good machine for video editing
I did a little work with video files today mostly encoding. I was wondering is there a good setup for better times for encoding and editing. Im thinking of getting into a little more and maybe some photoshop too. My system specs are:
amd 2500+ (stock)
sk-7 & 80mm tornado
abit nf7-s
512 pc4000 kingston hyper-x
Sapphire 9800pro
Seagate 160GB sata
tdk 4x dvd +rw
raidmax case and 420watt power supply
amd 2500+ (stock)
sk-7 & 80mm tornado
abit nf7-s
512 pc4000 kingston hyper-x
Sapphire 9800pro
Seagate 160GB sata
tdk 4x dvd +rw
raidmax case and 420watt power supply
0
Comments
/me sighs
On the upshot, the Opteron 250/Athlon FX-53 are better. Of course.
Thrax is a little nebulous with his response therefore I'd have to classify it as....wrong. I've always wanted to do that. I'm just messin' with you Thrax.
"Is there a good setup for better times for encoding and editing?"
The boat anchor to most NLE dabblers is the time taken for the program to render a transition, effect or timeline. With Photoshop users it's the time taken to render an effect.
Render time in Photosphop can be improved by increasing the CPU horsepower. I've found no real noticeable difference between the two CPU camps. It can be improved by adding more ram increasing from 512 MB to 1 GB or even 2. You can optimize Photoshop by moving the scratch file to another partition or better yet...another drive.
Photoshop also gets a dramatic boost from dual processors since it is an SMP aware program. If you've already got 1 GB of ram then dual processors would be the most recommended performance boost.
Video or NLE (Non-Linear Editing) is another ballgame. The easiest route to speeding up NLE perfomance is to reduce the file size. You trade resolution for performance. But that won't make people happing watching small, grainy movies.
Start with more reputable NLE software such as Premiere and a good capture card. The Matrox RTX10 and RTX100 come bundled with Premiere starting at the same prices as Premiere itself. Hardware acceleration via a third party card provides a better performance boost offering real-time transitions...a superior increase vs. a typical processor speed jump.
Combine that with dual processor and you are off to the races.
Other choices are from Canopus, Matrox and Pinnacle. These are the more expensive choices for the solution to your question but will make NLE a far more enjoyable experience.
Project files should also be independent of the OS/PROGRAM drive and preferably on a RAID 0 drive setup. Video files love chewing up a lot of space.
So is there a quick answer to your question? You are going to have to decide for yourself. You can get a 3200+ fairly cheap now and bump up your system speed...maybe add another dimm of ram but that's as far as I recommend.
Now weigh the cost of trying to get more speed...where are you? New processor, motherboard and may as well go for 1 GB of ram. What's that going to set you back? Now compare that to the cost of what I suggested and more drive space and which is the better value?
All depends on how serious you are and what goals you have.
Hope this helps a bit.
Of course I have never been able to use a pee 4 w/ hyperthreading, And the only video editing I have done is convert avi files to mpg with tmpeg.
As long as it's not on a network to your system. You want the fastest IO connection. Overclocking your system won't give you THAT much of a bump. It will only speed up the software effects render transition times but won't help with video playback.
The cheapest route is to add more ram and the RAID 0 for the video/work drives and start playing. From there you can get your feet wet and see if you want to eventually invest in a third part IO/hardware accelerator card.
And the programs used to make those types of file (OGM/AVI/MKV containers, or DVD/SVCD) typically don't use additional hardware, which means that CPU horsepower is going to be the biggest factor.
Sorry...third part...forgot the "Y" Third party = another manufacture/specialized piece of equipment.
Just to make sure that I was clear on my lingo of encoding. No real reason beyond that. I seem to be somewhat "distracted" in my posts of late. Happens when I rush through reading a post and reply. At least I'm staying somewhat on topic....somewhat. Must be the meds. Must be.