Slow Motion

I must admit I'm a bit disappointed after tinkering with Motion this weekend.
RT is not really RT - I assume the reason being that PAL code isn't as fluid with Motion as NTSC is. I imported a FCP project into Motion, added a
few texts, a backdrop, and some drop shadows, nothing big as far as I could tell, and my system slowed down SERIOUSLY. Yes, I was working with uncompressed material, but that really shouldn't be a problem, or...?

Also, I noticed an audio sync problem. I looked for audio prefs but couldn't find any relating to playback (ex. 44.1 or 48 audio, quality, formats etc.)

Tutorials work fine and make everything look nice and dandy - Uncompressed PAL does not. Too bad. As is the fact that all the templates in Motion are in NTSC. C'mon guys! There is life outside the States, too.

I hope these things (among the other things I've read about) are fixed soon.

One thing I do know. AE & Combustion are pro-applications, Motion is semi-pro. At least for now. Great piece of work that doesn't quite get there, yet.


jb

"There is life outside the States..."

Hi there, I'm live in PAL country too. Yes, that's the same case as LifeType, that's come with noting for PAL system.

Would you tell us the configuration of your computer. So that, other's can compare with it. Many Thanks.

Antonio Hui

ps: don't know any about motion yet, still wait.

Hi Antonio,

Thanks for your note. I'm running a G5 Dual 2G with 4 GB RAM,
Aja i/o, Atto scsi Dual 160, Medea RT3 960. I'm just experiencing
audio dropouts, can't get the signal to my monitor (Alert: Video
output device can't be opened), and generally am having a laugh
with this right now. I'm sure this all will be fixed (x my fingers), but
seriously, we're talking about a company trying to go pro with
these new innovations. After all the hype and drumrolls I'm thinking
of buying AE instead. Even if it's tougher to work with, even if it
doesn't have behaviours, even if it costs more, but AT LEAST IT
WORKS.

Motion is like communism - great idea but it just doesn't seem to work...
br...jb

Have you test your computer with FCP after the OS upgrade to version 10.3.5.

I heard there may have some issue about the G5, SCSI, OSX 10.3.5 combination, but not sure.

Good Luck
Antonio Hui

I've just received Motion at Home. I'll try it on my PowerBook 15" A.5GHz, 128Mo video ram, and 1Go of system Ram.

I'll use DV Pal material.

Waiting for installation and when I'll made tests I'll post here.

:-)

I have pretty much the same setup + AJA io. What happened
after I upgraded to 10.3.5 was, that audio sync changed. I was
at a loss for some time. My original setups didn't work the same
way in 10.3.5. Then I realized that my system "knows" what
setup I'm using (ex. playback through AJA io Uncompressed) and
therefore it changes the frame offset accordingly. When I work
with material on FCP, a/v sync is correct although audio out is
set to AJAio. You follow? I know it's a bit complicated, but what's
important is, that IT WORKS properly.

br...jb

Hi Vincent,

Any luck? Is your system running Motion alright?

br...jb

Yes, I can use Motion on my system. It's about 8 to 16 fps. And with render to ram (Command + R), I have around 25 fps, but only for a short sequence... because of my only 1Go of Ram.

I don't have lot of time to use it right now... too much work. But in several days, I'll post more ;-)

A thought about the RAM buffer.

I just do a estimation about have much footage can be hold by 4GB of memory.

let 1 frame storage = 720 x 567 x 4(RGBA) = 1.659 MB per frame

so that for 4GB of RAM, 2469 frame is the limit that's approx. 98 second ??

Jussi, would you shorten the footage little bit, and try again. Maybe the ram buffer is already over loaded. If this could really solve the problem, please tell us the detail about the duration of your imported footage. Many Thanks.

A question come up in my mind ? Does "Motion" come with a RAM meter and GPU or CPU Processing meter that's tell the user when will reach the real-time limit ?

Antonio Hui

PS: The true will be out there.... a confirm mail from apple, my copy should be
arrived within 3 days :-)

Antonio,

I was working on a 20" tv-ad, so way below the 98" 'barrier'. Even after re-starting Motion the reseults were the same. Frame skipping all over the place.

As for RAM/CPU meter, no, I haven't found those. Activity Monitor in Utilities should take care of that, though. I'll check it later.

Olympic fever going on here... br...jb

Jussi Buckbee wrote:

> Tutorials work fine and make everything look nice and dandy -
> Uncompressed PAL does not. Too bad. As is the fact that all the
> templates in Motion are in NTSC. C'mon guys! There is life
> outside the States, too.

All the templates are available in NTSC and PAL. Look directly above the template icons in the template browser, on the right side - there's a popup menu to select NTSC or PAL templates to view.

--
Greg
Apple

That is very good news!

Hi Greg,

Thanks for the info. I did as you told me and yes, I found the
pop-up and chose PAL. I also noticed that I can change the
timing/pixel aspect/framerate of a clip in the Inspector
by dbl-clicking the file and selecting the Media tab. Templates
and qt_movies in Motion have an NTSC default.

Thanks and apologies. br...jb

Jussi Buckbee wrote:

> Thanks for the info. I did as you told me and yes, I found the
> pop-up and chose PAL. I also noticed that I can change the
> timing/pixel aspect/framerate of a clip in the Inspector
> by dbl-clicking the file and selecting the Media tab. Templates
> and qt_movies in Motion have an NTSC default.

