TVP Sluggish on Mac Pro 10.5.7

[fiddle]

When I scrub through the timeline the sound does not scrub smoothly. When I move a layer in the timeline it does not keep up with the cursor. There is a delay even if I reduce the number of layers to one from eight. If I move a layer in a project of 5000 frames I really need to wait 5 seconds or more for the layer to keep up with the cursor. It takes 3 times as long for the proxy to finish. I did not experience this on the PC.

I have recently switched from the PC platform to the Mac Pro. I am running the latest OS and have 16 GB of RAM, ATI Radeon HD 4780. I have been online with Apple to make sure my system is running properly.
I have the program installed on HD#1 and work with my data on HD#2. My temp files are on HD#1, I have tried them on HD#2 but this did not improve the situation.

I have gone through your documentation and cannot find anything that helps. The only thing I think may be off is my Preview Settings. When I run compute it gives me a reading of 83MB/sec.

I am not experiencing and slow issues on any Adobe products it is only with TVP that I have a problem.
So my question is: Does TVP run slower on the Mac platform or do I have certain settings that need to be adjusted?

I thank you in advance for any help you might send my way. I really like the improvements you have made to the program. I was working with Mirage before this.

Christopher

[slowtiger]

- how big is your project? PAL? HDTV? 4K Film?
- do you run other programs beside TVP?
- how much free disk space do you have?

I run TVP on my Mac and am completely satisfied with its speed, although my machines are quite old (see footer).

[Paul Fierlinger]

Have you checked out the Sound Tab in Preferences? I have found 0.50 Sec to be ideal for sound scrubbing. But I'm not sure what your question is in the first place. What do you mean by "If I move a layer in a project of 5000 frames I really need to wait 5 seconds or more for the layer to keep up with the cursor." How do you scrub by moving a layer? 5000 frames!?! That's about 3 minutes at 30 fps. What's your frame rate? Whatever it may be, 5000 frames sounds too long to do anything in TVP. Which version of TVP are you working with?

[fiddle]

The project is 1280 X 720 NTSC, 24fps.
I am not running any other programs.
I have TVP Version 9.0.6
I have considerable free disk space.

Sorry, I was not clear it seems.

If I drag an entire level, (say 300 frames duration), and I move my layer that starts at frame 100 to frame 250, it takes a number of seconds for the layer to snap to where the cursor is, frame 250. If I drag the layer back to frame 230 the delay is the same. The layer does not keep up with the movement of the cursor. This is one example of slow.

Another example of slow occurs while scrubbing a sound. If I move my cursor back and forth the sound is not smooth it jumps or pops to the current cursor position. I changed the sound prefs as noted Paul but the scrubbing still stutters.

If I work on a very short composition of 30 seconds duration the problem is considerably reduced but not gone. The above noted sluggish behavior gets worse as the size and complexity of the project increases. Perhaps I need to work in smaller chunks, but it seems that with all this processing power and memory I should be able to work with multiple layers in a composition of say 1000 frames without any delay whatsoever. Perhaps I need to lower my expectations.

What would be an ideal length of footage to load into TVP, assuming HD 24 fps ?

[Paul Fierlinger]

Ah, this is much clearer to me now. So it's not just a sound issue but everything seems to be sluggish. I work at 1080p and currently have a project that is over a minute long and don't have your problems, but I'm on a PC and a beta version. I agree with you that you are not overloading the application. Any project like yours should run well... so I have no idea... perhaps Eric Matecki, the TVP Mac man can comment....

[slowtiger]

One more information needed: do you have video files loaded into TVP? If so, linked or imported?

[fiddle]

No, there are no video files loaded.

I have set up a test project that I am purposely keeping simple. One BG layer and various numbers of layers with simple lines, nothing heavy.
The longer the test the slower it goes.

It is functional, I can work this way. I am just surprised that it is slower than my old PC Mirage version. I will have to work with smaller segments, something I did not expect to encounter. I switched to Mac specifically because TVP came out with the Mac Intel version and I expected it to really hum.

How does one get Eric Matecki to weigh in on this? TVP must have run comparison tests etc.

[ematecki]

We are looking in it. Usually my reply is just "OK fixed." :)

On my computer, it takes effectively some time before the layer starts to move, but then in follows the mouse with out any perceptible delay.

Is this what you are experiencing, or is it slow all the the time ?

[ematecki]

Ok, it has something to do with the proxy.
If you disable the proxy there is no more delay.
It's just a workaround until it is fixed.

[Hervé]

I switched to Mac specifically because TVP came out with the Mac Intel version and I expected it to really hum.

Same issue on the Windows version, It will be fixed on the next update. Thanks for your help.

[fiddle]

I have disabled the proxy and it works as you describe it.
It takes approximately 6 seconds for the layer (5000 frames) to respond but then it acts normally.

The sound scrubbing is still slow and jerky, (no proxy).

I look forward to an update and thank everyone for the input and support.

[fiddle]

My System:
Mac OS 10.5.7
2X2.26 GHz Quad Core Intel Xeon
16GB 1066 MHz DDR3

My Project:
1280X720
24 FPS
Duration: 6 levels each with 600 frames ( VERY simple line drawing on flat BG)
Audio :2000 frames (Scrub dur: .5 sec)
Proxy OFF


I would be curious to know if there is anyone else running TVP on the above system.
TVP on my machine is running erratically and very slowly as described in previous messages.
ie: scrubbing not smooth, delay when moving a layer in the timeline, timeline marker does not keep up to the cursor, everything is generally slow.
The larger the project gets the slower it goes, proxy or no proxy.

Apple has tested and confirmed that my machine is fine and up to date, the problem lies with TVP.

I have reached the point where it is just too frustrating to continue. Surely there must be a known issue with the latest Apple products as I never had this problem with Mirage on an older PC. I purchased this new fast Mac specifically to utilize the new TVP animation program, but it's just not working. Very disappointing.

Anyone else?

[ematecki]

Wait for the free V9.5 update, "coming soon".

[CharlieC]

don't know if this thread is still active, but i too was suddenly having sluggish trouble on my 2.53 ghz intel macbook pro. turns out i left my tvp print window open, and that was taxing tvp's ability to update, i guess.

solved!