Flash Playback on IC5

Tuesday, 10/23/2007 -- by Rick Moore. Subject: Flash Playback on IC5

We have recently tried to upgrade to IC5 and have noticed some playback issues when using flash (swf) files in our scripts.
When playing a fairly short flash video of only 2 mins and encoded at 600 kbit/s total file size is around 40 mb we notice a stuttering. The file does not play back smooth. Thinking this was the file, maybe too big, we tried a 20 second flash file which was about 2 mb and the same effect. These same two files play perfectly in IC3.
Has anyone seen this same issue?
Our Players Are:
Intel P4HT 3.0 GB 800 FSB LGA775
(2) 256 MB 184 pin DDR 400 Memory
Intel D915GAVL P4HT 533/800 motherboard
WinXP Pro SP2
Single Seagate ST3160812AS 160 GB 7200 rpm

Thanks

Wednesday, 10/24/2007 -- by John Schilling. Subject: Flash Video Playback can never been optimal

Flash is about "Small Size"--not efficient performance.

Basic, simple, video performance in IC5 is lower than it is in IC3. Nothing can be done about that--its the price paid for the advantages of the new 3D Rendering Engine. Its a trade-off that had to be made.

Flash-Video--the CODEC/data is all about "small size"--its not "CPU-efficient". And the mechanism for transferring the frame buffer from the Flash-CODEC into the IC5-Rendering Engine is also very slow.

Your boxes were just barely able to do what you wanted with Flash under IC3--IC5 tipped things over the edge.

Your options:

(1) Stick with IC3

(2) Transcode your video in to a more-efficient format--either MPEG-2 or WMV9. [MPEG-2 is the most CPU efficient at the expense of a 2-3X increase in file size for equivalent video quality as you would get from WMV9 or Flash-Video--with the obvious MPEG-2 resolution limitations!]

Regards,

--JSS

Wednesday, 10/24/2007 -- by Rick Moore. Subject: Other Options

Thanks for the response.
With many of our screens pushing video content and with many of our video guys shooting in HD and editing with Final Cut my concern is when asked to post a very nice video clip using the newest video formats ie: H264 (MP4) What should I do?
The file size is so small on flash and H264, and the video quality is superb but if IC5 can't play them....
Most of our editors are using Mac's, do I tell them that all their video content needs to converted to WM9 or mpeg2?
I'm trying to convince a group of 20 somethings that they should invest in IC5 for a new building...if I tell them that their content needs to be converted to the above mentioned then I need to have a benefit other than playback performance.
What method are others using to post HD content using final cut?

Thank You For Your Time :)

Wednesday, 10/24/2007 -- by John Schilling. Subject: Don't bother trying to convince 20-somethings of anything...

It can't be done. Wait until after they all have had their 1st Corporate Meltdown/layoff/six-month Job-hunt/Career Rebuild. Then they will be more tractable!

As for video formats--we will be adding H.264 support to IC5 in a soon to be released update. However--nothing in life is free. Figure this--at the same video quality level--for 1280x720p@60Hz ATSC Video:

MPEG-2: 12-16 Mbps CBR--resulting in file sizes of about 2-3 GB per 20 minutes. [6-9 GB/Hour] To display this, (on an Intel P4E-HT @3.0 GHz, (2x512MB DDR2-667), Intel i965 Chipset, ATi X1650 PEG w/512MB of GDDR3, XPPsp2/DX9c/IE7/WMP11/IC5 r.2.0.8 Player system), will take about 30-40% CPU%.

H.264, (MPEG-4-AP-part10): 5-8 Mbps CBR--resulting in file sizes of about 0.9-1.3 GB per 20 minutes. [~3-4 GB/Hour] On the same box this will require about 70-80% CPU% to decode. As a result the margin for other effects--wipes, crawls, frames, etc. will be less.

Its a simple trade-off :

MPEG-4's smaller file sizes come at the cost of more CPU% to decode. Larger file sizes of MPEG-2 == less CPU% loading. More resources available for other concurrent tasks.

--JSS

H.264: 5-8 Mbps

Wednesday, 10/24/2007 -- by Rick Moore. Subject: thank you

I appreciate your information...:)

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