Arri MXF ProRes 4444 very slow - mac flame

[davidfn]

Mediahub tab:

When I viewing into folders with Arri MXF ProRes 4444 files, the flame gets very slow listing the files? No problems with Mov Prores 4444 files.

I have even installed the ProVideoFormat codec on the mac.

Conform tab:

When I has to conform a timline with Arri MXF ProRes 4444 files. The scanning is very slow. Didn't have the problem when I online tom Mov ProRes 4444.

It's like the flame is very slow reading the mxf header?

Running:

Flame 2023.3

Osx 12.6.3

[slabrie]

Hello davidfn!

You do not need to install the ProVideoFormat codec pack since Flame natively support Apple ProRes natively. 

Are the files on a local or remote drive?

How many files do you have in your folders?

Are there any other files than the MXF in the folder that you scan from MediaHub or Conform?

[davidfn]

Hi Stéphane,
The files are on a SAN connect by fiber.
The file are locate as from the Arri LF camera cards. eg. block01/20221206/A064RPER/A064C001_221206_RPER.mxf
And it's only Arri MXF ProRes 4444 files.

I have conform from Mov files and it's was much faster listing the file and scanning.

[slabrie]

Thanks davidfn for the quick reply.

So I guess we can remote the storage speed form the equation since I guess your Apple ProRes QuickTime that you have used in the past were on the same storage, right?

What is the playback throughput you get from the SAN?  Do yo perform a Scan Subdirectories to list all the files?

[davidfn]

Yes the quicktime file where on the same SAN, and there were no problems.

When I relink, I do a scan in subfolders. But Its take like 10-50 times slower with MXF files than quicktimes.
And when I only is looking into folders on the SAN, by the Mediahub with MXF files. The listing of MXF files take about a minute only to list 10 mxf files in one folder?

Like I told before, it looks like reading the MXF header(metadata) is very slow.

[slabrie]

Thanks for the information.  Please open a ticket with our support team so the issue could be investigate.

[slabrie]

Hello davidfn!

Could you copy on your local drive some MXF and see if you get the same issue when browsing?  We have done some test on our side reading lots of MXF over NFS (from a slower storage environment than yours) and did not see the issues.  Ideally, if you could have a matching structure on your SAN and on your local drive and provide browsing times for both that would help us a lot.  Of course, I am not asking you to copy TBs of content.  20 clips should be enough.

To provide more info on our setup, I have created two folder structure with 80 Quicktime files from the ARRI AMIRA camera and 80 MXF from ARRI Alexa Mini and both folder structure can be browsed in around 7 seconds with Scan Subdirectories.

Let us know.

[davidfn]

Thanks Stéphanr for keep trying to find a solution for me.

I have tested as you told , at the local disk are much faster.

So I think we have a problem with the SAN.

But a performance test with the aja system test or blackmagic disk speed apps, shows that the SAN is running fine.

I will get some SAN supporters on the case and hopefully they can find the bug. 

Thanks for you help.

[slabrie]

Thanks for the update, davidfn!

Keep us updated on your findings.