need help configuring home video editing PC

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt,alt.video.dvd.tech (More info?)

On Sun, 02 May 2004 08:48:58 GMT, "JAD" <jdemma25@eartink.net> wrote:


>>Having both a mid to high-end sound card and *ANY* drive controller
>on the
>> PCI bus is enough to degrade performance of either or both.
>
>Interesting, where would I see this degradation? Would I be spending
>hours in front of a 'benchmarker' comparing or would this be something
>that is real world?

The degradation is seen when the drives and interface method "would" be
capable of exceeding 120MB/s yet can't. Then it stands to reason that
seeing it would require 1) fast enough drives 2) large continuous data
stream 3) comparison of performance on a server with (other) traffic on
PCI bus limited, contrasted with PC 32bit 33MHz PCI bus with sound, analog
capture and/or other devices in use simultaneously.

>Are we again talking of 'dropped' frames, poor
>video appearance, or rendering time increases?

I was talking primary of drive performance itself. Dropped frames and
rednering times are relative to the data rate needed. Data rate lower
than realized drive transfer rate potential wouldn't matter. Rendering
times will increase if the process is drive-bottlenecked rather than CPU
or other bottleneck... depends on what you're doing.


My partners and I have
>not come across any of this type of problem (degradations) with these
>rigs. I am always up for improvements when it comes to quality of my
>work and time spent wisely. I am not into ' look my rigs faster than
>yours' scenarios though. Also, unlike a few of my cohorts, just
>because we have been doing it this way for 15 years it 'must' be the
>'only way', is not my motto ;^)
>
>Thanks for the input

IF your situation is one where the job is pushing the limit of drive
throughput on PCI bus then clearly a change in drives, interface, and/or
bus applies. A "my rig is faster than yours scenario" may be something
that gets stressed too often, but in some cases that's what it does boil
down too, no magic bullet other than specing out best modern config for
the job, or use of more systems.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt,alt.video.dvd.tech (More info?)

On Sun, 02 May 2004 14:55:28 -0500, gothika <Vampyres@nettaxi.com> wrote:


>>>I run a Athalon T-bird with MMX that supports SSE2. Have an oler
>>>t-bird cpu with it as well.
>>>They did come in pre-builts specifically made for video editing.
>>>Do most of the current AMD's not have this?
>>
>>Nothing older than Athlon 64 has SSE2. Athlon Palomino, Thoroughbred,
>>Thorton, Barton, Duron Morgan (and maybe another Duron?) have SSE(1).
>>T-Birds do not have SSE(1) or SSE2. If yours does it is not a T-Bird.
>
>Have to disagree on that. Every diagnostic I've every run(Sandra
>etc..) clearly shows my setup as having SSE2. That was one of the
>primary reasons I bought these custom builds.
>

It is simply IMPOSSIBLE for any kind of "custom build" to result in a
T-Bird supporting SSE, period. CPUs support the instructions or don't...
check AMD's website.

If your CPU is a T-Bird, that is, a Thunderbird, it doesn't support SSE
and there isn't anything that can be done to make that Thunderbird support
SSE. _IF_ you really do have a T-Bird and those diagnostics claim SSE
support, they're wrong. Again, check AMD's website.

 

[Stacey]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt,alt.video.dvd.tech (More info?)

gothika wrote:

> On Sat, 01 May 2004 13:45:18 -0400, Stacey <fotocord@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>Kevin Lawton wrote:
>>
>>> Stacey <fotocord@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Is there some particular feature(s) of the Intel CPU which are better
>>> suited to video editing over the AMD ones ?
>>
>>SSE2, the AMD XP chips don't support this code. It's an extention of MMX
>>and most video editing apps rely heavily on this code for speed. Also P4's
>>just seem to be more "optimized" for this type of work. The AMD 64 does
>>have SSE2 support but I have no idea how these compare to a P4 in actual
>>use.
>>
> I run a Athalon T-bird with MMX that supports SSE2.

