Solved MSP 12 and rendering settings and performance

OK, thanks. I can see that in 2008 this was more likely to be an issue. I have noticed that making the preview window smaller makes a few % difference to rendering speed too.

Can I home in on something quite specific?

Input: 1080p 50fps ex-camera, "PS" which is about 50mbits/sec according to Sony

If I render this to the *same* (as far as I can tell, having gone around every setting I can find) and there are no FX, and I set the output bitrate to 25-50mbits/sec (the Sony AVC allows only 25) should I still expect 3 mins rendering time per 1 minute of video?

I have just done a quick test with 64-bit Handbrake, with the same input video, and doing as little as possible to it, with a "20" output quality setting, and it runs at 2x real time i.e. 6x faster than MSP 12. If I set HB to 5mbits/sec fixed bit rate, I see exactly the same. The CPU is showing 12 threads running at 85% (6 cores each one running 2 threads).

peterh337 wrote: That article is a great explanation - thank you!

I am setting rendering to CPU-only, since CUDA makes no real difference and the CPU encoder code is reportedly better anyway.

However, I don't understand this:

When you render out your video to export it (Render As), it must playback the timeline in order to hand the frames to the encoder for the final render or export of the video. So your playback performance has an affect on both the timeline and the rendering or exporting of the video.

Hi Peter,

At the risk of making this more confusing......

I have an old desktop that struggles with real-time playback. In fact the only way I can get real-time playback at Best (half) is by using a CineForm intermediate file. However, I have done a few test using various files with h264, ProRes, DNxHD, Mpeg, Sony XAVC, etc. codecs in MOV, MP4, MTS, and AVI containers.

Although there is sometimes a difference in render speed, between playback speeds, in my testing, not very much, if any at all, sometimes more, sometimes less! For example:

h264/mp4, 11 second source, best/full preview, cpu, 1:46 minutes to render
h264/mp4, 11 second source, draft/qtr preview, cpu, 1:46 minutes to render

h264/mp4, 11 second source, best/full preview, cuda, :24 seconds to render
h264/mp4, 11 second source, draft/qtr preview, cuda, :26 seconds to render

CineForm Filmscan 1/avi, 11 second source, best/full preview, cuda, :25 seconds to render
CineForm Filmscan 1/avi, 11 second source, draft/qtr preview, cuda, :25 seconds to render

In addition, I find things vary dependent on the source media (no edits, FX, corrections, etc. applied) codec and container and each may have a different effect on playback and render times. Although my computer chip is old, I am using a GTX 460 graphics card which is well matched for Movie Studio/Vegas Pro (as is evident with the render speeds reflected in the sample above). However, taking the option in preferences/video 'GPU acceleration of video processing:', sometimes makes no discernable difference. Also, reducing the 'Dynamic RAM preview max (MB):' from the default of '200', to '0' sometimes makes an improvement, other times not.

Preview speeds are not as big an issue for 6, 8, 12 core processors until the FX, titles, color corrections, transitions, etc, get real heavy, and then almost any box can bend at it's knees. For me, being on an old Core 2 Duo, and therefore effected by preview playback speed, I still see very little difference in render speeds being effected by playback speeds. Maybe others do, and certainly David Knarr has (as he reported in his article).

That's super, George, thanks. I am happy with all this because it confirms I am not doing anything stupidly wrong.

Also Handbrake has a lot of community resources thrown into it, with a lot of optimisation for the i7 instruction set.

Also I found that 64-bit processing speeds things up about 2.7 times (comparing a winXP-32 QX9650 (4 cores at 100%) with a win7-64 i7-970 (6 cores at 80%)). I would hope that MSP12 uses 64 bit code, since it installed itself into Program Files rather than Program Files (x86) where the rest of the suite (e.g. DVD creator) installed itself into

FWIW, about 5 years ago I used a dedicated single core AMD machine (3GHz still) with MSP 11 and winXP-32 and it took 30hrs to render a 1 hr movie.

peterh337 wrote: Also Handbrake has a lot of community resources thrown into it, with a lot of optimisation for the i7 instruction set.

I think it's render results are a bit superior to MainConcept or Sony AVC, and with Vegas Pro I use a script and FrameServer to streamline the process.

peterh337 wrote: I would hope that MSP12 uses 64 bit code, since it installed itself into Program Files rather than Program Files (x86) where the rest of the suite (e.g. DVD creator) installed itself into

Yes, Movie Studio Platinum 12 is 64 bit.

peterh337 wrote: FWIW, about 5 years ago I used a dedicated single core AMD machine (3GHz still) with MSP 11 and winXP-32 and it took 30hrs to render a 1 hr movie.

I can understand your pain back in those days. Mine is a bit faster, but still takes awhile for the longer videos to render! For now, it's not that bad for my purpose. If I was doing this for a living, an upgrade box would be absolutely necessary. In my retired state, I need to spread the change around and make do with some equipment like my old Asus P5KC box.

