MercEngine touch 2nd video card?

W

WpgCameraMan

Well-known member
Got a GTX460 1GB on the way for CS5. So excited.

Question: I have a 768MB GTS250 (HDMI/DVI/VGA) and a 512MB 8400GS (DVI/VGA/TV-Out). I'm going to use one of them to provide me with a 3rd display (VGA is my best option). Since I can't add either card into the Mercury Engine hack (small RAM), will it matter which card I end up using?

I favour the 8400GS because it's got that TV-Out, which saves me hooking up a VGA-NTSC converter when I need to get the time line to a DVD Recorder.

That 8400GS could act like an output-only Black Magic Intensity, in a way, which is just perfect.
 
The GTS 250 actually should have enough RAM, but the Mercury Engine will only play with one card/GPU, so it's irrelevant. Thus, I doubt it matters which card you use.
 
You'll want to run the mercury engine on your GTX 460 card. I'm currently running it at home and it's blazing fast.

You'll want to use your old 8400 for analog outputs, since the 460 is HDMI/DVI only.

Remember, an SDTV is Rec.601, and an HDTV is rec.709. You will not want to color grade HD material on your SDTV as it will be in the wrong color gamut.

if you can calibrate your monitor close to sRGB, you can color grade on your PC's monitor as well since Adobe converts everything to sRGB when displayed on your monitor. A huey Pro will calibrate you to sRGB quickly for less than $100 It's worth owning since you'll need to calibrate your LCD every 6 months, as the backlight intensity will change over time.


 
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Demistate said:
Remember, an SDTV is Rec.601, and an HDTV is rec.709. You will not want to color grade HD material on your SDTV as it will be in the wrong color gamut.
Click to expand...

I use the TV-Out to play a time line with time code and other keys, just as a rough reference for clients. Example: Had close to an hour's worth of man-on-street interviews the client wanted to look at, with time codes. Instead of rendering that time line (would have taken forever) I just played it out (via Firewire->DV camera->analog outs->DVD Recorder) and boom, there's a finished disc for them to look at. For my finished stuff, it's not very effective, a 3 minute time line is quick enough to render, but getting up on an hour (and that's just raw footage), I like this method.

Gamma and all that, doesn't really matter at that stage of the game.

Very excited to see the speed changes the Mercury Engine will provide.
 
WpgCameraMan said:
I just played it out (via Firewire->DV camera->analog outs->DVD Recorder) and boom, there's a finished disc for them to look at.

Gamma and all that, doesn't really matter at that stage of the game.
Click to expand...

The method you describe sends the raw DV data through a camera uncorrected. When you ouput the analog outs from a DV camera you will get the correct Rec.601 color. It's hard to mess up a workflow when everything in your chain is talking the same standard.

In contrast, outputting from your Video Card SD video that has been transformed from REC.601 to sRGB and then display it on a REC.601 device will be inaccurate. This is what you are doing if you output straight from the video card.

Don't write this stuff of as trivial. Color management is important to assure that your work remains consistent going from one medium to another.

See this for more info:

http://www.gadgetbench.com/colormatrixerrors/
 
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