Video Editing - Page 2

Bucknaked · 21-06-2005, 04:00 AM

I was going to get a copy of Pinnacle Studio. All i really want to do is make some basic home movies. Holidays, kids birthdays etc etc. But I guess that will change as I get further into it I think the Adobe apps will be a good start for me.

Quasi · 21-06-2005, 05:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bucknaked

I was going to get a copy of Pinnacle Studio. All i really want to do is make some basic home movies. Holidays, kids birthdays etc etc. But I guess that will change as I get further into it I think the Adobe apps will be a good start for me.

If you get a chance, then have a word to Scotty (if he starts coming to meetings again

). He uses a couple of apps that he could go over with you , I'm sure.

I have Adobe Premiere Pro 7, and After Effects 6.5, and they are very good, but adobe products are also, traditionally, expensive.

Bucknaked · 21-06-2005, 06:24 AM

Scotty lives around the corner from me. Not sure where he has been, but I think his last meeting was back in December

Quasi · 21-06-2005, 07:07 AM

I'll word him up this morning, should be walking through my door in about 5 minutes.

XA-Coupe · 21-06-2005, 11:13 AM

I made a 30 minute video of the nostalgia drags. I didn't edit it as I was too stuffed and just wated to see it on the big screen but it took 1 hr 10 mins instead of 3+ hours. All I did was change the HDD setup.
When I originally had the problems of it crashing I set up the performance monitor and saw the disk wait time was maxed out ( pays to know what to look for

) so got the single 10K SATA drive and it improved a bit. The RAID setup has made a huge differenece .. and my machine is set up for gaming too. No doubt I could get even better performance with a QUADRO FX ( I actually have one somewhere ) but it won't suit the gaming.
In a nutshell, I am much happier now.

johnydep · 21-06-2005, 03:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by XA Coupe

I made a 30 minute video of the nostalgia drags. I didn't edit it as I was too stuffed and just wated to see it on the big screen but it took 1 hr 10 mins instead of 3+ hours. All I did was change the HDD setup.
When I originally had the problems of it crashing I set up the performance monitor and saw the disk wait time was maxed out ( pays to know what to look for

) so got the single 10K SATA drive and it improved a bit. The RAID setup has made a huge differenece .. and my machine is set up for gaming too. No doubt I could get even better performance with a QUADRO FX ( I actually have one somewhere ) but it won't suit the gaming.
In a nutshell, I am much happier now.

I presume you mean converting the AVI file to MPEG2 for DVD.

This process is CPU intensive, hard drive speed doesn't have much to do with it. The HDD does use some CPU processing speed, this must have been your problem.

I have a seperate drive for the operating system & apps, the other three drives are for AVI capture, editing & convertion.

A Power Mac G5 would be nice http://www.apple.com.au/powermac/

How much ram have you got & whats the processor speed?

XA-Coupe · 21-06-2005, 07:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by johnydep

I presume you mean converting the AVI file to MPEG2 for DVD.

This process is CPU intensive, hard drive speed doesn't have much to do with it. The HDD does use some CPU processing speed, this must have been your problem.

I have a seperate drive for the operating system & apps, the other three drives are for AVI capture, editing & convertion.

A Power Mac G5 would be nice http://www.apple.com.au/powermac/

How much ram have you got & whats the processor speed?

The actual conversion isn't the problem, that ran fine, it was the editing that was killing it.
It was HDD speed as the Avg disk queue was maxed out for the entire time until it crashed. I fixed the problem and the avg disk queue has dropped and it doesn't crash.
I am proficient enough with computers to know what to look for to fix performance problems

P4 3.0, 1g ram .. it isn't a whimp machine although not the biggest and the best

max^power · 21-06-2005, 11:19 PM

Everyone's machine is different, performance varys more than our selection of cars! This is why one works with some software perfectly, another one don't.

Quote:

I presume you mean converting the AVI file to MPEG2 for DVD.
This process is CPU intensive, hard drive speed doesn't have much to do with it.

: the avi file is stored somewhere. It's got to write the mpeg somewhere too. The old hdd obviously couldn't keep up with the stream the cpu was creating, i see this time and time again with people putting slow hdd's in fast pc's in the shops. A slow hdd, will affect the whole machine, particularly if windows is struggling for memory.

If you're doing mostly video, 1gb ram probably isn't enough. Keep in mind XP can use 512mb, just to sit its big butt in memory. Memory's cheap enough now, to goto 2gb easily if your board can take it.

XA Coupe - Remember that volumes on a striped RAID array will be lost/corrupt if one of the disks in the array fails. It's generally good practice to not store anything of real value on a striped array, and use them as work areas. Mind you, i havn't known anyone to have a failed raptor yet.

Good luck with the vids guys!

Firefox7 · 21-06-2005, 11:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by au^ute

XA Coupe - Remember that volumes on a striped RAID array will be lost/corrupt if one of the disks in the array fails. It's generally good practice to not store anything of real value on a striped array, and use them as work areas. Mind you, i havn't known anyone to have a failed raptor yet.

