Need some help based on your experience with...

[Yura]

Hi!

I need a help in one question.
This is very important for me.

this help is expected from long-time SAWers who had experience if using old SAWstudio plugin SAWStudioFx_VideoTrackViewer ver. 1.4 (avi viewer)

as pointed in its helpfile:
...The viewer will display AVI Video Files to the computer screen without the need for any additional hardware, or to an external full screen video monitor with the use of specialized video capture boards...

My question is:

Had somebody experience of RENDERING VIDEO FILE THRU HARDVARE TO AN EXTERNAL TV MONITOR (not to computer monitor) with this AVI VIEWER???

The information has very importance for me.

Very Thanx

[Pedro Itriago]

I used to render to a tv monitor with my miro dc30 plus, but there was a point during the development of directx that things started to get messy with the drivers. I think it may still work, but I have to make some adjustmens to see if it still works on w2k (I worked with it in me & nt). I also think it may involve re-installing old drivers for the card.

Also, the avi files had to be acquired thru the card since it compressed them in mjpeg which, if you don't have the codec, it won't run on any viewer. Regular avi's wouldn't go thru the card if they weren't compress by it.

There were other video cards that could render to external monitars in saw, but I don't remember which ones.

Here's where the rest of the ole sawsters will hopefully jump in

[MMP]

Yes, I used a FAst FPS/60 ISA board in the old days.

MM

[Dave Labrecque]

I've used both the Miro DC10 and the FAST AV Master (Win95 and NT, respectively) with the old video viewer driving an external monitor (TV via a VCR). I used the FAST/NT setup with the viewer plug-in in SAWStudio till I got my dual+TV Matrox card last year.

They were both proprietary M-JPEG hardware cards. I think the first was ISA and the second PCI. The cool thing is that I've since found the FAST codec and installed it on my system so I can usually play the AVI files in my old sessions in SS's video viewer. (usually -- we know how fussy and unpredictable all this video stuff is)

[SoundSuite]

Sorry George,

I only used it for displaying vids on the SAW screen and planting sound effects to the timeline in sync.
I never rendered external, nor used the videos for more than a timeline.

[Yura]

Very thank you, fellow gents... this info is good for me.

I see I begin understand why in SS in winXP this old viewer didnt recognize my DC 10 pinnacle... while winXP itself recognized it...

So, I have to try to use the NT and try SSb and DC 10 in it...
If I understood correctly, it must be working there.
And if so, principaly, it have to work in XP too but with some new drivers maybe... or maybe not.
This is good that MJPEG rendering from SAW is principaly possible.
not review on the fact DV is splendid thing, MJPEG still may be alternative for some piquant situations.

[Bob L]

Yura,

The old viewer and the Video For Windows interface were tough enough to hook to all the prorietary drivers and things back then... now, Video For Windows is emulated through DirectShow, which places yet another layer of code in the loop to getting things done...

I would highly recormmend sticking with DV and Firewire and Overlay renders in a Win 2k or XP machine... you will definitely get a lot more work done... and you will have much higher quality output and control in the new video track viewer.

Just my two cents worth. :)

Bob L

[Burkeville]

I have found that Matrox over the years is the best video card to render out to a tv from. I do this alot currently with the Matrox G-450 thanks to some help from Perry . It works great. I do music and post for movies and tv and this card ios the way to go. I did have to download Bob's codec pack though for the avi's and quicktimes clients send me. I am working on a feature right now. No problems.

Thanks Bob, mixing with automated 5.1 ON EVERY STRIP is grand!

ken burke

[Yura]

I have found that Matrox over the years is the best video card to render out to a tv from. I do this alot currently with the Matrox G-450 thanks to some help from Perry . It works great. I do music and post for movies and tv and this card ios the way to go. I did have to download Bob's codec pack though for the avi's and quicktimes clients send me. I am working on a feature right now. No problems.