The only reason I moved away from the 4-core QX9650, winXP-32 and the *P5KE* was because I could not find anything (almost) that would perform lens correction (barrel distortion) on a 32-bit platform. Moving dozens of apps and sorting out new ones in many cases took me weeks. MSP12 can run the NewblueFX $99 plug-in kit which includes lens correction. I will post details in another thread soon, because it should interest action cam owners. That plug-in BTW makes only a few % difference to the render time.

Hi Peter,

I typically do not include action cam footage, but on occasion will use a GoPro Hero 3 for special scenes, so I would be interested in your upcoming thread and experience with the NewBlueFX and how it may compare to GoPro Studio. I would especially be interested if you have done any comparison against Mercalli 4.o SAL.

One more data point:

Rendering to 1280x720 speeds up rendering to 2.5x slower than real time. Rendering to 1920x1080 is 3x to 3.5x slower than real time.

Other factors e.g. output bit rate (50 25 or 16 mbits/sec) and the number of plug-ins (contrast, NewblueFX lens correction) makes less than 20% difference.

So really not much difference, no matter that you do.

The biggest difference by far was going to 64 bits, in my case from winXP-32 (MSP11) to win7-64 (MSP12). That is 2x to 2.5x speedup. I was running Vegas on both systems so have the comparative rendering times for that. I also have a win7-32 machine running Vegas (MSP11) and it rendered at almost the same speed as the winXP-32, even though the win7 is an i7 and the winXP is a QX9650.

A lot of things which people say should make a difference actually don't make a significant difference.

Especially when reading about stuff like the rendering algorithm which uses the graphics card producing worse results than the one which uses the CPU. It just makes it not worth the bother to go digging for a compatible graphics card.

For me, the longest movie anyone is likely to ever want to watch will be c. 30 mins, so a 90 min rendering time is very acceptable.

Hi peterh337,

Just so you know, the Intel Core i7-970 does not have embedded graphics within its die. It was used on the "Enthusiast" level High End Desktop (HEDT), on the LGA-1366 platform. The processor itself is now outside of the Intel "Life" window. I had a machine based on the i7-920, which was great back then, though I was only starting to move over to the Sony Movie Studio Software back then, after all the issues I continued to experience with the Pinnacle product of the time. Now, I've got this current machine with MSP13 Suite, an i7-5820k, 32GB RAM; my main video encoding platform for heavier lifting uses the i7-5930K with 64GB RAM - Vegas Pro 12 Suite (going to "Gift" myself that update via Magix!), and also MSP13 Suite as a back-up solution, or if needing smaller projects done. The Intel chips that have the graphics cores included with the processor core are on the "Mainstream" side of Intel's offerings. The typical i7 processors would be:
i7-2600(K)/2700(K) - Sandy Bridge
i7-3770k - Ivy Bridge
i7-4770(K)/4790K - Haswell/Haswell Devil's Canyon
i7-5775c - Broadwell
i7-6700(K) - Skylake

Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge used the LGA-1155 motherboard (P68/Z77 Chipsets)
Haswell, Devil's Canyon, and Broadwell use the LGA-1150 motherboard (Z87 & Z97 Chipsets - Broadwell mostly with Z97)
Skylake uses the new LGA-1151 motherboard (Z170 Chipset)

Of course, who knows if Intel will change the Z170/LGA-1151 motherboard for the release of the upcoming Kaby Lake processor later this year/early next, though current tech writers seem to think maybe an updated chipset with the same pin-out (LGA-1151).

The i7-920,930, 970; i7-3820, 3930K, 3960/3970X; i7-4820, 4830K, 4960X; i7-5820K, 5930K, 5960X; i7-6800K, 5850K, 6900K, 6950X are all on the HEDT platforms, and therefore do not support on-die graphics.

You can always check out your processor specifics at ark.intel.com

Hope this helps. Will be waiting patiently to see what Magix has in store for us with the upcoming release of Vegas Pro 14 at the end of September. Hopefully, they will have corrected a lot of the issues that Sony left "up in the air" that customers complained about. I have used some of their (Magix) software years ago (audio stuff), but at that time found the user interface a bit "lacking" and "un-polished". I have read some reviews on their current Video Editing software, and typically gets pretty good scores/ratings. Depending on the reviewer though, you will always get some type of negative feedback. I'm looking forward to Vegas Pro 14 myself, and the follow-up to Movie Studio as well for the machine I am currently on.

Mike "The Chief" O'Sullivan

"the Intel Core i7-970 does not have embedded graphics within its die"

Thanks - that explains it

Still, MSP12 emits a useless error message when the i7 rendering option is selected.

I am on a X58-UD5 motherboard because I needed winXP to run some old but very high value apps and I was not sure if they will run under a VM (some don't). And that MB is the latest which has winXP drivers. And the i7-970 is one of the fastest CPUs compatible with that MB. I am hoping this system will last me about 10 years

No upgrade path from Vegas Platinum (MSP12)? I paid very little for it - about $50.

I used Pinnacle for a while, a long time ago. It was terrible, with so many crashes.

peterh337 wrote: ---No upgrade path from Vegas Platinum (MSP12)? I paid very little for it - about $50.

You might want to read the "Vegas 13 and 14 offer" thread. Notice the link to the MAGIX offer (which has NOT been received by all of us as yet) and especially posts #13 and 16.