System for editing HD in Adobe Premiere

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I'm leaning toward building a system. Didn't I read about some software able to emulate Quadro with a lower cost NVIDIA card?

Anyway,very cool stuff about RAID options.

I purchased Adobe CS4 Production Premium. Came with After Effects, Premiere Pro, Photoshop, Flash, Illustrator, Soundbooth, OnLocation and Encore. Camera budget is around $1,000.

Will the i7 920 run stable overclocked at 25%? That's amazing. I know you recommended a cooling fan in an earlier post. Will that satisfy the cooling requirements if I overclock that much?

I going to create a parts list tonight and post it for your review. I hope you don't mind taking a look. I am not a gamer but don't want to compromise. I am definitley going with 12 gigs RAM and the HDD configuration you recommend.

Thanks,

Don
 
About emulating Quadro: the 8800GTS 640MB is the last card that can be "Soft-Modded" to a Quadro (FX 4600). Stupid Nvidia realized they were losing a lot of money to "Soft-Modding" so they started laser cutting the chips beginning with the 8800GT(G92), which is what I have 🙁

Within Adobe's programs, only After Effects can benefit from Quadro/FirePro Workstation cards with complex 3D work. With the new OpenGL accelerated features in Premiere Pro, After Effects and Photoshop, a Nvidia 9800GT will run them just fine.

For overclocking the i7: I have a much older Q6600 (Intel's first quad-core) which runs 2.4GHz stock and I push it to 3.0GHz without it having any stability issues. Believe me, when I first began overclocking, I was pushing 3.6GHz but I could not stand a random reboot, even if it only happened once a week. The i7 can run at 3.4GHz with 100% stability and can go even higher. The i7 is far more efficient and better designed than my Q6600, and my Q6600 at 3.0GHz is slower than the i7 @stock 2.66.

The Xigmatek Dark Knight is a little better than my Zalman 9700. If a Zalman 9700 is good enough for a hotter Q6600, then the Xigmatek is fine for the i7 pushed to 3.4GHz.

For video camera: I don't know which camera will be best for your needs(lots of motion/movement) but the camera will most likely record to AVCHD. This means transcoding from AVCHD to another format/codec would make your editing life much, much easier. My Q6600 at 3.0GHz can't handle AVCHD very well so I transcode it. The only downside to transcoding is needing a good amount of space and speed.
 
Hi specialk90:

I've been following this thread because I want to get into video editing and own an HD-capable camcorder (Canon HV 30). I purchased Adobe CS4 Production Premium and 3DS Max 2009 with my student discount .

You have been extremely helpful with all of your suggestions. It is greatly appreciated. Wish I had this information when I first started, it would have saved a lot of time on research. You've basically answered most of the questions, but I wonder if you could touch on the OS.

I hate the thought of spending money on Vista 64 when Win 7 is expected in a few months. I am inclined to download the Win 7 RC and use it then upgrade to the full version when it comes out. Is this a wise move in your opinion? Everything I've read about Vista makes me want to avoid it.

Thanks again for offering us your expertise.

 
Hello specialk90,
I just found this thread while searching for a good graphics card and this is so great because I am currently building a PC system. Thank you for all your contributions because I've learned so much.

I hope you don't mind, I just have some questions..

Yesterday, I bought about $1100 worth of computer parts..
Gigabyte Mobo GA-EX58-UD3R (not my first choice but Asus and Intel Mobos were out)
Intel I7 920 (plan to overclock it)
Corsair 1000W Power Supply
4GB RAM
Kingwin CPU Fan
Antec case

I currently have the CS3 bundle and wasn't really looking forward on getting CS4 (atleast not yet) and like what drixle45 mentioned, I'm not a fan of Vista and I'm honestly waiting for Windows 7.

My plan is to stick with Adobe CS3 for now BUT build a fast computer so later down the road, if I decided to run CS4, I can upgrade my softwares (including vista 64) BUT not hardwares (atleast not the major parts). Do you think this is a good idea?

I have the Sony HVR-V1U and for the meantime, I'll be happy to edit HD footages without ease and fast render times.

And also, regarding hard drives. My plan was to have a single 500GB for my OS, then 2 1.5TB RAID 0 for video storage, and 2 500GB RAID 0 for scratch disk. Is this a good set-up?

