Video editing delima

a_greera_greer
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
Here at work, we are going to have a lot more video editing work coming down the line in the next few months, and our rig is struggling to keep up as it is. It choaks really bad when trying to render DV files to MPEG2 for DVD publication.



It takes about 8x real time to do the compression, is that normal?



I know this is a mac forum, but a Mac for this would likely not be an option. If you can't answer the questions but can point me to a more spesificly focussed DV related forum, that would be appreciated

What we use:

AMD XP 2000+

1gb ram

80 GB HDD (40 gig video partition, 40 gig system partition)

NV 6800 w/256MB

XP-SP2

Sony Vegas 6



My contention is that one HDD is killing us, we have a spare 40 gig and I say we should use that as the primary system drive and use the 80 gig specificly for video...woud this improve speed? is it a hopeless proposition?



I am also looking for a good PCI baced hardware compressor/transcoder/encoder that would speed things up...does such an animal exist?



And lastly, If I can convince them to get a new rig (which I HIGHLY doubt), would a low end powermac and Finalcut studio be any faster?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 7
    regreg Posts: 832member
    8x is a long tme. As far as forums I like VideoHelp.com . I don't think the extra hard drive will help either, unless you are going from a 4200 to 7200. Since I have only used Macs for rendering (home use with no deadline requirements) I can not give you a comparison for which system would be best for you. I have found a lot of helpful info at videohelp so they might have more help for you also.



    reg
  • Reply 2 of 7
    trick falltrick fall Posts: 1,271member
    I work at a Post House and 8x is way too long. You can get a hardware card for the encoding. I'll ask what we use. I think it's a 1,500.00 card.
  • Reply 3 of 7
    trick falltrick fall Posts: 1,271member
    We use one of these guys cards.
  • Reply 4 of 7
    a_greera_greer Posts: 4,594member
    Update:



    After looking at the system closely and <ahem> gaining full local admin access , I was able to see many problems right away.



    all 2-d graphic effects were on...not any more



    the page file was set to be NEVER BIGGER THAN 700MB...setting thepage file to 2 gb and having it delete at shutdown really helped



    as did changing system priority from services to apps, and setting the video renderer app to a really high system priority.



    Mpeg2 rendering is now about 1.75-2x real time, MUCH MUCH better.



    There is a great lesson here...Hey Sysadmins...video rigs have DIFFERANT NEEDS THAN THE SECRETARY!!!! DONT USE THE SAME BLOODY IMAGE!



    I think I have convinced the powers that be that getting a second HDD will also be a help, as we could have all the source and target files on their own drive and use the system drive for ONLY system and paging/swap....and being able to handle more than 90 miunutes of DV without filling all the storage up will be cool too...particularly when I am to deliver 2 2-ish hour DVDs in the next few weeks.



    Thanks for all the suggestions
  • Reply 5 of 7
    trick falltrick fall Posts: 1,271member
    Glad you got the rig working better, but I'm curious how are you getting the files onto that box? Are you doing it over a network?
  • Reply 6 of 7
    a_greera_greer Posts: 4,594member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by trick fall

    Glad you got the rig working better, but I'm curious how are you getting the files onto that box? Are you doing it over a network?



    I am ripping streight from Mini DV and VHS via a Canopus breakout box, no network rendering, no NAS, and the netwrk here is slow as hell so using unoccupied office PCs as render nodes is not feasable, we have tried. It is a total stand alone rig.
  • Reply 7 of 7
    trick falltrick fall Posts: 1,271member
    I'd definitely make them get another drive for that box then.
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