Sep 8, 2010 10:31 PM
Dropped Frames w/ Ae Dynamic Link Comps Using BMD (on Playback)
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Hey guys,
This problem started exibiting itself a couple weeks ago. Hoping for some feedback regarding possible problems other than just bad performance with my BMD Hardware.
The following is the system it's occuring on:
2009 2.93Ghz/16GB 8-Core MacPro
Adobe CS5 - Latest Updates
Internal Raid 0 - Footage Files
Internal 7200RPM - Project Files
Internal 7200RPM - OS
(all drives at 50% or more current capacity)
Stock GT120GFX
GTX285
Blackmagic Decklink Extreme 3D to HDLinkPro
2 Monitors (1 to each GFX card)
1 Plasma monitor out of the Decklink
Now that's out of the way, here's the scenario:
Using Blackmagic Design sequence presets in Premiere and Dyanamic Linking AE comps in the Premiere sequence . Playing back the sequence results in CS5 stopping playback because "Dropped Frames Detected"
This ONLY occurs in the following situations:
- with any BMD preset
- only unrendered (yellow) timeline comps
Rendering the timeline (sot it's green) results in uninterrupted playback
The comps have no problems in AE
Premiere exhibits no playback issues outside of BMD presets
Premiere exhibits no playback issues with other footage
All fingers point to something internal when in a BMD preset. But could a drive be failing? Something else?
Thanks.
Premiere exhibits no playback issues outside of BMD presets
I'd look there, myself. A hard drive issue would be more pervasive.
You say "latest updates" for Adobe CS5. Can you confirm that you're running Premiere Pro CS5 (5.0.2)? There have been some issues with that update failing for some folks, so I want to rule out the possibility that you're still on 5.0.0 or 5.0.1.
Also, when is that last time that you updated your BlackMagic drivers? A new set went out on the 25th or 26th of August, and it was intended to fix some issues with Premiere Pro.
I am running Pr 5.0.2 and Ae 10.0.1.19. However, the latest BMD driver is 7.8.1 and I'm on the previous version. Thanks for bringing that up. It didn't even occur to me since the card and drivers were freshly installed at the beginning of the month. I'll give that a whirl and report back.
I updated to the latest BMD drives and the problem still exists.
Blackmagic does have a "Turn off Dropped Frame Warning" under Sequence Settings > Playback Settings which will keep Premiere moving forward although it really doesn't solve the issue except for the fact the system just can't playback at 24p sequence with DL'd Ae Comps in at 720
Does it help if you drop the playback resolution to half?
Shouldn't this be normal behavior for a Dynamic Link AE comp? If it's dynamically linked, it means it's not rendered, so Premiere is trying to play the AE comp in realtime (like hitting the play button in AE without doing a RAM preview). If the comp in AE is simple enough that it will play realtime in AE without doing a RAM preview, but still will not play realtime in Premiere on a BMD timeline, it could be do to the RGB to YUV conversion. AE only outputs in RGB, while a Decklink card (unless otherwise set in the preferences) outputs in YUV, so it needs to do a RGB/YUV conversion when playing the AE comp, and that can slow things down.
I use a Decklink card and I find if I have a Dynamic Link comp in Premiere that stutters on playback, it will sometimes then play realtime after the initial playblack. I'm guessing Premiere might be caching the frames similar to an AE RAM preview.
Todd, I believe the playback resolution setting is ignored on a BMD timeline.
Yes, of course After Effects will have to do an inital rendering of the frames, but I had assumed that Jay knew this and was concerned with playing/scrubbing through a part of a track for which the After Effects frames had already been rendered and cached.
My next line of questioning was going to relate to how much memory After Effects was being allowed, because a small amount would mean that it was needing to drop rendered frames out of its cache.
> Todd, I believe the playback resolution setting is ignored on a BMD timeline.
Ah, I didn't realize that wrinkle. Thanks for the clarification.
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