> only things i changed is @automatic 0 for the videoplanes, plus an  
> explicit banging order.

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the Netherlands

I downloaded your movie example and tested it with a basic jit.qt.movie 

320 240. There are the same glitches that I experience all the time when 

Pmac quad 4xdv playback trouble