Thank you very much for your time.

niM
 
I'd like to say Thank You for the kind words. I really do appreciate it.

drixle45, I don't know how CS4 will work on Win 7. For that, you should ask around to see what kinds of problems people are running into, if any. I must use Vista x64 for certain Raid drivers in addition to stability. I just switched from XP 32bit to Vista x64 and I like Vista more than XP. I, too, had been hesitant but I needed the extra Ram. If you don't mind having problems with Win 7 and reinstalling everything in a year, then try it.

nimdivino,
1) why did you get only 4GB of ram? I ask because the motherboard is Triple Channel and runs much faster with either 3 or 6 ram slots used.
2) What will your Backup plan be? With multiple Raid 0 arrays, you are asking to lose data. Remember, one 1.5TB drive has a problem, you lose ALL 3TB of data. You really don't need 2 drives in Raid 0 for the Media Cache. Also, the HDV files are only moving at 4MB/s, and a single Seagate 1.5TB drive can handle at least 5-6 HDV streams at a time.
3) You didn't list a video card so it appears that the 1000w PSU is way overkill. I use a PC P&C 750w with 11 drives, Q6600 OC'd to 3.0GHZ, 6 120mm fans and a 8800GT. For Media Cache, everything I've read says to limit the size of it and delete its contents every 2-3 months because it likes to cause errors when getting large.
4) I don't know if you work with deadlines, but using Raid 0 would be dangerous if you were. Once I know you storage needs in more detail, I can offer some ideas.

FOR BOTH OF YOU:

64 bit + 8GB or more Ram will provide one of the biggest performance gains. Even with CS3, After Effects can use all the ram you have and Premiere can use at least 3GB of ram. With CS4, Premiere is much faster because it can use more ram now. DigitalContentProducer.com recently tested Premiere CS4 with 4GB ram on 32bit vs 8GB on 64bit(plus a single 4GB vs 16GB Mac test). Premiere was 40-600% faster with 8GB of ram for rendering/encoding. This is why I moved to Vista x64.

For a real video workstation, you really SHOULD NOT use it for anything else. I have VMWare Workstation installed with XP and 7 VM's for all my internet stuff and playing around. I learned the hard way with XP and installing too much crap. There is a reason why Apple OSX has a reputation for working so well - its because there are only a handful of programs for it whereas 1000s for windows. If you only install a few programs in addition to Adobe and other 3D apps, then you will have very few problems. I have had ZERO problems with Vista x64 besides something that 99% of users will never encounter(a 3ware Raid card needing updated firmware to run in Vista). From what I've seen firsthand with 7, it is almost identical to Vista.

If you don't already have Vista x64, then I wouldn't waste the money on it yet and try 7 x64 first since its free. You can download it quickly via torrent(which is what I did).
 
drixle45 and anyone else interested in video: learn After Effects and Illustrator. I started with Photography and never thought Illustrator was worth my time. Then I moved to Video Editing & Compositing and quickly learned about Vector graphics(ie Illustrator). Photoshop is nice to know but Illustrator & After Effects are a powerful combination. With those 2 apps, you can create a ton of video from nothing. Also, Lynda.com is a fantastic source and is only $25/month. When I decided to go Video, I had no idea how much I had to learn - AE, Premiere, Illustrator, Photoshop for video, Soundbooth, advanced Grading & Color Correction(this is very important and often overlooked) and NTSC Broadcast settings. This doesn't include learning more of Propellerhead's Reason for audio creation. And now I want to learn Cinema 4D while I am still learning everything else. Just shoot me. If I could start over, I would have just gone the Music Production route - a total of 2 apps to learn!

Just want to give a quick tip: try not to use 24p unless you are atually filming for a Feature Film/Movie. Use 30p or 60i. 30p will be better in low light and 60i can be better for fast action and is certainly better for Slo-Mo.
 
Hi Specialk90

Once again, thanks for helping me. I'm ready to order my new pc, I just had two questions. First, is it worth the extra cash for the Core i7 920 as opposed to the Core 2 Quad Q8400?

And second, I don't want to install Vista because it has some issues with my soundboard (M-Audio Fast Track). I don't know why and M-Audio staff were unable to solve that issue for me, so I use XP instead. Is there a 64bit version of XP? And, in that case, does the hardware need to be purchased with that in mind or does it work for both 32bit and 64bit? The only difference would be the ability to use more RAM right?

thanks

Here's the link of stuff you advized me to get:

http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=9876065

Thanks!

David
 
David, can you provide me with ALL the details of your system when you tried Vista and which Vista edition did you try. I have been very lucky with my M-Audio FireWire 410 working without any problems at all in XP 32bit and now Vista x64. However, I have read numerous complaints about various M-Audio products not working properly with all operating systems. I really believe your Fast Track will work with Vista.

Side Note: I probably will never buy another M-Audio product do to all the problems I have read about. It might be in your best interest to find an alternative. One brand that comes to mind is PreSonus.

$200 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829999002
$280 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829999005

Oh yeah, and E-MU which is Creative's Pro brand and is really good quality.