Good luck with the vids guys!

I personally don't use striped arrays or any form of raid....I prefer to use multiple 36.7gb 15k Scsi Drives via U320 64 bit, but I learned along time ago....if you have anything of value...don't be lazy with the "i'll do it tommorrow" attitude which i used to HAVE.... till i lost 2 months of work without any backup whatsoever....grrrr... One of the biggest mistakes i ever made....burn it to cd or dvd straight away or save it to multiple independent drives....saves a lot of heartache....especially if your on a deadline.

Cheers.

johnydep · 22-06-2005, 09:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by au^ute

Everyone's machine is different, performance varys more than our selection of cars! This is why one works with some software perfectly, another one don't.

the avi file is stored somewhere. It's got to write the mpeg somewhere too. The old hdd obviously couldn't keep up with the stream the cpu was creating, i see this time and time again with people putting slow hdd's in fast pc's in the shops. A slow hdd, will affect the whole machine, particularly if windows is struggling for memory.

If you're doing mostly video, 1gb ram probably isn't enough. Keep in mind XP can use 512mb, just to sit its big butt in memory. Memory's cheap enough now, to goto 2gb easily if your board can take it.

Good luck with the vids guys!

Yes windows can use as much Ram as you throw at it, but only when programs & apps are being used.

My PC is only set up & used only for Digital video editing & DVD compilations using 1 Gig of Ram, I have tested to see if Ram was an issue but never run out even when having multiple programs running.

Pinnacle Edition Pro uses the Graphics card & CPU together while editing & doing special effects, so Processing load is spread.

I also use Adobe Premier 6 and Ram has not been a problem for me, but other users may find different. More Ram would be good, depending on what apps are running and how the PC is set up.

What do you class as a slow HDD?
I would have thought that any HDD produced over the last 4 or 5 years could handle streaming video, if the PC is set up correctly.
I have captured, edited & converted to MPEG2 on my 2 year old P4 Toshiba laptop, with no loss of quality & no crashing. All I did was turn of all unnecessary programs in Services & any other apps such as Antivirus, Adaware, etc. that will use system resources.
Remeber that there was no mention of Professional Video Editing, I thought this was all hobby stuff.

XA Coupe, I wasn't saying that you don't know your stuff, I just like to find out the back ground of a problem so as to learn, so I will always ask questions.
Sorry if I offended you.

The MaDDeSTMaN · 22-06-2005, 03:51 PM

I think that perhaps some people are not looking at the big picture. Video editing, like many other tasks on a PC, is dependant on discovering what the performance bottlenecks are while performing a particular task.

For example, lets say we have these two PCs, both used for video editing and conversion.

PC 1:
600MHz Intel Pentium 3 CPU
2Gb of RAM
4 10,000 RPM SATA drives, setup in a RAID configuration.

PC 2:
3.4 GHz Intel Pentium 4 CPU
256Mb of RAM
1 5200rpm ATA100 drive.

Now, obviously the bottleneck in performance in PC 1 is not going to be the RAM or drives, it's going to be the CPU.

In the case of PC 2, the CPU wouldn't be the performance bottleneck, however the low amount of RAM and single slow drive would limit how fast it could do the job.

As was stated above, all other things being equal, when doing a conversion from one video format to another, the file has to be read and written, both at close enough to the same time. If the file is being read from the same disk it's being written to, obviously that will lower performance compared to if it was reading from one disk and writing to another seperate disk.

XA Coupe, sounds like you know and understand this, and congratulations on what sounds like it was a very worthwhile addition to your PC.

Quick question, if people were going to build their own machine from scratch for this purpose, what would you choose and why?

XA-Coupe · 22-06-2005, 05:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by au^ute

XA Coupe - Remember that volumes on a striped RAID array will be lost/corrupt if one of the disks in the array fails. It's generally good practice to not store anything of real value on a striped array, and use them as work areas. Mind you, i havn't known anyone to have a failed raptor yet.

Good luck with the vids guys!

Yeah, I know .. RAID 5 is the go for that but I can't justify the expense for that.

Firefox.. a single 15k U320 will probably not be as good in performance as a RAID 0 10K SATA ... RAID 0 the SCSI and everything changes. I need to get a tape drive one of these fine days .

Johnnydep.. no offense taken .. you can't know what I do for a job ..system admin. I don't pretend to know everything .. but I can find my way around a computer .. especially RAID arrays

:

Maddestman I would do at least a 3 disk RAID 0 10K SATA for the disk system, Min p4 3.0 and a Gig of RAM ( although it rarely uses more than about 670-700 Meg it's nice to have the capability ) a decent Video card, probably a 6600 GT as I game a bit .. What a computer can't give me is the Creative Gene

Firefox7 · 22-06-2005, 05:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by XA Coupe

Firefox.. a single 15k U320 will probably not be as good in performance as a RAID 0 10K SATA ... RAID 0 the SCSI and everything changes. I need to get a tape drive one of these fine days .

