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Speed up opening Sessions by saving the previews in the cosessiondb-file (Windows)

Implemented
Permanently deleted user

I would like to suggest to save the previews (thumbnails etc) from the images in the Capture folder in the actual *.cosessionsdb file.

Yes, this would increase the file size but at the same time it would open the whole session (with the thumbnails displayed) in an instant instead of re-loading every single file again and again, every time you open it.

It would make sense to keep the settings still in a separate folder (just like it is right now) because if the Session is corrupted, you'll still keep your work.

But please, please combine all the files necessary to DISPLAY the files in the Capture folder in the *.cosessionsdb file. This would also help with working on a NAS and external drives.

2

Comments

11 comments

Date Votes
  • BeO
    Top Commenter

    You would lose the ability to open any session and browse to the image location and see the previews in reasonable time. But if that's not important for you then it is a non-issue. 

    You are right, I never thouht about that difference compared to a catalog, when using a NAS for your images, and the session local, then the previews also reside on the NAS, an advantage for catalogs which reside on internal storage together with the previews.

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  • Permanently deleted user

    "You would lose the ability to open any session and browse to the image location and see the previews in reasonable time. But if that's not important for you then it is a non-issue. "

    I'm not sure it works reasonably fast at the moment...also for what you're talking about - why would you want to do that? Just open the Session in a second window - it would be very fast (much faster than right now when you browse to the Session folder and wait for 5 minutes to load the individual images.

    If you want to browse between shootings a catalog would be better anyway.

    1
  • BeO
    Top Commenter

    You answered yourself, e.g. if you work strictly with sessions -without a catalog in addition- and keep them as your archive and actually want to browse in more than one event (session). 

    You might have your older sessions "archived" on a NAS and want to browse for images on the NAS with a more recent session which is on your local disk, already open. I do have a generic working session for temporary work, testing/trial, it is nothing more than a "browser" for raw images (like an internet browser can access any domain, you do not have to start a new internet browser for each domain you visit).

    Or, if your session is corrupted, just create a new one. I understand, in this case generating previews again is not the end of the world.

    Actually I see the benefits of your request. And if you could configure (per session) where your cache (previews, thumbnails etc.) is located i.e. within session or at the image location as now, both use cases can be served.

    Btw. configuring the location of the cache folder (and adjustments folder) for a catalog would also be nice.

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  • Lily

    Hi there,

     

    Thank you for feedback on Capture One - this is always welcomed and encouraged among our users and we appreciate the time you've taken to contribute towards the development of the software.

    I have forwarded your comments and suggestions to our Product Management team as something to consider in a future release.

    Whilst we cannot comment on future releases, we take all suggestions on board and hopefully your feedback contributes towards a future version of Capture One.

    0
  • SFA

    Try converting the session to a catalog to compare performance?  If it seems to help just work with a local catalog( rather than a session) and NAS based source files.

    However optimising performance from a NAS seems like a black art and my personal opinion is that for most people using sessions and who are particularly sensitive about performance for ther workflow needs, the best option is to keep the entire session local whilst it is "live" and then copy the whole thing to the NAS as an "archive" when processing has finished.

    If one needs to return to it one can then choose whether to work off the NAS or copy the complete session back to an internal drive depending on how much work is needed.

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  • Permanently deleted user

    @SFA: This issue is not just with NAS drives but also big sessions on local fast drives.

    Naturally I keep it local until it's done and then transfer it to the NAS for archival purposes - but that doesn't mean I don't need the files anymore. Or that I would consider putting them into a catalog that could potentially get corrupted or damaged and consequently I'd lose all adjustments.

    That's just nonsense.

    Also - if I need something I can open the session the NAS much faster than a huge catalog on a local drive that links to the NAS files.

    1
  • SFA

    Christoph,

    Even with USB3 drives individaully connected transfer speeds are not often what one might expect.

    My system is now a little old - about 7 years. It was a top end business specification machine when new. However some tie back I ran some tests using USB3 so move multi-gigabyte sessions between fast spinning storage drives and the results were, generally, consistent. The process took some time to gather the information required, started with a rapid burst of data transfer then slowed to a steadier state.

     

    The actual transfer speed depended a lot, but no completely, in the file size being transferred. One large files will have a faster overall transfer rate then small files. The reported transfer rate seemed to be best at the start because it seemed that large files tended to be transferred first. C1, potentially, has many small files to work through.