There is XP Pro x64 but Adobe CS4 does not work properly in it and is not even supported by Adobe. For example, the OpenGL acceleration does not work. Another downside to XP x64 is software and driver support, which is lacking. Most vendors focused support for Vista x64 because XP is an old OS(MS stopped support for XP in April). Going into the future, no one will be releasing supported drivers/software for XP 32 or 64 bit.
One possible option is to try Windows 7 x64 which the RC(Release Candidate) has been released or is being released this month, and it will allow usage until July 2010. Win 7 is almost identical to Vista so drivers & software should work just fine on it. And because it is almost identical to Vista, vendors can easily update (many have already done so) their drivers. What I'm saying is to stay away from XP x64.

For CPU: the i7 920 would be worth it if you were editing AVCHD, which you are not, or if you were working with time critical deadlines and needed the faster render times. Actually, one more reason is being able to use 12GB of Ram vs only 8GB. If you plan on using After Effects heavily, the more Ram the better.

What do you use your Fast Track for?

Unfortunately, the Gigabyte motherboard in the wishlist is now deactivated but the ASUS P5Q SE is the same price($95). The additional cost of i7 would be about $100 for motherboard, $50-100 for CPU depending if you get from Microcenter or newegg and $68 for 12GB Ram(vs 8GB) plus $30 in Rebates which brings it to $38. At a minimum, roughly $200 difference for i7 + 12GB ram.
 
David, I just found another great Midi controller from Mackie - Mackie Onyx Satellite FireWire Audio Interface at zzSounds for only $180. I had a Mackie $1200 8 channel DAW mixer for the last 2 yrs and it worked perfectly(I sold it when I decided to go the Video route instead of Music Production - stupid me). Mackie is the real Pro brand and I trust their gear over M-Audio, PreSonus & E-MU.

If you have a Guitar Center near you, I would stop by and see what they say about your Vista/Fast Track issues. I bought my FW 410 and Mackie from them and the sales people were extremely knowledgeable.
 



Hi, thanks once again! I use the M-Audio Fast Track to record music. I can't remember wich exact Vista edition I had on my PC, but I remember downloading every update there was available back then and the problem with my sound card wouldn't go away. What happened was, everytime I played audio, there woud be glitches in sound and static sound very irritating. I had to install XP and everything was fine again.

Do you think that Win XP 32bits, a Quad Core and Premiere CS4 would be a good choice? I'll go with 4gb RAM.

One more thing, I'm thinking of getting a third HD just for OS and apps. The other two will be for video editing only. What would be the best way to configure them? One for storage, the other for rendering? And does that ASUS board support RAID system?

Thanks!

David
 
David, to be honest, the best choice for OS is Windows 7 x64. I can tell you from experience that x64, Premiere CS4 and 8GB of Ram is sooo much snappier and faster than XP 32 bit and 4GB of Ram. I have a 2nd PC with a quad-core and put 8GB of ram in it and tested Vista x64 + CS4 on it before I decided on whether or not to make the switch to Vista x64. I now have Vista x64 on my production PC and will never go back to 32bit and I envy those with i7 systems because they can easily use 12GB of Ram.

With Premiere, there are 2 areas that greatly affect performance while editing:
1) Media Cache location
2) Amount of Ram available

Media Cache stores the video and audio of the project files which are "Conformed" and indexed so next time you start up Premiere and open that project, the video and audio are already indexed. I know I am not explaining it properly but it does affect performance. Look at it this way: import a video file that contains audio, Premiere will index/conform both the video and audio, which means it is reading from the source and writing to the Media Cache folder. The quicker it can read and write, the better. This is the reason people always say you need 2 different drives.

Starting with Premiere Pro CS4, it can now create "Extra" processes to use more Ram(something After Effects has done for a while). This is because Premiere is not yet a 64 bit app unlike Photoshop CS4. Something you will learn is that After Effects is far more powerful than Premiere and editing Sequences in AE can open up many more options & possibilities. Besides Color Correction and Grading in Premiere, it really isn't that difficult to learn. However, AE is a beast to learn but it can provide so much artistic creativity that its mind blowing.

I highly suggest getting a membership to Lynda and check out their Creative section. This new section is about different artists and businesses in the various industries. I particularly like Troika and an artist Rick Morris. Troika is a company that designs all of Fox's broadcast material in addition to other networks. Rick Morris does a lot of work with Illustrator and After Effects and does a lot of work for country music channels, which is funny because he is as far from country as you can get. His work is absolutely amazing and check the link below to see his demo reel.

http://www.lynda.com/home/DisplayCourse.aspx?lpk2=618

Yes, the ASUS board supports Raid and has Intel's ICH10R chipset.

