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No. I believe that shadow files are Cyberlink's way of trying to have their cake and eat it too, meaning that you're actually free to start editing right away while PD uses the CPU in the background to generate the files. If they had PD put more "effort" into background processing, that would diminish the resources needed for project editing, so it's a balancing act.
Depending on the type and number of clips and the system's processing abilities, using shadow files can work reasonably well. Also, the entire process is automated, so PD will use the low-res files when editing but then swaps in the full-res clips when producing. I haven't looked into it, but I don't think there's any practical way to manually make your own shadow files and point PD to them.
That's where MagicYUV (or really, any other lossless/intermediate codec) comes in. MagicYUV is a newer option, and in my experience, it's vastly faster to convert clips to and easier for PD to work with than the older codecs.
By making full resolution copies that are very easy for PD to work with, you get the very quick editing response without the long wait for the background, CPU-only processing. The downside is that you do have to complete the conversion before you start editing (or at least convert the first clip if there are many), and you need to have a large SSD to store the huge file(s) and retrieve the very high bitrate frames at a fast enough rate to keep up with PD's demand, especially when producing:
However, there's no right or wrong approach, just different levels of up-front vs. in-situ processing and hardware requirements but with similar end results. One may work better than the other with your projects, so try them both and decide for yourself.
Hi all,
And again thanks for having the time to read and respond this thread
You've said:
Depending on the type and number of clips and the system's processing abilities, using shadow files can work reasonably well.
I might add,
PD works extremely well like that is shown in the pic I've already posted. I was using the time slider forward and backward hard and
PD reacted without a minimun sign of lag when using shadow files. (Like I said before PD and Quadro P400 are a must have)
No. I believe that shadow files are Cyberlink's way of trying to have their cake and eat it too, meaning that you're actually free to start editing right away while PD uses the CPU in the background to generate the files. If they had PD put more "effort" into background processing, that would diminish the resources needed for project editing, so it's a balancing act.
Now to Cyberlink:
Feature recomendation for PD 18! Put it optional:
1) If people will want PD to work as is fine,
2) but put a flag somewhere, that if people choose that PD makes the shadow files first using GPU assisted before they get to editing is fine also, so when users choose this option they have conscience that PD is going to create shadow files first and only after this process ends, users can start editing. (Just like kind, you insert a big vid and you ask PD to separate scenes)
You know PD must act first before you can take any action.
(I have conscience I can do this now, put all the vids and wait for PD to create the shadow files, but why not using the GPU? way faster right?)
I would upgrade to PD18 in a blink of eye with this feature, and some users who don't have "ivory equipment", but instead somewhat good entry point equipment, like my case:
I7 6700 + Quadro P400 + 16gb Ram + SSDs
Till the next interaction, I leave this recomendation to Cyberlink.
Thanks a lot for your attention.
Kind regards all.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at May 02. 2019 06:43