    I noticed that transferring between two directly connected external drives (via the internal systems of course) seemed to use only about 1/3rd of the notional USB3 communication speed. I found I could set up 3 concurrent transfers (more realistically about 2.8 but let's take 3 for now) without serious loss of transfer speed for any of them. I.E the full available bandwidth was available but not used (or not usable) by the system. (Nothing to do with C1 - just using WIndows to copy.

    My NAS is much the same but slower. Even copying on the NAS directly from a connected USB 3 drive is a slow experience.

    However for occasional use using a Session or a small catalog directly form the NAS is acceptable. Even over a WiFi connection.  Initial Load is a bit slower than ideal but so long as one does not allow the NAS to slip into its own form of hibernation things are OK for my needs.

    I agree about not wanting to work with a large catalog. I use sessions unless testing catalogs for some reason.

    My point was that what you describe for having Preview files (and thumbnails) in the Session database is, essentially, a small catalog.

    Sure the edit data would be in there as well - but then if you run a self contained session (for ease of backup and archiving) the same is true.

     

    So you could take a session, create a catalog with it (it does not remove the session), and try it out to see what differences become apparent.

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  • Permanently deleted user

    @SFA:


    I'm talking about M.2 NVMe SSD drives that have peak performance and extremely good response time, not dinky USB3 connections.

    My NAS is connected via a 1Gb/s Ethernet line that delivers 115MB/s read and write and even though that's pretty fast and works really well with Lightroom it's torture to have to open a CaptureOne Session because it RE-READS EVERY FILE.

    That's the problem. Lightroom doesn't do that.

    Even Capture One doesn't do that ON A MAC. It instantly shows the images and doesn't have to do any re-indexing.
    But on Windows it has to and that's just lazy programming.

     

    If you don't think it's running slow on your 7 year old machine - fine. But since it's not faster on new computers.....well...

     

     

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  • SFA

    Christoph,

    I have not tried NVME drives but I have 2 Sata3 SSD installed internally, albeit one on a SATA 2 connection, both of then Samsing rated at the highest performance of read/write I could see at the time and both top spec until NVME came along.

    I have checked the real world operating speed of both and neither come close to the numbers produced in test environments.

    That is not a complaint or criticism. It's just how it is and I have not read anything that suggest to me that NVME disks, outside of highly specialised configurations, show a different pattern of performance. Yes they will be faster than the older SATA drives if the rest of the hardware configuration permits them to be, but the max speeds quoted are usually limited short burst speed and in the real world other factors intervene.

    If you have some test results that prove otherwise I would be delighted to hear about them.

    Lightroom always has done things differently and usually looks fast - although over the years there have also been complaints about LR being skow compared to C1. Probably Mac users?

    Before I discover C1 I had LR when it was released and another product.

     

    LR seemed incredibly fast to present changes on screen. The other program seemed slow by comparison but the time between committing a change and being able to move to the next activity was the same, within fraction of a second.

    The "slow" program set off and calculated everything and threw the complete result at the screen in one go.

    LR threw a change at the screen which looked like a huge difference and then spent time running around finishing the changes.

    Back then on the machine I had and using some basic edits that were common to both applications but took long enough to be able to observe what was happening, LR looked fast and impressed but was doing most of the work after the screen update.

    Is it still doing that? I haven't looked at it for years. Not since LR V3 was released. Having to import into a catalogue was a real pain I wished to avoid.

    Real performance is easier to guarantee using internal drives and avoiding the potential limitations of other parts of the hardware configuration.  IMO. Work on internal drives and "archive" when done if performance in paramount.

     

    What re-indexing are you talking about?

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  • Permanently deleted user

    I'm talking about the re-indexing that happens when you open a session and Capture One re-reads every image one after another.

    Sure, with a fast drive like an NVME SSD it's somewhat quick but with +1000 files it still takes a long time - and it's completely unnecessary.

    As I said with MAC OSX the images are displayed instantly in Capture One, allowing you to work on them within a second and I just don't get what's so hard about making it behave the same way in Windows. It should be just as easy.

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  • Rafael Ferro

     this only happens on Windows, but every time that you open a catalog take a while to load all the images

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