Serato Video General Discussion

Talk about Serato Video and Video-SL.

PC Video-SL - Success story

DouggyFresh 10:37 PM - 20 July, 2009
I've been testing Video-SL on a regular PC, with the following specs:

AMD Quad Core 9950 (2.6ghz)
3GB DDR2 RAM
320GB Hard Drive
NVidia 9800GT 512MB graphics card
Windows XP Home Edition
($699 system)

My laptop was terrible (2.16 Dual Core Pentium, 3GB DDR, Intel 4500 video). This on the other hand... wow.

Quality set to best, no effects turned on, crossfader in the middle, runs 46fps @ 60% CPU load.
Quality set to high, 2 effects on each channel, varying effects on crossfade, runs 49 fps @ 70% CPU load.
DouggyFresh 11:06 PM - 20 July, 2009
Quality set to high, no effects, default crossfader effect in the middle, 52-57fps.

The worst setting by far was Quality Best, with stacked zoom/tile effects on both channels, it actually dropped to 32fps, of course you couldn't even see the video anymore since the stacked effects basically made it a mess (4 zoom tiles combined on crossfade).

Actually the only thing that really made it work hard is when I load videos with no overview built, it takes it to about 85% CPU load for the 5-10 seconds it takes to build the overview. And it didn't drop the frame rate while building it.

I've had it running a folder of videos set to Autoplay for 24 hours straight with no crashes so far. I plan to keep it running a folder of videos until either it crashes, or I have to unplug my SL1 and take it to work Wednesday night (that's 72 hours total). If it passes the 72 hour mark I'll be confident enough to use it at the club.

I think the problem with PC laptops is manufacturers end up cutting corners to make it a better price... and the fact that laptop integrated video chipset drivers & capabilities vary by computer manufacturer. Apple has the benefit of making a hardware/software/OS integrated machine, and laptop PCs do not have that benefit.
djchrischip 1:25 PM - 22 July, 2009
i remarkable story doug,
i feel that ur one of a select bunch who has tackled VSL with pc...
u should be sincerely proud of urself
now
GET A MAC lol
jk
nemix 3:59 PM - 22 July, 2009
what model and manufacturer?
DouggyFresh 7:10 PM - 22 July, 2009
It was all custom built out of components. I've been building custom computers & writing software since 8086's & XTs. I want to migrate this setup into a portable setup with multi-terabyte internal hard drives into a custom slim-style case with my custom laptop stand that has the monitor & keyboard/glidepad mounted right on it. Funny I remember having a computer in the trunk of my car in 1999 playing music videos on a little 3" color LCD screen on my dash.

The main reason for my quest is not that I'm anti-Mac, it's more a test to figure out WHY video-sl doesn't work well on most PCs.

I am also considering trying a non-Mac installed mid-range video card like an ATI Radeon rather than a Nvidia to see if the system runs any different. I'm curious to find out if the FPS numbers are more controlled by the processor or video card.

How are the FPS specs versus a MacBook Pro? That's what I'm really curious to find out, how different my numbers are compared to a Mac.

Also tested:

Windows 7 64 bit vs Vista Home Basic 32-bit on my laptop (14 FPS single video on Vista, 16-19 FPS single video on Windows 7, 2 videos still ran about 5 FPS).
Funkytownstopsix 2:41 PM - 23 July, 2009
Do you have autofill overviews checked in your setup if so it should be analyzing the file on the fly and then put the BPM in the box. This would explain why your non- overviewed songs would make a strain on your cpu.

On the real I think your desktop should work better as it's a quad, my laptop gets the same 60- 70% everything on high to include each vid having two effect loaded and using the melt for the fader,,,,,you have a quad desktop and my laptop is just dual core 2 . I have the same spec on my pc desktop as you and it works fine as well never checked the load it place on it though, I gave that desktop to my daughter because I have a PC Laptop that works then brought a Mac as back up. I use the Mac more now becuase it cost more not to mention it really does work better with SLV the PC.

Seem like you did a lot of testing like I did. Try the hackamac and see the difference, trust me there will be a difference. So much you might just use it. Bottom line it's not the hardware its the operating systems for the most part.....
Good luck....
Hearing PC's working with SL gives me a warm fuszzy feeling inside. : )
Millz 2:46 PM - 23 July, 2009
wheres the video for jason derulo whatcha say? :P
DouggyFresh 5:26 PM - 23 July, 2009
I did have the Autofill overviews checked, it doesn't take very long but I like to see the waveform built when I'm playing. Something is disconcerting to me inside when it looks like the song has no more waveform :) I generally have pre-built all my video overviews.

What's also interesting is the CPU specs. A benchmark by a company called Passmark rates the MacBook Pro 2.8 T9600 Core2Duo at 2086 (#94 fastest processor). The Quad Core 9950 that I was using is rated at 3033, (#59 fastest processor).

I believe that if the Intel X4500HD video was supported on the Apple, VSL would work a lot better on my PC laptop. I think VSL gears its products towards Apple hardware. I don't know how VSL interfaces with the video, but my experience is leaning towards it's definitely Apple-hardware oriented, however, I don't understand how people were using VSL on Intel X3100 or even 950 integrated video on 2006/2007 MacBook's and it ran MUCH smoother.
Funkytownstopsix 5:29 PM - 23 July, 2009
If VSL used directshow we would not have any issues with PC. Yet they use quicktime. There's the main reason.
DouggyFresh 5:31 PM - 23 July, 2009
Whats also interesting about the X4500HD chipset that should work BETTER with Video-SL is:

"Intel's GMA X4500HD is more than capable of HD video playback because Intel engineered H.264, VC-1 and MPEG-2 hardware decoding into the G45 Express chipset so these tasks are offloaded from the processor."

You'd think that if Serato integrated this capability it would make it a killer VSL chipset.
DJStevieP 7:57 PM - 25 July, 2009
I think it entirely revolves around Quicktime, like Funkytown said. Why limit VSL to the extremely-poorly ported (on PC) quicktime boggles my mind. Simply using directshow and your installed codecs (as virtual DJ does) would make VSL about 3000x better on PC. I've seen people do smooth (and better-looking) video nights on virtual DJ with single core PCs & 1gb of ram w/integrated cards, playing every format that their laptop can handle and overlaying text and effects simultaneously.

I'm so angry at the performance of my PC with VSL (core 2 duo & 2gb ram, but an X3100hd integrated card) in comparison to VDJ that I'm working on hackintoshing it just to further fuel my anger at the $200US I spent lol.
skinnyguy 7:04 PM - 27 July, 2009
Quote:
I think it entirely revolves around Quicktime, like Funkytown said. Why limit VSL to the extremely-poorly ported (on PC) quicktime boggles my mind. Simply using directshow and your installed codecs (as virtual DJ does) would make VSL about 3000x better on PC. I've seen people do smooth (and better-looking) video nights on virtual DJ with single core PCs & 1gb of ram w/integrated cards, playing every format that their laptop can handle and overlaying text and effects simultaneously.


+1
DouggyFresh 9:01 PM - 29 July, 2009
Quote:
I'm so angry at the performance of my PC with VSL (core 2 duo & 2gb ram, but an X3100hd integrated card) in comparison to VDJ that I'm working on hackintoshing it just to further fuel my anger at the $200US I spent lol.


I'm angry at Hackintosh because they don't support my better series X4500HD video card ;) Even though iDeneb installed perfect on my laptop but no video card support :(
Funkytownstopsix 1:47 PM - 30 July, 2009
did you try the hacked video driver site. I can't think of the name be we all used it when we did our hacks...