SSE not SSE2. If you have some application that claims this, it's a bug in
the app. AMD has never had SSE-2- support in anything until the AMD64.
--

Stacey

 

[Stacey]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt,alt.video.dvd.tech (More info?)

gothika wrote:


> Many argue that ATA100 is sufficient. It may be on most systems.
> On my main machine which came with ATA100 built in I got ocasional
> frame drops when capturing Some DV formats.(Mostly full or DV-cine and
> miniDV shot in full 16:9)
> 133 increased my capture rate substantially. ( 47mbs vs 34mbs with
> 100)


That was the drive not the interface. Look at your numbers, ATA 66 can move
47Mbs a sec cause it can move 66Mbs at the interface, it's just those older
drives couldn't move that much data mechanically. My ata100 WD 80 gig moves
46Mbs no problem.


[root@stephe stephe]# hdparm -t /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
Timing buffered disk reads: 140 MB in 3.02 seconds = 46.35 MB/sec


It's more about rotational speed and disk density than interface for
streaming video.
--

Stacey

 

[Stacey]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt,alt.video.dvd.tech (More info?)

JAD wrote:

> Hmmm noise on the PCI....well since the PCI has only a sound card and
> the SCSI card (AGP video if you want to include that) I would say
> that's a nit-pick of a con.

http://www.geocities.com/fotocord/raid.html


This guy didn't think this noise from his raid card was "a nit-pick".

Why introduce possible problems when the "solution" doesn't solve any
problems itself? Like I said when an ata33 drive could only move 10Mbs,
multiple SCSI drive setups were the hot ticket for video capture. That's
not the case anymore. That money is better spend on a faster CPU or better
software!
--

Stacey

 

[Stacey]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt,alt.video.dvd.tech (More info?)

Toshi1873 wrote:

> In article <7o73901qlvsavnrc9via7bc6knojt9jjo2@4ax.com>,
> spam@spam.com says...
>> A P4 is "typically" faster at video editing. That's not to suggest an
>> Athlon XP won't do the job, but it will be slower... don't have an exact
>> figure but you should be able to find benchmarks on the 'net. It's also
>> beneficial to have at least two hard drives, one for the source (the
>> destination drive from the firewire-camcorder-copy) and the other drive
>> the destination of the edited video.
>>
>
> Most folks say a difference of only 5-10% between the
> two... which ain't much in my book.


Depends on the application and the effects being used. The "speed test" file
for vegas video shows a 2.4 P4 is -at least- 2X as fast as an AMD XP2400.
Also an AMD of this speed can't keep up to do real time preview effects
either while the P4 does it without a hitch.

Have you actually used both types of systems yourself with video effects
rendering or just repeating what you've read AMD fanboys ("most people")
claim? Maybe on a pre-SSE2 app there isn't much difference?

I'm not a fan of either platform nor do I push one or the other, only based
on price/performance for the application do I recomend a solution. 99% of
the time it's AMD, yet people try to argue AMD are good for video editing
to push AMD's for everything? I've used both using real world apps against
each other and I'd NEVER build an AMD system for someone wanting to do
video editing.. Then again some people seem to just hate Intel and will
push the wrong hardware on other people because of their views on this
subject.
--

Stacey

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt,alt.video.dvd.tech (More info?)

On Mon, 03 May 2004 01:00:52 -0400, Stacey <fotocord@yahoo.com> wrote:


>Depends on the application and the effects being used. The "speed test" file
>for vegas video shows a 2.4 P4 is -at least- 2X as fast as an AMD XP2400.
>Also an AMD of this speed can't keep up to do real time preview effects
>either while the P4 does it without a hitch.

It's quite believeable that a P4 is 2X as fast with encoders optimized for
SSE2, but is it even slightly optimized for the Athlon or just SSE2 vs.
completely unoptimized? If the latter it's no wonder anything without
SSE2 will far poorly.
>
> Have you actually used both types of systems yourself with video effects
>rendering or just repeating what you've read AMD fanboys ("most people")
>claim? Maybe on a pre-SSE2 app there isn't much difference?
>
>I'm not a fan of either platform nor do I push one or the other, only based
>on price/performance for the application do I recomend a solution. 99% of
>the time it's AMD, yet people try to argue AMD are good for video editing
>to push AMD's for everything? I've used both using real world apps against
>each other and I'd NEVER build an AMD system for someone wanting to do
>video editing.. Then again some people seem to just hate Intel and will
>push the wrong hardware on other people because of their views on this
>subject.

You might want to restate that as "never build an Athlon XP system", since
Athlon 64 does have SSE2 and can generally do much better as a result.
The key of course would be which application, which codec (and version)
since Vegas Video might be a great app but not what everyone wants to use.
Also there's the age-old debate of which codec is better for quality,
since it's not always the newest, SSE2 optimized version someone might
want to use.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt,alt.video.dvd.tech (More info?)

