#TR700, Opinions?
18 messages in this thread
John:
>
What is rendering?
Thanks.<
Sorry–"rendering" is what your computer does when it takes so long to generate
an image for 3D animation, or fancy transitions, or anything that doesn't
happen in "real time". In other words, you can't just record it outright to
videotape–your recording VCR would have to wait for each frame to get done
first.
Probably not the world's greatest explanation, but I think it covers the
problems simply enough, and why you'd want a frame-accurate, single-frame
recording VCR & edit controller…
Tim
Does rendering apply to NLE also? Or just tape editing with overlays that
need 'rendering'? What kind of bottleneck have you seen when this is a
problem and how to alleviate it?
Thanks.
-jts
John:
>Does rendering apply to NLE also? Or just tape editing with overlays that
need 'rendering'?<
It can, depending on how fast your computer's processor is, and/or its
throughput is (that's how fast it can ship information to/from the
processor).
>What kind of bottleneck have you seen when this is a problem and how
to alleviate it?<
Well, a REAL fast computer is a good start (my 486/66 w/1 gig SCSI drive
and 16 megs of RAM is just *barely* fast enough for simple NLE–not a
lot of fancy transitions, not a very long clip, etc.). Pentiums w/mucho
RAM seem to be what the folks online who do this for a living use, and
they also get "AV" hard drives, which can access data faster and don't
run so hot…
Also, these new PCI buses they're talking about a lot online are
supposed to alleviate a lot of throughput problems DTV'ers have been
having, although I don't have one myself yet and haven't tried one.
Hope this helps,
Tim
> PCI buses they're talking about a lot online are supposed to alleviate a
> lot of throughput problems DTV'ers have been having
This figures but if the capture card is ISA then what good does a local bus
do? All the capture cards for multimed are ISA which include the Miro DC1
and ///FAST Movie Machine Pro + M-JPEG. Then the video must go over the
slow ISA bus to the video card, say a fast accelerator PCI video card. Are
the capture cards simply a generation or so back in technology?
Thanks.
-jts
John:
>
This figures but if the capture card is ISA then what good does a local bus
do? All the capture cards for multimed are ISA which include the Miro DC1 and
///FAST Movie Machine Pro + M-JPEG. Then the video must go over the slow ISA
bus to the video card, say a fast accelerator PCI video card. Are the capture
cards simply a generation or so back in technology?<
Er…I'm going to have to punt on this one…
Anybody? Please? 🙂
Tim
Yep,
They are a generation or so back.. There are several new
cards promissed for this year but no deliveries yet.
I my self use a DPS PAR setup. Its kinda expensive but
you get high quality. The Disk is attached to the PAR board
so there is almost no bus I/O except when editing..
Razor Pro which I rode out a few bumps with has finally
stabilized and with Elastic Reality's Trans Jammer effects
its really cool. Three D DVE effects abound. Cubes, balls
page curls and more transitions over 100 pre done in all.
I was really impressed because I can make my
own custom bitmap overlays and fly ins that stay and
then fly off. Really handy when makeing that 30 second product
spot. Ahh so much more to tell..
Edit and see previews in almost realtime at 160 x 120 on my PC screen. But hold
on to your hats because it takes at
least 32 MB of memory (I have 40) and at least a
486 66 to edit (I have a Pentium 90).. The power of the
machine has nothing to do with the capture of the PAR
it captures just the same on 386 33MHZ. But editing is still
not very optimal..
Bob from The Design Shop..
Rendering will be the bottleneck once the PCI cards are out, right? What's
the solution? Premiere accelerator cards?
-jts
No…
Pentium Assembly language..
All these things are really new and are probably written really poorly for the
PC.. When this generation stabilizes a little then will come a parade of really
fast
stuff. Lets face it the P90 runs really fast but when you create a program
useing 286 assembly instructions with 16 bit data I/O
it doesnt help..
Bob from The Design Shop..
Oh brother. Now you're getting to a pet peeve of mine. The ONE thing
that's really griped me about Microsoft and others has been this damn
prehistoric 16 bit code when we've had full 32 bit cpu's since, well mid
80's? Now we're at 64 bit with the Pentium and still plugging away with 16
bit instructions. Wish you hadn't mentioned this. I'm sure it'll be a sore
point for at least another decade. Can you image 'busting' into the 21st
Century with 16 bit instruction! <g>
-jts
Bob:
>They are a generation or so back.. There are several new
cards promissed for this year but no deliveries yet. <
Thanks for the info!