How long ago did you try Vista? I googled looking for your problems and it looks like M-Audio didn't release a good driver until some time in 2007. What you can do right now is download Windows 7 for free and try it out. If there are drivers for Vista, then the same driver should work in 7.

Also, when you tried Vista, did you try a fresh install of Vista? I really can't believe the horrid support from M-Audio. I found many people complaining about my FW410 and how it killed their firewire card and how it doesn't work with certain brands of firewire cards and that it must be the very first firewire device the OS sees. These problems spanned across both PC & Mac. All of the problems I've read about makes me believe that there was something very small and simple causing your problems. Because their drivers aren't the greatest, it could have been just about anything.
 


hello specialk90,
Thank you once again for responding to our questions. Your time and knowledge is very much appreciated.

Well I finished buying my hardwares and I was able to install the necessary parts for me to run BIOS. I can't wait to install the OS and have faster rendering times.

Anyway, here are my answers to your questions. And I do have some questions too.. =)

1. I went with 4GB of RAM because I want to stay with Windows XP 32bit for now. The tech told me that XP 32 only supports upto 4GB of RAM so having more RAM will be useless. Is this true? I do want 8GB since my Mobo will support it, but I'll wait until I get CS4 and Windows 7. I'll be working with HDV files only anyway so this is more than enough for now.

2. hehehehe. I really deserved to be shot, but I've never had a back-up since I started working on video 9 years ago. =(. But I really want a back-up now. So I bought 1 1.5TB from FRYS today for $134, and 2 500GBs.

Now if I'm understanding you correctly, I should buy 1 more 1.5TB then RAID 1 them? RAID 1 will give me 1.5TB of free space BUT I have back-up and no downtime? I will leave the 2 500GBs HDs as single drives for OS and media cache. Now that I'm thinking about it, I actually want RAID 1 for my OS as well. hmmmm. hahaha.

3. I followed your advise and I returned the 1000W PSU and bought an 850W instead for $120 less. I used that money to buy a $250 GEFORCE GTX 260. (I really have no clue if this is a good card).

- Did I buy a good Graphics card? I use after effects with all my projects, I'm not an expert at all, I don't use expressions nor 3D but its common for me to have a project with 10-15 layers and multiple compositions. I'm after with speed for previews and rendering times. Is this card good enough. I know there are more expensive cards out there but I set my limit to $250. I'm not ready to buy a $1000 card yet. I did buy a Matrox RT card before, that was a dent in my wallet. haha.

4. I completely understand your point now and I will set-up a RAID 1. I will go to FRYS tomorrow and buy 1 1.5TB.

----- I have 1 more question, I really hope you don't mind..

Okay, so I mentioned that I bought a Matrox RT card before and that came with a cable where there's input and output of RCA and S-video. I really prefer seeing my work in a monitor, I plan on buying a 19inch HD TV so I can monitor what I'm editing. The graphics card I have (Nvidia GEForce GTX 260) has 2 DVI and an output that seems to be an S-Video (although s-video is not ever mentioned in the box). I will use the two DVI because I will run dual-monitors. I don't think i want to use the S-video because s-video is analog. What can I do so I can see my previews in my HD TV at 1080i/1080p?

I know I can plug a firewire to camera, then camera to HDMI out to TV. But I don't want my camera to be on all the time while I'm editing. What do you think?

Thank you so much once again for your time and knowledge.

niM



 
Hello nimdivino.

1) Yes, XP can only support 4GB of Ram. Waiting til you get CS4 to go 64bit is a good idea.
2) What motherboard do you have? If Intel with ICH7R/8R/9R/10R chipset, then I would take those 2 500GB drives and run them in "Matrix" Raid where you create a Raid 1 array for the OS+Apps with the first 100GB and then a Raid 0 array with the last 800GB for media cache & scratch dsik & page file. For the 1.5TB drive(s), I would put the raw/source footage there plus your finished project files and whatever else you want to keep. You can run the 1.5TB drives in Raid 1 but you should also get a UPS. Or get an external enclosure with eSATA and use the 2nd 1.5TB drive as a backup. When you capture your HDV, can you set 2 target locations so you can have the video going to both internal & external 1.5TB drives or just copy/paste after capture. If you only use this PC for video production and not for general use, then I would go with Raid 1.

RECOMMENDATION For Everyone: get a good UPS. Best Buy has them on sale right now for ridiculously low prices. The 1500va/865w from APC for $160 is almost identical to what I have and should cost $300+. This one piece of hardware can save so many headaches.

3) The GTX 260 is probably a little on the high end for your use but it does set you up nicely for when Adobe finally releases Mainstream CUDA support. I have a 8800GT 512 and it works fine except when I get crazy and try to do some complicated 3D work within AE. If you went Vista 32bit or even 7 32bit, you would get access to a little more Ram. XP allows 3GB and I've seen Vista allow up to 3.5GB. I bring this up because the amount of V-Ram in the video card takes away from the available Ram in 32bit. On the flipside, more V-Ram helps in AE with larger comps. I have AE's V-Ram usage set to 384MB(of 512).