On Mon, 03 May 2004 00:40:15 -0400, Stacey <fotocord@yahoo.com> wrote:

>gothika wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 01 May 2004 13:45:18 -0400, Stacey <fotocord@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>>Kevin Lawton wrote:
>>>
>>>> Stacey <fotocord@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Is there some particular feature(s) of the Intel CPU which are better
>>>> suited to video editing over the AMD ones ?
>>>
>>>SSE2, the AMD XP chips don't support this code. It's an extention of MMX
>>>and most video editing apps rely heavily on this code for speed. Also P4's
>>>just seem to be more "optimized" for this type of work. The AMD 64 does
>>>have SSE2 support but I have no idea how these compare to a P4 in actual
>>>use.
>>>
>> I run a Athalon T-bird with MMX that supports SSE2.
>
>SSE not SSE2. If you have some application that claims this, it's a bug in
>the app. AMD has never had SSE-2- support in anything until the AMD64.

Not even SSE... Palomino, which came after T'Bird, was the first Athlon
core to support SSE.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt,alt.video.dvd.tech (More info?)

"gothika" <Vampyres@nettaxi.com> wrote in message
news:5mt890dh48ko1r5on6g6tqiotkfor5qkcd@4ax.com...
....
> I've been seriously considering a dual machine for some time now, that
> or a blade/cluster setup.
> I'm going to wait though, when 64bit finally gets out with the apps
> needed the dual chip machines should drop in price.
> To really see the advantage now your editing software will have to
> utilize hyperthreading.
> Most low end apps don't at this time.
> You'll have to spend big bucks to get software that'll take advantage
> of dual chipsets, at least as far as I know.
Any app. that utilizes HT can benefit from SMP.

E.V

 

[Stacey]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt,alt.video.dvd.tech (More info?)

kony wrote:

> On Mon, 03 May 2004 01:00:52 -0400, Stacey <fotocord@yahoo.com> wrote:

>
> It's quite believeable that a P4 is 2X as fast with encoders optimized for
> SSE2, but is it even slightly optimized for the Athlon or just SSE2 vs.
> completely unoptimized? If the latter it's no wonder anything without
> SSE2 will far poorly.

No idea how e code is written. Since most of the "turn key" video systems
are built with P4's, My guess is most of the software is written with this
in mind.


>> I've used both using real world apps
>>against each other and I'd NEVER build an AMD system for someone wanting
>>to do video editing..
>
> You might want to restate that as "never build an Athlon XP system", since
> Athlon 64 does have SSE2 and can generally do much better as a result.

Well until I have a chance to test one, I'll stick with P4's for video
workstations.


> The key of course would be which application, which codec (and version)
> since Vegas Video might be a great app but not what everyone wants to use.
>

Premier also is very P4 friendly and is the "cornerstone" for video editing
just like photoshop is for photography. The main issue seems to be the
effects rendering, not the MPEG encoding that differs in the processors.
People looks at MPEG encoding and assume these represent video work, they
don't.

The encoding can be done on even something like a PII 350 as this work
requires no user interaction, you just start it and go do something else.
WHo cares if it take 4 hours or 8 hours or 30 minutes? But when you are
editing, to see what the edits are going to look like, the effects have to
be rendered and if each edit takes 4-5 minutes to even see if you even like
that one edit's effect, it can take DAYS to edit a 30 minute video! Most
people aren't going to have the patience for that.
--

Stacey

 

[jad]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt,alt.video.dvd.tech (More info?)

WHo cares if it take 4 hours or 8 hours or 30 minutes? But when you
are
> editing, to see what the edits are going to look like, the effects
have to
> be rendered and if each edit takes 4-5 minutes to even see if you
even like
> that one edit's effect, it can take DAYS to edit a 30 minute video!
Most
> people aren't going to have the patience for that.

Hehehehhe A typical week in the life of an editor...............MPG
is rarely used like you said, less your authoring for the web. .MOV
NTSC then converted is common, But even that also like you said,
makes up the smallest amount of time. Transitions and recoloring,
removal of things like street signs, business advertising on walls,
fire hydrants, that's the weird kind of stuff we do, takes weeks,
depending on the length of the clip or if its a whole production
piece.

