Hi Kevin, thank you for your reply. I've spoken with two support agents
from Adobe about this issue and both suggested that it was not a problem
with AE but with the Blackmagic card. Unfortunately I don't have case
numbers for these conversations.
The source footage has nothing to do with this problem. In face there
doesn't need to be any footage in the comp. A 10x10 white solid animating
across screen will still lag. We are talking about playback from a ram
preview here so footage is a moot point. Playback on the main monitor is
fine, the issue is with how the mercury playback engine in AE sends the
image to the Intensity 4k. I have also unsuccessfully tried to use one of
my 980Tis as the output but again there are serious issues with anything
above HD. There is still lag and the image doesn't fit the screen
correctly. I would love to know if anyone has had any success in outputting
to an external monitor through any device with a comp size above HD.
I have filed several bug reports and feature requests over the years but
not once have any of them been acknowledged or actioned so I have given up.
I have been in touch with Blackmagic since and they have been able to
replicate the problem at there end. I am hoping that the engineers there
have a direct line with Adobe and are able to get there heads together and
figure out what is going on. This was a few weeks ago but I have heard
nothing since.
Hey Chris,
I tracked down your issue and it is an issue we're aware of. I apologize for the problem. We are working with Blackmagic to improve the situation. Thanks again for filing your bug report.
This experience you're having is, more than likely, a performance limitation of Transmit. When frame sizes start getting into the UHD range, playback to the Transmit monitor can suffer. Since After Effects never drops frames, and Transmit output is asynchronous to After Effects’ internal playback, the slowed-down playback can get out of sync with the main monitor.
As I understand it, your experience with third party cards like the Intensity might even be less performant than using a high-performance GPUs to drive a second monitor.
From what the team tells me, this is a bandwidth issue. Performance can suffer by adding larger frame dimensions, higher frame rates, and deeper colors to the playback stream.
You can mitigate the issue by doing some of the following:
- Make sure the Hardware Accelerate Composition, Layer, and Footage Panels option in Preferences > Display is enabled, especially if color management is enabled for the project. Disabling color management or setting the working space to Rec 709 can also help.
- Reduce the comp resolution, either in the Preview panel (i.e., per-preview shortcut) or the comp viewer panel.
- Enable the Skip option in the Preview panel so that fewer frames are being previewed.
- Reduce the project color depth.
It's too bad that I can't come up with a better solution for you at this time. For that, I apologize. If others are facing the issue, be sure to file a bug so that we can make improvements along with Blackmagic.
Thanks,
Kevin
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