As I stated earlier, CS4 + 64bit + 8-12GB Ram is very nice.

4) Whatever you do, do not get a DVI Splitter. I paid about $40 for one from Microcenter and it scared the crap out of me. I got it so I could have the video going to both my 2nd LCD and my HDTV. I hooked up the LCD first and the screen went apeshit. It ended up ruining the DVI cord and my LCD was fine after I unplugged the power because the power button would not respond.

So, you are saying you want to dock the Program Monitor on your 19" HDTV. I would only do that if the 19" HDTV is very expensive and has extremely accurate colors. For proper Color Correction and Grading, a consumer HDTV does not work well when used in conjunction with computer LCDs.

Actually, it really depends on the DISTRIBUTION of your video - web, DVD or Broadcast. For example, for the Web, using a computer LCD is the best because everyone will be watching your video on a computer LCD. Broadcast is a little different because there is a minimum and max to the colors & luminosity. This is where I am currently trying to learn because I will be producing commercials starting this summer. With DVD, most people will be watching on TVs. Most of those TVs will have very poor color balance so being able to Color Correct & Grade properly is crucial. There is a reason why you see video production setups with that small CRT monitor.

Speaking of Matrox, they now make hardware that connects to your LCD and makes it Video Color Accurate. The only downside is it costs over $1000.

You would have to get another video card for another DVI/HDMI out without using professional hardware.

Have you considered getting a HDMI capture card to record video Live and in higher quality? You can get a good capture card for $300-350. I am looking into this for HDMI or HD-SDI because I would be able to capture at a higher quality and it wouldn't be Long GOP MPEG2 which HDV and XDCAM are.

Because you capture your footage, have you also considered an actual Hardware Capture card that can also capture the video to another format?

I have so many different ideas for my own setup because I will be working with time critical deadlines and the workflow must be highly efficient.

What video camera do you use?
 



Do you think that I will have problems with other programs if I install Vista 64? I think not all programs are supposed to work on 64bit OS right?

Thanks

David
 
specialk90:
wow.. thank you so much for that very detailed response.

So regarding the motherboard, I have the Gigabyte Mobo GA-EX58-UD3R. This seems like a very good board, according to reviews, its a highly efficient board and its very good in cooling because its designed for enthusiast who overclocks.

With this motherboard, I don't think I can set-up a "Matrix" array. I do want to run a RAID 1 on my OS though for obvious reasons. There are $50 250GB available at frys right now, I can return one of the 500GB to buy 2 250GB and use a single disk for scratch and media cache. Or maybe, I should just use 250GB for scratch disk also? That will save me some money.

I bought another 1.5TB yesterday to run RAID 1. I'm set with that but I don't know about buying a generator back-up. This is what you meant by 'UPS' right? Why do I need a UPS if I run a RAID 1?

I was looking for 8800GT prices and it seems that they're in mid $200 territory which is about the same price of my GTX 260. So I think its safe to keep this card. Is there a limit on how I can crank-up the v-ram on AE CS3? The GTX 260 has a RAM of 896MB, so if I crank-up the AE ram usage to say 750MB, that should help a lot in terms of preview and render right?

Hmmm, this brings up a question, does rendering a file from AE uses v-ram or is that all CPU?

Note taken regarding the video splitter, and I wasn't planning on getting a splitter anyway because I wanted a full-screen (no mouse, no tool bars) on the HD TV. I have little to none experience with color correction in broadcast etc, I do however see almost the same color and quality when I edit on a 3rd monitor (tv) and watching the finished DVD on a regular TV set. I guess, atleast for my OWN wedding work, I don't see too much changes from editing and final product thus preventing me on buying a professional grade monitor.

I do want to learn the proper color correction, and learning how to use the vectorscopes, professional monitors for broadcast, DVD, etc. I've tried reading and there is too much information out there and I feel that I need to go to school for it. I am currently applying for a job who offers free classes as 1 of their benefits in one of the top video/film schools here in San Francisco, CA. I hope I land on the job because I've always wanted to take classes (including color correction) but always push-it aside because its quite expensive. I finished with my 2nd interview, and I am so anxious right now. argh..

Anyway, back to topic.. =)

Its funny when you mentioned that HDMI capture card. There is one that I'm very interested in, and I found it while I was researching about my "HD TV" preview problem.

Its the blackmagic intensity pro. I'm very interested in this and I also read that people who currently uses cineform will benefit from this card because it will be able to shrink the size of the video but still being uncompressed.

