Will my computer be alright for editing HD videoÉ

[Robert James]

Okay, I think I've put together something I can afford based upon the suggestions by thevideoguys.com and you folks here:

*Intel Core i7 Quad-Core Socket LGA1366, 3.06Ghz, 4.8GT/s FSB, 8MB L3 Cache, 45nm (

Amazon.com: Intel Core i7 950 3.06GHz 8M L3 Cache LGA1366 Desktop Processor: Electronics

 

Amazon.com: Intel Core i7 950 3.06GHz 8M L3 Cache LGA1366 Desktop Processor: Electronics

)

*Antec Three Hundred Gaming Case ATX 3/0/6 2xUSB Audio No PS
(Antec Three Hundred Gaming Case ATX 3/0/(6) 2xUSB Audio No PS | Canada Computers)

*Samsung SH-S223C/BEBE SATA Black 22x DVD-Writer OEM
(Samsung 22x SpeedPlus? Serial ATA LightScribe internal DVD writer. - SH-S223C - Optical Disk Drives - Optical Disk Drives | SAMSUNG)

*Western Digital Caviar Black (WD1002FAEX) 1000GB (1TB) SATA3 7200RPM 64MB Cache OEM
(Newegg.ca - Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive)

*Asus P6x58D-E Socket 1366 Intel x58 + ICH10R Chipset CrossfireX / 3-way SLI Triple-Channel DDR3 2000(o.c.)/1600/1333/1066Mhz 3x PCI-Express 2.0 x16 Dual GigaLAN 8-CH HD Audio 2x SATA 6Gb/s + 6x SATA 3.0Gb.s 2x USB 3.0 ATX
(Overclock3D :: Review :: ASUS P6X58D-E Review :: Introduction and Specifications)

*Asus VE228H, 21.5" LED Widescreen monitor 1920x1080, 5ms (GtG), 10,000,000:1 (ASCR) w/speakers, VGA, DVI-D, HDMI
(

Amazon.com: ASUS VE228H 21.5-Inch Wide (16:9) 5ms Response Time LED Monitor: Computer & Accessories

 

Amazon.com: ASUS VE228H 21.5-Inch Wide (16:9) 5ms Response Time LED Monitor: Computer & Accessories

)

*Corsair Enthusiast Series TX750 V2 High Performance 750W Power Supply
(Corsair Enthusiast Series TX750 V2 High Performance 750W Power Supply | Canada Computers)

*G.SKILL Ripjaws Series DDR 1600MHz (PC3-12800) 12GB (3X4GB) Triple Channel Kit
(Newegg.com - G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 12GB (3 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9T-12GBRL)

*Microsoft Windows 7 Pro 64-bit
(Newegg.ca - Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit 1-Pack for System Builders - Operating Systems)

*EVGA GeForce GTX 460 1024MB (01G-P3-1370-TR) nVidia GeForce GTX 460 Chipset (720Mhz) 1024MB (3600 Mhz) GDDR5 Dual Dual-Link DVI/Mini HDMI PCI-Express 2.0 Graphic Card
(EVGA GeForce GTX 460 Superclocked 1024MB (01G-P3-1372-TR) nVidia GeForce GTX 460 Chipset (763Mhz) 1024MB (3800Mhz) GDDR5 Dual Dual-Link DVI/Mini HDMI PCI-Express 2.0 Graphics Card | Canada Computers)

TOTAL: 1,644.09 (less with mail in rebates)


Okay, so, okay I do realize that there are no two hard drives but I do plan on adding more in the future and I have an external until then. Changed to Windows Pro. One of the guys at the store today was a video editor and said that I wouldn't notice a dif between the GTX 460 and 470 outside of the $100.

[Robert James]

So, the computer was built to some of your specs and brought home.
Hiccup #1: The guy at the shop who put it together didn't seccure the wires so they were all over the place in the tower. He left the plastic over heatsinks as well. Brought it to another location and the guys there cleared that up.
Hiccup #2: The guy at the second local didn't set-up the disc drive so we had to return it again to get that going.

So, that said, I have set up the system and have a few questions to ensure it is set up properly for HD video editing:

Steps:
1) I instaled Windows 7 Pro 64-bit
2) I installed the Motherboard drivers
3) I installed the Graphics card drivers and the DirectX software that came with it
4) I installed VLC Media player
5) The monitor is hooked up via DV/i

Questions:
1) It seems to be running slower then expected. I figured it had much power and maybe I was expecting too much of it. Is there a way to know if this is, indeed, up to snuff speed-wise? Drivers?
2) The monitor is a wide one and I thought if I put a DVD in to watch there would no longer be the black bars. Am I incorrect on this?
3) Also, I did put a DVD in and it wasn't sharp. You could see some pixilization and/or noise around the text on the menu screen and as well on the image when it was playing. It was playing in Media Player. Do I need special codecs?
4) I don't plan on using this for much internet stuff but did hook it up to put on Firefox and test out videos on Youtube. This is a FULL-HD monitor and the Youtube clips didn't seem as crips as I thought they would. Again, do you think I am missing anything?
5) When windows installed updates and asked for a reboot the computer restarted to a black screen saying to add my boot-media as though I hadn't installed the OS already. When I hit cancel it continued to my desktop. Any idea why it went to the black screen first?
6) Computer takes about a minute to boot up and shut down. This normal for this set-up?