Thanks Bob, mixing with automated 5.1 ON EVERY STRIP is grand!

ken burke

I have C-450 on the studio machime too and I've been used it in VD MAX mode for rendering DV files... for 1 year long. But I can't say there are no problems. (I used new fast machine with it).
The main unpleasant problem is that you cannot avoid jerks in TV monitor while playbak + using switching F-keys, zooms, other windows refreshes...
Maybe my working group has more high requirements on a generaly systems behavior, but I was have to refuse DV MAX because of such "small" inconveniences and had to jump to FireWire DV rendering. First- it gives more purest output video, second - it dispenses from jerks while switching SAW's windows.
But I have to search another way of rendering video - even most realible than FW allows, because in long videofiles.. rare jerks still present...
You may not notice them if you are working on short projects (mean not dense but short). But they are.
May be I'll incline to drive the video from the second separate machine or dv recorder...

[Bob L]

Yura,

Make sure to increase your buffer size latency when working with the video track... small buffers will increase the chance of jerky video playback... I usually go to 4 x 512 when I'm doing video.

Bob L

[Yura]

Yura,

Make sure to increase your buffer size latency when working with the video track... small buffers will increase the chance of jerky video playback... I usually go to 4 x 512 when I'm doing video.

Bob L

OK.
I was experimenting with buffer's too, honestly.
Jerks appeared as well as 1 time per 5 - 10 minutes (or even 20 minutes) and seems not dependent on this. I came to setup my buffers 4x512 exactly and this was a largest possible point due to live needs and requirements of my working mode in daw...
The ploblem's node has mostly a human's factor (as often) in my situation - The director of films is always watching to TV monitor and listening to the sound and when he notices any small jerk in the VIdeo...(he cannot nag to the sound never!!) he begin feel nervous and rave that there is unsync gap 1 frame between video & sound. The only thing that could convince (sure) him that he mistakes about gap - must be... absolutely absence of this jerk...
After we ended 10 series of last film he said his work may be possible with our studio if one condition will be solved: absence of jerks. Regrettably, we have no any wide choice to other employers that could give us such a profitable work, thus the best way for us is looking for a best tricks to pass-by our problems.

[MMP]

O.K. I have seen a machine develop this video instability. Here is how I fixed it.

This is only relevent if you use Win2000.

A machine that had worked flawlessly with the video viewer started having jerky output, and stopped capturing without problems. The issue was Direct X (is that what they call it now) 9.0C. Someone hit upgrade. and changed it from DX8.1 which was stabile (I'm not pointing any fingers). Microsoft in their wisdom doesn't provide an uninstall for DX9, but I found a program called dx uninstaller, and it worked. I reinstalled the DX8.1 version on the SawStudio site, and everything is back to normal.

One other note about Matrox video cards.
The common wisdom for Saw has been to turn off bus mastering for Matrox video cards, and I had always done that. Recently, after testing, I found that I got better performance from my Parhelia card with bus-mastering turned on. However, after the recent update of SS, when it was found that the often quoted Windows tweak of setting system priority to background instead of application didn't work well with Studio, turning off bus-mastering again is the higher performance setting, after setting system priority back to application.

It is interesting how all these things are in such delicate balance, and how stabile Saw remains through all of it.

Hope some of that helps someone.

Regards,

MM

[Yura]

One other note about Matrox video cards.
The common wisdom for Saw has been to turn off bus mastering for Matrox video cards, and I had always done that...

MM

If not you, who and where else could mention about that?

Btw, I replaced Matrox by Geforce FX 5200... load mpeg-1, and have no problems with DVD Max (DV). No jerks, no cpu load, no huge file length... the picture as pure as moving photo. If to compare DV and mpeg on the same big pro tv monitor there is no actual difference...

Btw, what is happened with newest Videoviewer 2.7 (on SS 3.9b)???
I cannot render DV file through Matrox (g450), while the old Viewer 2.3 does it ok... New Viewer renders only one starting frame of videofile to tv, but when I push play - it doesnt move!

[Bob L]

The overlay routines have been changed to eliminate problems with Windows changes in XP and DX.

You need to change the Matrox DVD Max settings and turn OFF the option that says render on page flip.... each driver says it differently, but you basically do not want to depend on page flipping to get output... I do not use page flipping routines in the DirectDraw output routines.

Bob L

[Yura]

You need to change the Matrox DVD Max settings and turn OFF the option that says render on page flip....

Bob L

Very useful info. now it works.

But as Mickael said about turnimg off bass masterimg... In winXP DVD max refuses to work with bass masterimg turned OFF.

[Bob L]

Yes, it also seems that the bus mastering in XP is handled better and it does not need to be turned off.

Go figure. :)

Bob L