There's a local store here that carries it, so I will drop by tomorrow and ask all the questions I have. My main question really is if it will work hand-in-hand with my graphics card. I am also very interested because it offers WYSIWYG for after effects. (I've never had that)

And oh lastly, my camera is the Sony HVR-V1U.

Thank you so much once again for your time. I know it takes quite a while to write these responses. You're just awesome.

niM









 
David, Vista x64 is able to run 32bit apps just fine. Within the "Program Files", there are 2 different folders, one for x86(32 bit) and one for 64bit. 95% of apps are still 32bit and most run just fine otherwise MS would have a major problem. Even Apple's OSX is 64bit and most of the apps made for Apple are still 32bit. If you can, try out Windows 7 x64 for free. I have read about only minor problems for getting Vista x64 drivers to work in 7 x64(ie some HP printer drivers as I just installed one on my PC and came across an article about a guy who is testing a ton of drivers and software in 7 and letting people know how things go and how to fix any problems they might come across). I don't want to be the person who tells you to buy Vista x64 and then you have problems. However, if you own a Vista 32bit version, you should be able to get the x64 disc from MS for $10.
 
nimdivino,

1) Your board does have the ICH10R chipset which means it can do Matrix Raid. For the hard drives, 500GB drives cost only $60 on Newegg so I wouldn't get a 250GB drive.

2) an UPS is Uninterruptible Power Supply. Its generally a combination of a Surge Protector plus a Battery Backup. When there are drops in voltage, this can cause damage to the PC Power supply but a UPS will kick in and provide a constant flow of power. In addition, when power completely goes out, the UPS kicks in and provides power so your PC doesn't get turned off. They also come with software and a USB cable so if power is out for an extended period of time and you aren't around to turn your PC off, the software will shut your PC off for you. I have found that voltage drops occur a few times a month(at least while I'm using my PC). There is a 865w UPS at Best Buy for $160-170 which would allow your PC to run on battery for at least an hour. There is one a bit less powerful for $110-120 that would work just fine. I can't tell you how many times my UPS has paid for itself.

3) I can't believe the 8800GT prices are so high when the 9800GT and GTS 250 are newer versions using the exact same GPU and the GTS 250 sells for $130.
In AE, you go into the edit Preferences. I can't recall exactly where it is but you shouldn't set more than 80% of the V-Ram(so about 700MB).
Rendering in AE uses the CPU but while working on a comp, AE can use the V-Ram to store data. If you google how AE uses Video Ram, you can get a much better explanation.

4) For Wedding DVDs, using an HDTV is perfectly fine and recommended because your customers will be viewing the DVDs on a TV. For Color Correction, there is some great info on Lynda.com which is where I have learned just about everything so far. Actually, VideoCoPilot has some great Plug-ins for AE for really low prices and the owner is an AE guru/legend. They have about 90 free tutorials for free currently. Also, CreativeCow.com has some great tutorials for Premiere, AE and many other topics.

4b) GOOD LUCK!!! on your possible job. Since you have had a 2nd interview, that should mean they really like you.

5) Yes, that Blackmagic HDMI capture card is great. I couldn't remember if it was AJA or Blackmagic that I had seen at B&HPhoto for around $350. As far as I know, it would mainly benefit if you were capturing while recording video so it bypasses the HDV compression resulting in higher quality and far greater storage size.

5b) Let me know what you learn about it because I am still in the process of deciding on the Z5, Z7 or EX1 and both "Z" models have HDMI output and cost much less than the EX1. The good and bad of it though is I won't be paying for it but I must convince my friend/Boss to fork over the money. He owns 2 companies dealing with advertising, marketing and political consulting and they outsourced their video needs but want to add video services(ie TV commercials) and this is where I step in. Trying to explain why he should spend $10k on an EX1 plus extras is not fun.

I have considered doing Wedding cinematography but I don't have the money for the gear. I don't think I have the stomach to put up with brides and all that either. Maybe after I get my feet wet in tv commercials and money saved up, I can venture into it.

Btw, very nice camera.

Thanks for your appreciation and kind words.

PS What do you mean by WYSIWYG in After Effects? I know how OpenGL being activated can sometimes alter what you see while working(but it doesn't alter the output and I do know what the letters stand for).
 



thank you so much for your help! I'm almost ready to order my pc. I just wanted to check a few things with you, just to be sure:

1 - RAID: Let's see if I got this straight. The secret is to use both 500gb Barracudas in RAID 1. One of the HDD will be used for renders and exports, and the other is used for source files. And I can have the OS on a separate drive (will it gain performance if I plug the HD that has the OS on a RAID or should I place it off the RAID system?). How do I make sure that my project won't be ruined if one of the drives collapses?

