Dual-Core CPU for HD/HDV NLE
 

Hey all, just wondering what your thoughts are on Dual-Core Processors for HD Editing. I'm looking at upgrading my PC but not know if I should hold off for Dual-Core or not? and also do you think companys like Canopus and Matrox well bring out PCI-e solutions in replace of PCI 64bit hardware for HD editing?

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,121266,00.asp

Yes, they're tempting--but here's why you should wait to buy one

That's rather misleading in relation to the purposes which concern us here in terms of video production. If you dig into the linked article with the actual performance results, you'll find this comment:

"The new system truly showed its mettle, however, in certain applications within WorldBench 5--namely the Roxio VideoWave Movie Creator, Windows Media Encoder, and our multitasking test. It was most impressive in the Windows Media Encoder test, where it shaved 2 minutes off the 3.4-GHz P4 system's time of 7 minutes, 41 seconds, and was 15 seconds faster than a top-scoring Athlon 64 FX-55-based PC (which earned a WorldBench 5 score of 125)."

I went to the Dell web site recently and priced out a complete dual-core computer for about $1300 with everything except a monitor, which seems like a pretty reasonable price compared to current dual-processor options. So if you're like me and running an older single-processor computer which needs to be upgraded to handle HDV effectively, the new dual core options are potentially appealing. My only gripe is that I can't yet simply buy a new Intel motherboard and dual-core processor for a few hundred dollars, because all the early shipments are going to companies like Dell. Oh well, maybe in a few more weeks...

Well, I've already taken a step in that direction by building my first AMD edit suite for HDV editing, based on a 939 motherboard, which will accept dual core AMD processors when they become generally available (and affordable) in 6 months or so. AMD seem to have produced a superior product to Intel in this regard if earlt tests and reviews are to be trusted. Current dual processor XEON systems are way to costly - and will outdated in a year as the current Intel MB's cannot accept DC processors. My current system has an affordable 3500+ processor on board which handles HDV without problems.
Once I install the 4500+ DC processor, it'll cook!

Everything is going multi-core so it is good to plan for it if you can. We recently modified a key component in Aspect and Prospect HD so look for 'N' CPUs rather just 2 CPUs. Today you can easily get dual proc with dual cores -- 4 real CPUs. We are currently finding the 2 to 4 CPU jump (dual Opteron 252 to dual 275) offers a 50% gain in performance without further optimization.

Derek: what software are you using to edit HDV, and what sorts of editing effects can you do in real time before you have to start rendering to view your output? Also, have you tried encoding a finished HDV project to the WMV HD format, and if so how long did that take per minute of timeline?

How do you's think a Dual-Core processor would compare to a Dual Xeon system? considering that XEON are designed for server operations. Would be intergresting to see some rendering times and system specs for HDV.

All the dual core offerings (AMD and Intel) are much faster than any single core Xeon (in dual config.) Seriously. We have AMD Opteron 275s and an Intel Pentium D Extreme -- both leave Xeon way behind.

True but it seems that the Video Industry is still set on Xeon as a standard for NLE systems for HDV, well that is everything I have read anyway, well the major vendors change to DC systems or stay with Xeon?

Vendors do have there habits, but technology changes fast, typical faster than habits. As for standards and the video industry, Open HD is the new PC standard (as proposed by Adobe, Intel, HP, Dell, Microsoft and Sony.) Here you see the specs for the various Open HD systems at http://www.openhd.org/certified_solutions/. The real-time compressed HD solution is AMD Opteron based (so the industry doesn't always recommend Xeon.) Yes that system is a Prospect HD solution. :)

David: are you sure about that comparison between one dual-core processor and two single-core processors? My understanding was that one dual-core probably shouldn't outperform two single cores, but if your experience says otherwise I guess I can't argue with that. Just wanted to make sure you're saying what it sounds like you're saying...

I don't want to beat up on Xeon too much -- but yes that is what I'm saying. For example: the current Pentium D Extreme will easily out perform the dual Xeon systems I have tested. The issue is a modern memory architecture. The Intel architecture is getting a lot better, but the Xeon is still on an older architecture.

So you have been able to compare a DC and DP-xeon system david?

Yes. That was the comparision I was referring to.

I guess the next thing would be the change from PCI-X to PCI-E, what platform where you using on the DC system?

It was a nice gamers motherboard with a Pentium D Extreme -- I don't know the vendor details.

So is Opteron widely expected like xeon or are there some problems with amd?

Opterons work great, there are no problems.

Ha ha he he
 

That is a mad discussion
in the Unix world and Linux world we talk clustering
can be made with Mac's too
Open Mosix, Beowolf in Linux or SGI on Irix are doing this since
decades, it is used in Holly/Bolly Wood for renderfarms,.
You don't need to switch your mobo all the time, the clients
can be diskless. Commen sense working with Maya

Cell Workstation
 

I know this is probably a long way away, i've already posted this in the industry news section.

But Sony is planning on using the Cell techonology (PS3) in workstations, they have claimed performance to be something like 16 Teraflops, just imagine with that kind of power

(this is pure speculation and not based on any calculations, if anyone wants to do some calculations, please feel free)

1 hour of SD video endocoded to DVD mpeg in seconds (faster than the harddrive can write)

1 hour of HD/ HDV encodeded to DVD mpeg or even transcoded in mere minut es.


Ok well thats all specualtion, one thing is for sure all your CGI 3d animations rendering should love the extra horsepower (16Tb) it would be like having your own render farm!