Anywho, we have a MAC that is showing its age, put it out there to
replace it, at the next slow down period (where we can do without it)
with a P4 and a SATA setup. One thing that was ask was how many drive
can we install (they were thinking of redundancy)


"Stacey" <fotocord@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:c76n15$dto8$1@ID-52908.news.uni-berlin.de...
> kony wrote:
>
> > On Mon, 03 May 2004 01:00:52 -0400, Stacey <fotocord@yahoo.com>
wrote:
>
> >
> > It's quite believeable that a P4 is 2X as fast with encoders
optimized for
> > SSE2, but is it even slightly optimized for the Athlon or just
SSE2 vs.
> > completely unoptimized? If the latter it's no wonder anything
without
> > SSE2 will far poorly.
>
> No idea how e code is written. Since most of the "turn key" video
systems
> are built with P4's, My guess is most of the software is written
with this
> in mind.
>
>
> >> I've used both using real world apps
> >>against each other and I'd NEVER build an AMD system for someone
wanting
> >>to do video editing..
> >
> > You might want to restate that as "never build an Athlon XP
system", since
> > Athlon 64 does have SSE2 and can generally do much better as a
result.
>
> Well until I have a chance to test one, I'll stick with P4's for
video
> workstations.
>
>
> > The key of course would be which application, which codec (and
version)
> > since Vegas Video might be a great app but not what everyone wants
to use.
> >
>
> Premier also is very P4 friendly and is the "cornerstone" for video
editing
> just like photoshop is for photography. The main issue seems to be
the
> effects rendering, not the MPEG encoding that differs in the
processors.
> People looks at MPEG encoding and assume these represent video work,
they
> don't.
>
> The encoding can be done on even something like a PII 350 as this
work
> requires no user interaction, you just start it and go do something
else.
> > --
>
> Stacey

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt,alt.video.dvd.tech (More info?)

On Sat, 01 May 2004 13:45:18 -0400, Stacey <fotocord@yahoo.com> wrote:

>Kevin Lawton wrote:
>
>> Stacey <fotocord@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Is there some particular feature(s) of the Intel CPU which are better
>> suited to video editing over the AMD ones ?
>
>SSE2, the AMD XP chips don't support this code. It's an extention of MMX and
>most video editing apps rely heavily on this code for speed. Also P4's just
>seem to be more "optimized" for this type of work.

Yes! Another advantage for the P4 is that video work are menial
tasks. The P4 is a fastrunning, but 'stupid' , cpu. If the work
doesn't require 'intelligence' or complex decisions, it performs well,
because it will have full use of its high clock frequency. Performing
a simple operation on a large block of data, is THE thing that P4s do
well.

If you compare cpus on a price basis, AMD will do better of course.
But for video, P4 is still ultimately best.
I can imagine sound encoding to work out on more equal terms (since
it's a little bit more problematic than video). Provided we compare
with code also optimized for 3DNow+.

For the AthlonXP to be in the running for media encoding at all, the
code must also be optimized for 3DNow+. And I gather that's not so
popular as SSE2.
SSE2 and 3DNow+ performs twice as many operations per
instruction&clock as old SSE.

>The AMD 64 does have
>SSE2 support but I have no idea how these compare to a P4 in actual use.

In 32-bit mode, P4 is still better. The reason is again that the work
is so straightforward, that clock frequency is a factor.
But again, I'd like to reserve myself on sound.

Only 64-bit media benchmark I've seen is 'Lame' on Linux64. And that
achieves an astonishing (~X2) improvement. But 64-bit SSE2 works
pretty much exactly like 32-bit SSE2, aside from having twice as many
registers to fool around with. So my guess is that if the code doesn't
make use of those, the situation will be similar.

To beat the clock advantage, AMD would have to define their own vector
instructions, rather than implementing Intel's. But it's also a
question of software convergence. 3DNow+ hasn't been a wholesale
success, outside games and APIs. As Intel too, will be switching to
more powerful, but lower clocked cpu cores, AMD will get their chances
in the future. Maybe on SSE4.

ancra

P.S. As you have already touched, the situation can be utterly
reversed in other cases, A-XP can have a 30-85% advantage over the P4
on '386/'387 -code. (I've seen 200%, but sofar, I'm assuming that
involved throttling on the P4). Also, the P4C is doing somewhat better
than earlier P4.