Is Video Studio X4 Faster with HD Video than X2?

[mark9422]

Hi

Wondered if you could offer me some insight to an "issue" I'm having. After upgrading to the latest and "greatest" video card, adding an HDCP monitor, adding a Blu Ray Burner (I know the last two don't have an effect on performance) and overclocking my processor and memory successfully, the HD video files that load in my video studio pro x2 software still load and perform slowly. The files also don't always play well in the "timeline" or single clip editor and stutter to keep up. Sometimes they crash the program. However, I am able to produce an HD DVD (still haven't tried to make a Blu Ray yet) which plays perfectly in my Blu Ray player every time. The software, in an effort to "speed up" editing, displays the video in a lower quality by default i think...is that correct?
HOWEVER !!---when I just play these, sometimes 1920x1080p, files in Windows Media Player, they play perfectly with no lag in playback and load almost instantly and look awesome. Also transferring the files from camera (Canon HF S21) to computer is a snap.

At first I thought the problem was that the hard drive is too slow. But if the drive was the culprit then the files should also load, play slowly and stutter in WMP which ceretainly is not the case.



My thinking...could it be that the video editing software is slow??? I know they have put out two upgrades since mine was released two years ago and I was thinking about upgrading to increase performance but I don't know for sure if that will be the case.

Thank you

[Ron P.]

VS X4 is suppose to use the latest and greatest features of computers, such as Cuda, and better usage of multi-core processors. Could you please fill in your system information in Profile tab of your User Control Panel for the forum? This way it will appear below your name, so we can have a quick look to see if there is something that might be causing a problem, and you will not have re-post that information in the future.

Download the trial version of VS X4 and see. Every system is different, so we can only guess if it will increase performance on your system.

[mark9422]

Thanks Ken. I've updated my profile. Would you mind taking a look and tell me what you think of my system and any impact it might have on VS Pro X2 with HD video as outlined above?

Thanks again
Mark

[mark9422]

OOPS !!! Sorry Ron I called you ken...my apologies...

[Black Lab]

I don't know about HD, but it does seem faster than X2 and X3.

I just completed my first extensive project with X4. For the 30 second intro I used all 7 video tracks, with the Picture-in-Picture filter applied to the 6 overlay tracks, an audio track, and a title. In X2 or X3 that 30 second intro would have lagged so bad it would have been difficult to sync the video with the audio. But with X4 it played back very well.

And you can see by my profile that I am using a very pedestrian P4. I should upgrade, but the world is going to end on Saturday, so why bother.

[Ron P.]

but the world is going to end on Saturday, so why bother.

Oops almost forgot about that You know the guy has to be right, after spending his life's savings on it... I'd say if that's the case Jeff, run quickly to the computer store, buy the biggest, baddest, fastest, system they have. If we had just a little more time, I'd pick up one of them camcorders that run about $50k too. I mean if the world ends tomorrow, who's going to be around to worry about paying it off...

[Black Lab]

And it would be just my luck that the world wouldn't end and I would be stuck with the bill.

[mark9422]

Well I downloaded the ttrial of Vid Studio X4 and it turns out that Vid Studio X4 handled the HD video much much better than X2. No more program crashes and much smoother and quicker. Guess I'll be buying this one.

[mark9422]

Just wanted to let you know:

1. Purchased (Upgraded from X2) Vid Studio X4

2. Perfecto! Smooth editing 1080p video from my Canon HF S21. No burps, not choppy, no crashes as was the case with X2. X2 was just fine for SD though.

3. Burned my first Blu-Ray with X4's software and the words every videographer wants to see appeared: "Operation Completed Successfully" ! First try!

Wow! Great experience! Only thorn is learning to use transitions. Not the same as all other versions of program. I'll get to it though...

Thank you for your help.

[Black Lab]

Only thorn is learning to use transitions. Not the same as all other versions of program. I'll get to it though...

In what way Seems the same to me.

[ULRICHOBIRCH]

I would like to report about a problem I had with VS X4 Pro and stuttering playback, as well as about the - somewhat unexpected - solution.

The problem was that the image was stuttering during editing. It was actually worst when I did the "Multitrim". Then, it happened that during replay in the Multitrim window, the movie stopped and then jumped several seconds forward. Similar effects happened when I used the wheel to move forward or backward.

And, surprisingly enough, the same video files played flawlessly with Windows Media Player. Therefore, I suspected VS. However....

With quite some analysis and efforts (using Task Manager and Performance Monitor of Win 7), I figures out that the problem was an "overload" of the harddisk where the *.AVI files were located. First, I suspected a problem with the codec (since I had such problems before), but all checks were negative. However, the harddisk showed a usage of 100% (which actually means overload) and queues up to 2 and higher waiting. I could not imagine how this was possible, since the harddisk is actually a RAID array that should be pretty fast.

So, I suspected a problem with the file system on the disk. I run a CHKDSK, which also reported that some errors were corrected. But the problem with stuttering playback persisted. Therefore, I had to look further.

Actually, I had upgraded from an earlier machine, and I imported the *.AVI files (together with others) through an Image File that I had made with Norton Ghost 15.0. I remembered that I had some file system and harddisk problems on the earlier machine. Hence, I might have imported these problems.

So, and here comes now the solution. I copied all the files from the problematic harddisk (i.e. the RAID 0 array) to another disk, just by using copy / paste (but no image file!), thus making a backup. Then, I dissolved the RAID array and re-built it from scratch again. After doing so, I re-made the partitions on the RAID array (actually, there are three partitions) with the corresponding feature of Windows 7 and using fast format. Finally, I copied the files back from the other harddisk (again with copy / paste, but not using any image).

After this procedure, the stuttering was gone, the Multitrim is as fast as it ever can be. Furthermore, the Performance Monitor shows a disk load (for the RAID array) of less than 10%....., and also there are only minimal queues.

I write all this, in order to provide some ideas, why VS could be stuttering during replay. Perhaps it is no problem of VS, but a corrupt file system on the harddisk. Hence, it might be a solution to backup the files with copy / paste and re-format the problematic harddisk and then get the files back from the backup.