Will this computer work for HD editing/rendering?
 

Hi all,

This my very first post here, so here goes!! I am looking at taking the plunge into HDV, investing in a Sony HVR Z5 shortly. What I would like to know is your various opinions on my current pc setup as to whether it's got the grunt to manage HD edting/rendering etc. I have been happily working in SD for a fews years now, mainly wedding stuff, using Premiere Pro & have just upgraded to CS4. The M9700 will happily chug thru most of the stuff I throw at it, only slowing a little on some the of the heavy After Effects animations I do from time to time.

The PC I use is an Alienware M9700 laptop with the following spec:

Chip: AMD Turion 64 bit 2.01 Ghz
RAM: 2GB DDR PC3200 SODIMM AW90
Graphics Card: Nvidia 7900 GS 256mb (x2) SLI enabled
HDD: HITACHI 100GB 7200RPM SATA MOBILE HDD (OS & all apps)
Ext HDD: 300GB Seagate (all working files etc)
OS: WinXP Pro

The question I have is, will this setup cope with HD or am I going to have to invest (a not insignificant sum no doubt) in a desktop, relegating the M9700 to back-up roles?

Hope that makes sense, I thank in adavance for your input (I suspect I already know the answer!!)

Cheers all

Dave

dave.

Your laptop would have been beefty at the time of purchase, but the world has moved on , so from whats avilable now it would seem a little light on for grunt ....

However, the real issues are "time and quality".

I would try first using a copy if Cineform to convert your HD footage to an intermediatory codec and then try editing on your laptop with your NLE. If editing is reasonable and the render time is reasonable and the quality is high. Perhaps you can live with the laptop... for a bit longer ...

If you are time critical, (eg weddings) and the quality must be the highest (eg weddings), the cost of a dedicated editing/render box may be worth the investment. (especially if it can be depressiated on tax)

Also with a desktop formfactor you are less locked in .... Laptops are quite static with upgrade potential. desktops you have much more scope to improve individual parts organically over time.
With desktops you can also distribute read/write load over multiple disks. laptop single drives will suffer drive head contention. making renders much longer ....

my 2 c ...

Cheers Justin, that mirrors my thinking too, may just have to bite the bullet & do my bit to stimulate the worlds economy...

While you're looking, I would consider going one step further than necessary for HDV and consider a fast quad core processor based machine.

In case you wind up having to contend with AVCHD editing. Some of the market is already beginning to shift in that direction and prosumer grade cams like Panasonic's HMC 150 recording on SDHC cards are beginning to gain acceptance.

Even if you stick with tape based HDV for now, editing will be faster and easier on a fast quad core.

This would have been my 2 cents worth until the financial market crisis hit. So consider my penny's worth.

You can build a zippy quad core desktop for well under $1k.

You can buy an i7 processor-based pc from Dell for under $1K.

I am personally making the transition to HD and find my quad core Q6600 does not cut it. I'm upgrading to the the i7 today, replacing my MB and Processor.

Rendering HD even with the older quad core is EXTREMELY time consuming.

HD on a laptop, I can't even imagine. There are laptops available now with quad processors, but they are expensive.

Cheers all for your respective replies.

Jeff, if I understand correctly, the i7 is effectively a quad core isnt it?

I am not even gogin to contemplate rendering HD on my M9700...I'll keep that for killing bad guys!!!

I just checked and I have 8 cores showing up on mine. The i7 is a quad core with hyperthreading. I just changed out my MB and processor and it is quite fast.

i have a mish-mosh HP i bought in 2006 for $600...i upgraded(?) to a rather cheap MSI gaming motherboard ($85), Core2Duo 2.66, nVidia 8400 GS 512mb graphics card ($59.99), 1tb Western Digital external HD (free from a friend...it's the "essential" series).....never upgraded power supply or cooling fans, all enclosed in the original ugly short HP case. added a CHEAP 1440x900 LCD monitor (Envision, $99.99)...NO PROBLEMS EDITING HDV AT ALL.

i think running Vegas has everything to do with it, because i have NO problems editing, nor have i ever. i preview in "Best-Full" quality mode every time. i get no stutters, no breaks, no problems. Sure, i'd love a faster machine, but do i need one? nope.

that's my story and i'm sticking to it.

Chris
Chris Light on Vimeo
if you hate my videos, i'll just blame my computer.

It may work under Linux
 

If you have more time than money, you could invest in learning the Linux operating system, in which case your PC should be able to handle HD formats. I was able to process in a non-Linear editor a raw video image from a recent Canon AVCHD camcorder, and also a Sony AVCHD camcorder, on a 9 year old athlon-1100+ processor (with 1GB of RAM) with openSUSE-11.1 Linux and kdenlive software. It was slow (so I don't recommend it) but it can be done. But the speed was more reasonable on my 32-bit athlon-2800+ (with 2GB RAM) also with openSUSE-11.1 Linux and that is closer to your PC's specs (but your PC is better). I also note your PC has a nVidia 7900 graphics, and its possible that ffmpeg will support VDPAU video decoding on the GPU (but I'm not sure - it may be buggy ) .

I updated the Linux thread with this information:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/high-defi...g-linux-d.html

Of course the big down side to this is one needs to learn Linux. And Linux is very different from MS-Windows and Mac, to the extent that it can drive some users from those OS who attempt to switch, to distraction.

kdenlive is under ongoing developement, and while it can process avhcd, it does not have the same number of features that the MS-Windows and Mac iMovie software have, so one's resulting video may be a bit more basic.

There is also the possibility your hardware will not be compatible with Linux. ...

Also, the faster one's PC, the better the editing experience (IMHO). I prefer to edit my videos on my Dell Studio 15 laptop (with Intel Dual core P8400 and 4GB RAM). I'm thinking of also purchasing an Intel Core i7 based PC (although it is not strictly necessary).