I know this...but I prefer independent drives for data reliability...I could raid the SCSI....But my current comp configuration rocks anyway, and would only gain a very small percentage. Keep an eye on Ebay XA....couple of tape drives NEW, went cheap a week ago.

Cheers.

XA-Coupe · 22-06-2005, 07:56 PM

My editing is for pleasure not profit. Should I lose it all I will be royally ****ed off but I won't lose money.
I have to grovel to Mrs XA for more expenditure .. I will defintiely look at ebay...

max^power · 23-06-2005, 02:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by johnydep

What do you class as a slow HDD?

There's no reason a P4 built in the last 12 months would still have an old PATA Drive. Its certainly not a cost issue.

Serial ATA with 8MB Cache will give decent performance. PATA with 8mb cache are still quick - i still have a few in use on my old machine, personally i wouldn't build a new machine with ANY PATA hard drives at all.

Quote:

system admin

Same here XA!!

Sorry, didn't know either. I guess it's easy to assume that you're not one.

Quote:

Keep an eye on Ebay

I've got computer wholesaler accounts if anyone's interested in taking advantage of them.

: PM me anything you want/need computer wise and ill see how much i can beat ebay, it's basicly businesses on-selling anyway... for the new things at least.

**Uncle_Ken** · 23-06-2005, 05:20 PM

Well done lads.
From a quick glance of whats been posted I think you guys are all correct.
Hard drive, CPU and graphics speed are all important.

So is lots of time PLAYING and having FUN for those with new toys (Bucknaked, Casper ). I have done this for a while for training teachers and kids and both get a lot out of these tools.

Have fun, save your money for hardware and software upgrades, then do some reseach before spend you $$$. (sounds like I'm buying a car...)

Uncle_Ken

Bucknaked · 25-06-2005, 08:41 PM

I'm beginning to wonder whether for basic video editing and authoring whether my PC is upto the task. I have

Cerleron 1.7
512mb of ram. I think its something 2700

:
Radeon 9600 pro
40 gb hdd
160 gb hdd

I think the rest of it is not important..

I know I need to upgrade soon, but for now, I'm doing ok with what I have and its fine for my needs.

I have plans to go to a 3.0 gig processor with a gig of ram. Video I'm not concerned with. I'm no expert when it comes to video editing, my requirements are just to get the movies from the camera and onto dvd's.

johnydep · 26-06-2005, 10:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bucknaked

I'm beginning to wonder whether for basic video editing and authoring whether my PC is upto the task. I have

Cerleron 1.7
512mb of ram. I think its something 2700

:
Radeon 9600 pro
40 gb hdd
160 gb hdd

I think the rest of it is not important..

I know I need to upgrade soon, but for now, I'm doing ok with what I have and its fine for my needs.

I have plans to go to a 3.0 gig processor with a gig of ram. Video I'm not concerned with. I'm no expert when it comes to video editing, my requirements are just to get the movies from the camera and onto dvd's.

If it works keep using it for a while, having a seperate HDD for video (like your 160) keeps it all hanging on.

My first PC that I used for editing was a
P4 1400 (which was probably equivalent to a PIII 1000)
512MB Ram later upped it to a Gig
32Meg ATI Graphics (cant remember which one)
20Gig & 60Gig 7200RPM

It did the job for 2 years, and my in-laws are still using it for DV now.

Firefox7 · 26-06-2005, 11:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bucknaked

I'm beginning to wonder whether for basic video editing and authoring whether my PC is upto the task. I have

Cerleron 1.7
512mb of ram. I think its something 2700

:
Radeon 9600 pro
40 gb hdd
160 gb hdd

I think the rest of it is not important..

I know I need to upgrade soon, but for now, I'm doing ok with what I have and its fine for my needs.

I have plans to go to a 3.0 gig processor with a gig of ram. Video I'm not concerned with. I'm no expert when it comes to video editing, my requirements are just to get the movies from the camera and onto dvd's.

I'd go with atleast 2 gig....after all..it's fairly cheap and ram goes along way. 3.0 gig p4 cpu will be fine. It all depends on the users need however. XA Coupes setup is fairly consisent with those whom produce video...and lots of it on a regular basis. If it's only to be used on the odd occasion...then an IDE HDD will be fine. Everyone's requirement is different depending on the applications used or if you are in high demand. If you are in high demand...it basically means you need a much much faster system to fill those requirements. I overlay visual effects and CGI over raw footage so my requirements do differ from XA coupes....he uses raid...i prefer SCSI....Raid is faster converting one format to another...SCSI is by far, much quicker and reliable, in rendering overlay images on existing converted film without Byte tearing(rendered film tear or frame drop). That is why i personally choose SCSI over Raid, i can also do multiple backups across all drives without fear of corruption or loss although all files are scheduled and backed upped via renderfarm and main server @ 2am daily.

Cheers.