The template browser comes up with NTSC the first time you launch (it needs something), but it should "stick" with PAL after the 1st PAL template you open. Same applies when saving a new template.

Some of the movies used in the templates are using NTSC frame rates within a PAL project intentionally, the templates were designed specifically to "look" correct at both NTSC and PAL without taking up twice the space that having multiple format clips would have required. In some cases, the NTSC templates are using PAL frame rate clips, too. The template designers used whatever was most appropriate to that template that could look accurate in both formats. All the source media used for templates is progressive, so there were no field issues to contend with there.

I would not recommend that you change the frame rate of media used in a template unless you are experiencing problems with the template, or want to specifically change the look of the template.

The frame rate of a QuickTime movie is in the movie itself, Motion does not reinterpret that setting - you would have to manually reset it to something else. So if your QT movie is PAL frame rate, Motion uses that rate. For other settings that are not embedded in the QT file, such as pixel aspect ratio, QuickTime movies in Motion have a default that is based on their resolution, not an NTSC default. Anything with PAL resolution (720x576) should import into a project with PAL pixel aspect ratio set. The same applies to NTSC, HD, etc.

--
Greg
Apple

Alright, I tried what you suggested. What happens is, that templates don't run smooth. I've set my prefs to uncompressed PAL. When I change the clips parameters in Inspector I get the movie playing a bit smoother, ex. Square pixels => PAL DV. Also, If I nudge the quality down to Third or Quarter it plays smoother. Not very client-friendly, though.

I just started a Template (Glass Plain or sort), imported a FCP project, and almost immediately ran into sluggish behaviour and dropped / jolting frames.

If I were to make a broadcast quality production, would you have any suggestions as how to get Motion run smoothly? I'm really anxious to get it going. I'm new at this business anyways, so bare with me.

Thanks in advance...jb

G5 Dual 2G / 4 GB / AJA io / Atto Scsi / Medea RT3 960

There is always going to be a point at which motion graphics will "break" real time. Some of the templates are quite complex - some of them will play immediately at real-time, while others will play at near-real-time, while others will be around half real-time. It would be impossible for Motion to achieve perfect real-time under ALL circumstances, since there is no limit to the number of layers and effects you can have on any given project.

If a project you're working with is taxing the system so that you don't get full real-time, use the RAM Preview feature (Mark > RAM Preview). Also, while you're working with a project, you can always trim the in and out points of the project to view particular sections at a time, sometimes that helps free up RAM from later sections of the project. Another tip is to temporarily turn off heavy filters that may be taxing a project.

If you are using audio, try turning off audio via the button in the transport controls - by default, video frames are dropped to keep up with the audio if the system can't render the project in real-time. This is so that you can get a general sense of the movement and animation while still hearing accurate audio. However, you can change this preference, or you can temporarily turn off audio to see the video at a consistent frame rate. The RAM Preview is not affected by audio - it will play at full frame rate with audio regardless of the project complexity.

And finally, I would suggest experimenting with individual elements in Motion to learn more about how different features affect the performance of Motion, and how those things add up when used together. If consistent real-time is your most important criteria, then you'll need to be aware first-hand of how particular filters, particle emitters, or other effects may take a performance hit before going in. If you add a bunch of stuff into a project without knowing where or how those things will impact performance, you'll likely run into frustration if you expect it to perform perfectly when the system may not be capable of doing so. Motion is still software - it may be pretty fast, but it's not magic, we can't make the hardware do anything it's not capable of doing.

--
Greg
Apple

The one thing I didn't see was what Graphic card you're running.

Hi Chucck,

I believe I have the ATI Radeon 9600 or is it 9800.
I bought the system last december. I ran the
handy-dandy Motion checker and it showed me a
green light. jb

When building a Motion project, we recommend "laying out" the simpler project elements first- video clips, still images, text, and applying motion, scaling, etc., so you are using Motion's real-time capabilities to the best advantage.

Then, once you are happy with the overall timing, placement, etc., as a final step, apply filters and particle emitters.

This is a much happier workflow!

I'm on Dual 2Ghz G5, 3GB RAM, 9800 Pro card and Fibre Channel SANman storage. Frame rates are pretty low most of the time but I have noticed that turning off Video Output (if you have that option) doubled the speed of my system. Previously outputing my video through my Blackmagic Decklink Extreme card only gave me 15fps ... WITH NO FILTERS APPLIED! Just one unaltered SD PAL bit of video! Turned off I immediately got 25fps... until I put an effect on it of course!

Frame rates aside - my main problem is Motion crashing on me very frequently. Short pause, then BLAM to the desktop. Don't know if this is when my RAM buffer is getting full or what - it crashes on both simple and complex filters so don't know if it's filtered related. I've read that fonts can severely screw with Motion but as this is a pretty new system and I haven't installed any extra ones I wouldn't think that to be the problem.

Any ideas anyone??

I suffer from the same problems above. Motion just hasnt been well coded in my opinion. It's slow, crashes. I think they should crank up the ram preview similar to what combustion does.

Moving objects around on my canvas is a nightmare. I'm almost considering not using it anymore as it takes so long to do anything.

God I hate macs.