Resolume Forum

Hi.
Let´s say my computer is uncapable of playing and mixing a couple of fullHD clips smoothly.
Course, I do intent a system upgrade and I might be able to do so near in the future. So, I wish to start producing new video content, all in fullHD 1920x1080.
Meanwhile, if I load all my fullHD decks into a 1024x768 composition and set (scale down) all my clips using Arena's Clip Properties, how is this processed during play? Will Arena deal with them as 1024x768 clips and play smoothly or will Arena still deal with them as fullHD data and play in low FPS?

Tks

Paulo

Just avoid as much work for the running program as possible.

The Word you search is PreRender.

just transform your content in the lower resolution (mpeg streamclip does it nicely with dxv) and use the clips in a lower resolution

This is what I usually do.
Tks

If you're interested in the technical answer, it's actually a balancing act.

To work with 1080p files in DXV, you need a fast drive. This is usually the first bottleneck people run into. But even with an SSD in your machine, the GPU still needs to process each layer at the comp resolution.

As a practical example, in the default config of my 2011 MacBookPro, 640x480 was fine, but it would barely scrape by with only 1 or 2 layers on 1080p. After upgrading the default 5400 RPM drive to an SSD, I can now run 3-4 layers at 1080p easily. The interesting fact is that when I lower the comp resolution to 1024x576, I can run up to 6 of 7 layers of the same 1080p content. So it's not the harddrive which is bottlenecking anymore, it's the GPU.

So most of the time, I will leave my content in 1080p, and set my comp resolution for whatever is required for that gig.

Of course, as He2neg mentions, having everything available in a lower res would be the ideal situation performance wise, but my 500GB SSD is pretty stuffed with content as it is. Also, I find I don't really need access to that many layers at the same time anyway. When I'm playing more than 4 layers simultaneously, I'm usually making a pixel soup which looks like nothing to nobody anymore.

Thank you, Joris. Great input.