Ps3
 

Hi
one thing is for shure ! For the PS3 there will be a disk with a special Linux.
Pthing the Kernel to have Mosix is easy. The PS3 has Gige Ethernet, so 2 or three are a cluster and way faster as any AMD dual core ..........
We will see...Shrek was rendered with Xboxes this way about a hundret,
way way cheaper as an Intel, Amd, Sun or SGI renderfarm!!

David: I talked to someone who said the Pentium D Extreme Edition in particular has some advantages which other current Pentium D processors don't have, so I'd be interested to hear what sort of performance you get if you happen to test "standard" Pentium D processors. What I'd really like to know is how a stock Pentium D setup running at, say, 3.0 GHz, compares to a dual Xeon system running at the same clock rate. If they're even just similar in performance and the Pentium D setup is cheaper that's a big plus in my book. But in terms of maximum performance, I'm not sure whether a Pentium D at, say, 3.2 GHz is going to match the performance of two 3.6 GHz Xeons with 2MB cache each on a good 800 FSB motherboard. Decisions, decisions, decisions...

I do only have access the extreme version of the Pentium D, yet it is so much faster than the dual Xeon systems I've tested it is hard to imagine the standard Pentium D would be slower than dual Xeon. That is a complete guess. My guess continued : unless Xeon has had a more recent chip set upgrade, the Pentium D will be faster (at the same clock speed) as it is running on the most recent chip set (give it the higher memory throughput.) One data point -- the only major difference between a 3.2GHz Pentium D 840 and 3.2GHz Pentium D EE is the support for hyperthreading -- we find hyperthread increase HD style processing speeds up about 10-15%.

The Major advantage the Pentium EE 840 has over the Pentium D is that it supports Hyper-Threading. So really the processor is a quad-way CPU as it has two cores and each core runs Hyper-Threading meaning it is able to run 4 threads at once. Saying that you are only going to see the proformace gains when running applications that support 4 processors and use's it's multithreading well.

I found this http://www.digitalvideoediting.com/a...fterinter=true and they compare the Intel Pentium EE 840 to a dual Xeon 3.6Ghz and the Pentium EE was out proforming the Xeon but only when running windows 64bit.

Well just have to wait and see what the future holds.

Sean,

That is good info for people like Kevin wishing to make a purchase. My own tests are based on CineForm benchmarking tools that work out the maximum encoding and decoding speeds -- the key element to multi-stream HD editing. This is not a very standard benchmark, but it really helps me recommend system for CineForm products. It was though these experiments, that we mostly recommend AMD dual Opteron (for our work -- so much faster than Xeon -- up to 50% faster.) Yet the Pentium D EE has made huge performance gains, I was completely surprised. For Prospect HD we still say Opteron, but for a killer Aspect HD system I'm thinking Pentium D. I must confess that I haven't tried a dual core Althon yet -- so how knows. :)

David, I am glad you pointed out the benchmarks you are using are based on using your products which I have used on dual 3.6 xeons. Frankly I was surprised that 4 layers stuttered and dropped frames using Aspect in accelerated preview mode and 1.51. Using Edius and Canopus HQ of the same footage(only as you know Edius is playing back full frame full resolution and does not use the reduced res preview to gain playback) I was able to easily handle the steady playback of 4 layers. I really was surprised and so you will know I was using the same clips captured both in Aspect and Canopus HQ and used the same defaults for each. Also the drive is plenty fast enough as it is a 4 drive sata raid. I think I have seen you say before that single cpu's are more efficient with aspect and I may give the same test a go on a P4 3.2 machine. The only other difference is the overhead 1.51 uses versus the Canopus pip which I am sure Ppro's is much higher....but then again we are comparing full res playback to accelerated preview so that should make up the difference.. Since you are big on Opterons is the software written in a manner that favors that architecture over Intel's when it comes to multiple processors?

It doesn't bother me since I rarely uses that many pips but I do wonder how the 4 layer claim can be supported at least on dual xeons...the playback was so jerky it couldn't be used for much. BTW with AE and doing some things with mattes I am using Cineform codec HDV and get to see it on both a Sony crt and a 1920x1080 LCD in full res though the Nx video output module for AE and it looks great.

Randy, basically we need system with a good memory bandwidth, and Xeon's do not have it. We have tests that show P4s outperforming dual Xeons, it is all to do with memory I/O. Opterons have excellent memory I/O, enabling us to process even higher resolutions with Prospect 2K. So it is nothing to do with single proc vs dual proc. All our products are multi-threaded, but if the CPUs are left waiting for data there are just expensive heat generators. :)

That is strange since the newer xeons are running 800fsb but I understand that bandwidth is shared... I also rang up the pip project last night and looked at the cpu utilization and it was in the 80 to 90+ percent for the 4 processors(2 real and 2 virtual) which means to me Aspect is using the horse power. It wasn't like they were waiting for work but I never really understood what the performance and usage info is measuring, In terms of getting 4 layers with Edius and Nx in full res and not using Aspect in ppro I can only attribute that to a combination of the the overhead of motion effect vrs. the pip tool in Edius and the efficiency of the Canopus codec.

Once 64 bit settles in a little more and Intel has its response to DC firmly in place I will take a look at what is available. Right now I am getting close to the RT I need with HDV....plus it looks like unless someone comes up with a reasonably priced hardware HD encoder(once the format wars are settled) we will need all the machines you can get your hands on for render farms.

There is more to memory speed than FSB numbers. CPU usage meters will include the time the CPU is waiting for memory to deliver the data to process -- so they aren't all that useful.