Thanks

[Adam Gold]

Robert, I'm not a real computer expert and it's likely someone who knows a lot more than I do will get in on this latest development before I finish writing this, or shortly thereafter. But I have to say it's been great fun following this thread and seeing how you've evolved your system into its present state. So kudos and congrats on that.

My desktop system is roughly similar to yours in many respects. It performs quickly and smoothly under most circumstances but it's not a blazing fast barn-burner. It's actually the rig I use for daily office work, not for my editing projects. For those I use an older but considerably beefier rig. On my i7 I mostly do web and email and the occasional editing experiment, usually just to answer questions about Premiere and the like.

So anyway, on to your questions:

1) Depends on what your expectations were. Your rig should perform fast but not screechingly so. If you had Premiere installed you could run the PPBM tests to compare your config with others who have similar PCs. But without a benchmark it's hard to say exactly what "fast" is. You could download and run the HDTACH tests to measure your disk performance. More disks will improve your performance, as you already know. There are lots of other online benchmarking tools to measure system performance, so you could try those. Also, check your BIOS screen on boot-up; it's possible your memory isn't running at its rated speed -- it wasn't on my new rig until I adjusted it. No one seems to know that just because your memory says 1600 on it, it won't necessarily run at that speed until you tell it to. Also, make sure Win7 is optimized for "performance" -- you can adjust this in Performance in Control Panel. Also, in this area you should turn of all indexing and disk compressing or anything else that distracts Windows' attention from performing as quickly as it can. In your Power Plan, never let Windows let a disk go to sleep. (As you may have read elsewhere, your Caviar disk isn't the best choice because you can't stop it from going to sleep, but there's nothing you can do abut that.)

2) Depends on the DVD and the software player you are using. If it's a 16:9 DVD you shouldn't have letterboxing; check the settings in your software player. In VLC you right-click on the screen, choose Video and adjust the Aspect Ratio until it's correct. Possibly the DVD lacks the right flags or the player isn't reading them. And of course if it's a 4:3 ("Fullscreen") DVD you will have black bars on the sides unless you stretch out the video to look like it's being viewed through a funhouse mirror.

3) DVDs aren't HD, so they're well below the resolution of your monitor. Also PC monitors aren't ideal for watching DVDs that are made for TVs because of how they display interlaced content.

4) YouTube HD is still well below the resolution of what your monitor can display, and regular YouTube quality is pretty poor in most cases. Make sure you are viewing in HD if possible (there's a control on the YouTube playback bar) and it should look decent if not spectacular.

5) This isn't unusual during updates. Make sure no USB devices are connected during boot-up; it's possible the PC is looking for boot up files on the USB device. This has happened to me more than once.

6) Possibly. You might have a lot of junk and bloatware installed that you should disable or delete, and that could help speed up the process once all that junk is cleaned up. But that's a topic for another thread (and has been covered a lot already).

Hope some of this helps.

[Robert James]

Thanks Adam. When I get a bit more time this eve I will try that out and post back here.

Also of note:
As posted in another part of the forum I recently purchased a new computer for HD video editing. I work with Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platnium 10 HD. I figured with a marginally powerful computer set-up my Vegas would run without a hitch but, alas, I just discovered that was not so.

When I tried to drag movie clips into the timeline it said I needed Quicktime. I went to the website and downloaded that and then the clips moved in just fine.

The problem occurred during fading one clip into another. In my preview window a few things happened:

*I set the preview to BEST FULL and when it moved into the fade and the second clip it automatically turned back to Preview Half
*When it hit the fade part the preview became choppy a bit

I figured with my new set up the preview would work seamlessly.

Any ideas?

[Adam Gold]

I don't use Vegas but the effect is likely bogging down your processor during the dissolve. It's only for preview so we usually set preview playback to Half/Draft. If we really need to see the final effect perfectly we render first. Then it should playback smoothly.

Also, it's likely that with only one hard disc, upon which resides your OS, your Editing Program and your source footage, the data just can't keep up with the demands. You really need to get those extra HDDs you talked about. A dissolve requires two streams of HD simultaneously and your setup will likely have a hard time keeping up with one.

[My i7 has six internal drives: C for OS and Premiere, D for other program data, and a four x 2TB disc RAID5 for Video files and project file. You don't want to know about my main editing rig.]

What's your source footage? Even on my setup with Premiere, AVCHD is choppy during preview playback. But once rendered it's fine.

Edit: Just noticed you said you were shooting with a T2i, which if I'm not mistaken makes MOV video files. This might not be the best format for Vegas to work with. You could look into one of the Cineform products to transcode this into something that's easier for Vegas to handle. But as I don't use either Vegas or a DSLR, I could be all wet on this.