Best,
Tim
Tim –
Many current NLE systems use rendering to reduce the video stream to a single
data line, thereby reducing the demands on the software and hardware. Although
they play the final production back in realtime, there is a delay in reducing
the A/B roll segments and transitions to a clip so realtime A/B playback isn't
needed. Systems like Avid's Media Suite Pro (MSP) and Data Translation's Media
100 use this approach.
More significant rendering times are associated with 3D modeling and animation
programs, like LightWave 3D. The output from these programs can take days or
months to produce, due to the significant amount of calculations required to
create true photo quality images and animation. In this case (LightWave 3D is
used on Babylon 5 and SeaQuest, to name just two TV programs its output is seen
on) rendering is the process for taking 3D models, camera settings and movement
and lighting in to account and producing a life-like image and animation
creating a non-existant reality. Unlike transistional rendering of NLE systems,
original video footage is not required and the sequences produced may easily
exceed the 60 to 120 frames of a transition.
For the 3D rendering, you'll find rendering engines and render-farms, which
network the rendering process with high speed processors under software
management to finish the rendering effort in better than 1/30 the time required
by a single processor.
Enough – just thought you might be interested in one of the fastest growing
computer graphics markets.
Hank
Videology, Inc Where service is our product
Thanks Hank. That's very interesting. One home video enthusiast (this is
what it is for me too) said it took 45 minutes to crank out 15 seconds of
video using Premiere on, I think, a 486DX2-66 with 16mb ram and don't recall
the hard drive. I'm planning on a P90 with 16mb ram, PCI video and the Miro
DC20 which will capture 640×480 @ 60 fps. From what you tell me I'd guess
since I'll be doing simple transitions and effects I'll not need distributed
processors … or will I? <g>
Again, fascinating message.
-jts
John –
Some of the more recent additions to the NLE market claim realtime transitions
and text keying. We'll be checking them out at NAB.
Hank
Videology, Inc Where service is our product
Hank:
>Many current NLE systems use rendering to reduce the video stream to a single
data line, thereby reducing the demands on the software and hardware. Although
they play the final production back in realtime, there is a delay in reducing
the A/B roll segments and transitions to a clip so realtime A/B playback isn't
needed. <
Ah, I see! Wonder where I'd gotten the idea that NLE needed to be
rendered…Didn't it used to?
>In this case (LightWave 3D is used on Babylon 5 and SeaQuest, to name
just two TV programs its output is seen on) rendering is the process
for taking 3D models, camera settings and movement and lighting in to
account and producing a life-like image and animation creating a
non-existant reality. Unlike transistional rendering of NLE systems,
original video footage is not required and the sequences produced may
easily exceed the 60 to 120 frames of a transition.<
That I knew about–a friend of mine, Arn McConnell, does a lot of 3D video
animation w/LightWave.
Thanks for the update!
Best,
Tim
Unfortunately I didn't start investigating NLE until Newtek announced the
Flyer. Since their approach is realtime, I assumed that all NLE's would use the
same approach.
However, with recent hands-on demos of Media Suite Pro and Media 100, I found
two examples of transitional rendering. Media Suite Pro even had to render text
keyed over video as it has no realtime overlay capabilities.
Hank
Videology, Inc Where service is our product
Hank:
>with recent hands-on demos of Media Suite Pro and Media 100, I found two
examples of transitional rendering. Media Suite Pro even had to render text
keyed over video as it has no realtime overlay capabilities.<
*Gevult*! That's worse than I thought… render text over video????
Can you say "dinosaur"? <g>
Best,
Tim
> render text keyed over video as it has no realtime overlay capabilities
> Can you say "dinosaur"
Could you explain this a bit more … I'm new to video. Rendering is making
a computer graphic composite with two or more sources and outputting that to
video while video overlay can accomplish this realtime without making a
composite first? Is overlay a relatively new capability?
Thanks.
-jts
John:
>Rendering is making
a computer graphic composite with two or more sources and outputting that to
video while video overlay can accomplish this realtime without making a
composite first?<
Not quite–"rendering" is simply any graphics activity that the computer can't
do in real time (like generating a series of complicated animation frames, or
generating a complicated transition between two digitized scenes).
One of the reasons I was shocked about "rendering keyed text over video" is
because it's pretty *easy* to do–it's not like the text is going anywhere
(generally), or that text itself is particularly memory-intensive (I mean, it's
just letters in a particular typeface…). It's not like a series of drawings
or digitized frames, which can take up to about a megabyte *per frame* for
VHS-level resolution…
>Is overlay a relatively new capability?<
Hardly–it's been available on film since the days of silent movies, and on
video from the days of two-camera studio shoots. Again, that's why I was
shocked–I thought this particular problem w/licked w/NLE a while ago…
Best,
Tim