2 - i7: if I decide to go with the i7 (wich I still don't know), the only things I need to change in the wishlist is the mobo and the RAM, right?

3 - The store I'm buying the PC, doesn't have the RAM you chose. They suggested a DD2 Hyper X 2GB 1066MHz CL5 (5-5-5-15) DIMM (I'll be ordering 4, in order to have 8gb). Any differences I should be concerned with?

4 - I was told that ATI cards are way better and cheaper than Nvidia cards. Is this true?

Thanks!

David
 
Hi Dave.

1) Ideally, since you want to make money with video, you should also have a backup. Using your current drive for the OS & Apps is fine and then using the 2 500GB drives in Raid 1 to hold the source footage plus the rendered projects. You would then have the Media Cache located on the OS drive within its own partition. With the 500GB drives in Raid 1, the data is mirrored on both so if one drive fails, the other still has the exact same data so you lose no data and no downtime.

A very good way of keeping performance up is to use separate partitions - ie, one for Source footage and one for Rendered Projects. Using separate partitions helps prevent fragmentation, and also reduces stress when you actually defrag since there is less space to move around.

A possible setup with the 3 drives mentioned: C partition for OS+Apps, D for Media Cache, E for Source Footage and F for Rendered Projects.

Something else to consider is the placement of your data. What I mean is that hard drives are faster at the beginning, and placing your Source Footage at the beginning will help keeps its speed up. This is in contrast to making just a single partition for the 500GB with folders for everything. Eventually, Source Footage captured down the road would be on the slower part(ie towards the end of drive). This is something I just tested and learned. When I switched from XP 32bit to Vista x64 a couple weeks ago, my 950GB Raid 5 array was very slow due to the Raid controller needing new firmware. I had the entire 950GB in a single partition and performance had really deteriorated since I first set it up. After backing everything up, I updated the firmware, deleted the array and created a new Raid 5 array and then created 2 partitions -1st one for Photos, Stock video and Source Footage and the 2nd partition for other stuff. Looking thru photos or stock video is now much quicker.

2) i7 - you are correct. There is the ASUS P6T SE for around $190-200 @ newegg which is a great board and 6GB(2GB x 3) of 1333MHz ram runs about $80-85.

3) That RAM is Kingston so it is top quality. Just one thing to look into is motherboard compatibility but I would put money on that RAM working just fine.

4) If you were looking at "Workstation" video cards, then yes ATI is way cheaper and a far better price vs performance value. For Desktop video cards, I would stick with Nvidia due to better OpenGL support and possible CUDA support in Adobe within the next 12 months. Besides CUDA and OpenGL, there is no difference between ATI & Nvidia. It sounds like an ATI Fanboy got a hold of your ear because there really is no difference.


Just want to add something about the Render/Encoding speed: the amount of Ram has the largest affect on performance within Premiere/Media Encoder. In the DigitalContentProducer.com article, they also tested 4 cores vs 8 cores and 8 cores only increased performance about 40-50% but only when there was 8GB or more Ram.

To be honest, your projects should take several hours to render so getting an extra 5, 10 or 15% would not matter if you render overnight.

I was just trying to come up with reasons why an i7 might help a lot and thought about Hyper-Threading. Adobe Media Encoder doesn't use anywhere near 100% of all 4 cores. So, with Hyper-Threading giving you 8 1.6GHz cores(with overclock of CPU to 3.2GHz), all 8 cores might be very close to 100% which means a very nice performance jump. For example, with 4 cores at 3.0GHz, Media Encoder uses only 50% of all 4 cores to render a project so thats roughly 1.5GHz being used. Now double the amount of cores and they run slightly higher than 1.5GHz, and performance should increase a good amount. Did I lose you? I'm having trouble following what I just wrote. :)

Either way, try google to find performance tests/benchmarks of the i7 with Hyper-Threading enabled in Premiere Pro and Adobe Media Encoder.
 
Thanks once again specialk90! There's still one concept that I don't quite grasp yet: RAID. Sometimes I think I understand, but the next thing I read is completely different. I've read that RAID 0 is the best for performance, but it's not reliable, and that RAID 5 is the way to go, etc.

Anyway, RAID is merely for mirroring purposes, or does performance really increases? If so, how? From what I understood, I thought that the purpose of the two 500gb HDD working in RAID, was to read source files from one of them, and write renders and exports to the other one. But I presume that I'm wrong. Could you please explain this to me? Sorry to bother you with this, but you have been really helpful! :)

Thanks!

