Is Vegas 6 overkill?

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

Originally Posted by Kevin Richard

I think it would be a good idea (and partly what he was originally asking) to mention which mobo's are best suited for NLE work... maybe this belongs in its own thread. Example would be in the audio world I believe it's an Intel 865bg chipset that is the better more stable system... A lot of what gives PC's a bad name compared to macs is that the volume of hardware manf. that put out crap is quite high.. you get some junk parts and your whole system is junk.

That being said I will state that I hear and have had great experience with Crucial ram (doesn't have to be the "extreme" stuff just as long as it's crucial you are ok) I don't think I will ever buy any other brand ram ever again.

Let's start a new thread on this subject, K guys?

[Kevin Richard]

Originally Posted by Douglas Spotted Eagle

Let's start a new thread on this subject, K guys?

I felt the same way... but it was semi relevant and not sure if it maybe had been discussed before... I would rather someone else kick it off as I am likely to word it from a "pro pc / anti-mac" POV which I DON'T have... Just being an IT guy I know that you CAN have a stable pc with out MOST of the pitfalls that are touted by mac users (though I'm not your average "user") which is why we should make our own HCL in it's own thread. I just don't want to start it off in a flame war :(

[Matt Howell]

edited to correct and add another system:


Kevin Red, something might be amiss with your render times.

For comparison, on my systems:

Homebuilt AMD Athlon XP
Barton 3000+ (2.0ghz, 400mhz bus) no SSE2 or SSE3
Windows XP SP2 Pro
1Gb of RAM
Vegas 6.0c
36GB SCSI 10000 rpm destination drive
120GB PATA 7200 rpm source drive
Radeon 9800 Pro 128mb (makes no difference to Vegas)

default m2t 1080i template render times are:
7min20secs for 1min HDV cineform 2.1 1440x1080i to HDV 1440x1080i.m2t
23min40secs for 1min HDV 1440x1080i m2t to HDV 1440x1080i.m2t
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dell Inspiron 6000D
Intel Pentium M 740 (1.73ghz) SSE2
Windows XP SP2 Home
512mb of RAM
Vegas 6.0c
80GB 5400 rpm destination drive
20GB 4200 rpm USB 2 mini external source drive (very slow)
Radeon X300 128mb (makes no difference to Vegas)

default m2t 1080i template render times are:
8 minutes for 1min HDV cineform 2.1 1440x1080i to HDV 1440x1080i.m2t
24min48secs for 1min HDV 1440x1080i m2t to HDV 1440x1080i.m2t
---------------------------------------------------------------------
disclaimers:
I don't know if we are comparing apples to apples because these are just straight, simple renders to m2t's. I never actually edit from the 4200rpm drive (to slow)

advice and comment:
I use gearshift to edit in DV WS proxy if I am editing HDV, and switch back to original m2t for final render to DVD. All my HD and SD projects go out NTSC WS DVD or 24p WS DVD and gearshift makes HD editing possible for me on my slow systems. If I had to go back out to HDV m2t I would definitely create cineform intermediates because they are much faster to edit and render.

The Athlon XP 32-bit processors are getting kind of old now. You might try bumping your bus speed from 333 to 400 and back down the multiplier to get back to 2.1ghz if your motherboard and processor allow it. Some of the older Athlon XP's are completely unlocked, while the later ones were multiplier locked. The bus speed increase will help render times, if you can do it. Also, defrag your hard drives and render from one physical drive to another.

Originally Posted by Kevin Red

I've got an...

AMD Athalon 2800 (2.08ghz)
running Windows XP sp2
1GB of RAM
Vegas 6.0 NLE
300+ GB hard drive space
running SATA RAID 0
With an NVIDEA Geforce FX 5600XT

Playback on a media player is perfect
Playback with m2t file with vegas is BAD
Playback with Cineform avi in vegas is good.

Rendering a DV avi is decent.
Rendering an m2t is takes more than an hour per minute or footage.
Rendering a cineform codec with some adjustments takes just as long.

I think I dont have enough CPU power. When I checked the "system processes" tab in task manager I could see the CPU was spiking to 100% about every 1-2 seconds. It would drop down to 20% or lower in between.

Is there anything I can do to better utilize my systems resources for Vegas?
If not should I upgrade to multi processors? Is it difficult to add a processor to a system? Or would I have to buy a whole new computer?

[Bill Porter]

Originally Posted by Steve Crisdale

Roy... dude.

People in AUS say "dude"??

Next thing you know, Americans will be calling each other "mate"!

:)

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

Hey mate, gotta problem wid dat?

[Bill Porter]

I'll be stuffed, it's happening already!

[Steve Crisdale]

Originally Posted by Douglas Spotted Eagle

Hey mate, gotta problem wid dat?

Fully sick man!!!! An honourary Aussie!!
You rock Doug...

Isn't English a wonderful abomination of a language?!!

Off to grab a tinnie... and whack a Prawn on the barbie!

[Kevin Red]

Thanks for your reply Matt. Is there any free software that does the same thing as Gearshift? Can I increase the Bus Speed without soldering?

Defragging is a good Idea Ill do that tonight, and I usually do render from one drive to another.

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

Originally Posted by Steve Crisdale

Fully sick man!!!! An honourary Aussie!!
You rock Doug...

Isn't English a wonderful abomination of a language?!!

Off to grab a tinnie... and whack a Prawn on the barbie!

I'll be there in the arvo, keep em' hot. Gonna cost a gorilla'r two to get there, but barbie'd prawns are worth it. :-)