David
 
RAID stands for Redundant Array of Individual Disks and has many "Levels". Raid 1 is a level, so is Raid 0. Raid 10 is another level and so is Raid 5. Raid 1 "mirrors" 2 drives together and each drive has the exact same data, so should one fail, you still have 1 drive with all the data. Raid 0 actually isn't Redundant because if one drive fails, ALL data is lost. Raid 0 was designed when 4 drives put together could only muster 60MB/s. Now that drives easily top 100MB/s, Raid 0 is not as effective today because Operating Systems and most programs cannot take advantage of 200+MB/s speeds.

Also, Raid 0 does have the highest Throughput and most people think that Throughput equals Performance which it does not.

For example, the OS reads and writes very small size files so having 200MB/s speeds doesn't help. However, one aspect that does help is Random Access speed - the lower the better. This is one area where Raid 1 does help because the OS is able to use a feature called "Split Seeks" where it "seeks" for files on both drives at the same time. This, however, only helps with Reads but a large majority of drive access is Reads.

Raid 5 requires a minimum of 3 drives and really should only be used on a Hardware Raid controller. The Intel Raid that comes on their "R" chipsets(ie ICH10"R") cannot handle Raid 5 effectively. It can do it but speeds are much slower than a single drive AND people have had numerous problems. I use Raid 5 for my main storage but the drives are attached to a 3ware 9650SE-8 hardware controller, which costs $500+.

I use the Intel Raid for Raid 10 to hold the OS+Apps as well as Raid 0 for Media Cache & Scratch Disk. Raid 10 requires 4 drives and provides great speed and great redundancy. I recently had 1 of my 4 Raptors die as part of Raid 10 but since it Raid 10 is able to withstand up to 2 drives failing without losing any data, I didn't lose any data or downtime.

As you see above, I am using 2 different Raid Levels with the same 4 drives. This can ONLY be done using Intel Raid - Intel terms it "Matrix Raid". So far, I have never come across a hardware Raid controller that can do this.

For Reading Source Files and Writing Renders: I was talking about using 2 separate Partitions on the 500GB drives. With Raid 1, the OS only sees 500GB of space. What you could do is create a 300GB partition for Source footage and a 200GB partition for Exports.
 
Ok, so let's see if I got it right. Both 500gb drives would basically be mirrors of each other, and each one of them would have 2 partitions, where one should have source files, and the other has the renders and exports. Is this correct? If so, why put it RAID? I thought Raid would mean to write half of each file on one disk and the other half on the other disk, this way doubling the speed. I'm probably wrong, though...

David
 
What you are thinking of is Raid 0 where it "Stripes"/splits data between the drives which does increase Throughput(Read/Write speed) but makes you more vulnerable to data loss. All it takes is one drive to have a problem and ALL data is lost.

With Raid 1, the 2 drives are miirored but the OS only sees 500GB of space. When you format it and create partitions, you only have access to 500GB.

Raid 1 does increase Read speed a little but lowers Random Access a decent amount( a recent test I read about had it go from 12ms to 10ms).

The reason to use Raid 1 is to protect your data because it can handle a drive failing without losing ANY data.
 
Hi there:

This thread is very relevant and informative for me. And I appreciate all the knowledge that's been shared. I was wondering if I could also get some advice?

I'm a film student. I just finished a 35mm short film that I had transferred to QuickTime Pro Res HD format on a Blu-ray disk. I have Adobe CS3 that I use for editing Standard Definition video, but I'm sure my system will not be able to handle HD editing. So I'm looking to get a new system. I hope to perform color correction and perhaps even some After Effects rendering on the HD file. I hope to submit this film to festivals. I might also upgrade to CS4 at some point.

I've never built my own desktop before. PCMag has this article on building the "ultimate machine" for CS4: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2344506,00.asp
(Curiously, it doesn't mention RAID for storage.)

I think the PCMag recommendations may be overkill for my use. I'm not a gamer. This new machine would be dedicated to HD editing, compositing and visual effects using CS3 (or also CS4 in future).

So I've toned down the PCMag suggestions to this so far:

processor: Intel core i7 940 2.93GHz
graphics card: EVGA Geforce GTS 250
memory: Kingstom 6GB 1333 MHz DDR3 DIMM
motherboard: Asus P6T Core i7
PSU: 650W Corsair TX650
storage: will try to follow the advice mentioned previously in the thread

So my questions are:
1. Do you think the list above is a good starting point for my needs? If not, can I request a newegg wishlist suited to my needs?

2. If the idea of building a desktop from scratch gets too daunting for me, I've also considered getting the top-of-the-line performance m9000t series HP desktop with a bunch of upgrades. Would that be a bad idea?
http://www.shopping.hp.com/maintenance.html?aoid=35252&storeName=computer_store&category=desktops&a1=Usage&v1=High+performance&series_name=m9000t_series

Regards,
Alan
 
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