I tried a Mac for video editing...

[EEVblog]

I don't see the lack of MTS files as a big fail, MTS is just a contender, in this case a transport stream, you can simple remux it to something like a mp4, it will be as fast as your hard drive.

It is a show stopper.
There is no way I am going to add another conversion step to my workflow, that would be silly. I like taking the file direct from the camera and start editing it.

[marmad]

Most sources I have read on the subject say RAID systems and SSD's do nothing to improve the situation for rendering or transcoding. The drive is not the bottleneck. Regular cheap 7200rpm drives are fast enough.

I use a desktop machine with 3 RAIDS and a few individual 7200rpm and SSD drives - and I've noticed a difference in the process when using the RAIDs when editing large videos with multiple tracks - and there are certainly plenty of sources that suggest RAIDs - even Adobe themselves - you just have to Google Final Cut Pro and RAID. But hey, it was just a suggestion - I know what works for me but everyone has their own particular needs.

[westfw]

For a moment there, it looked like we had an actual benchmark going.  But perhaps not.

Code: [Select]

time HandBrakeCLI -i /Downloads/EEVblogTestRender2Min22.MTS -t 1 -c 1 -o EEVblogTestRender2min22-SonyAVC-1440x1080_a.mp4 -f mp4 --strict-anamorphic  -e x264 -q 22 -r 25 --cfr  -a 1 -E faac -B 192 -6 stereo -R 48 -D 0 --gain=0 --audio-copy-mask none --audio-fallback ffac3 -x ref=2:bframes=2:subq=6:mixed-refs=0:weightb=0:8x8dct=0:trellis=0 --verbose=1Ran in 1m46s on my PowerMac (2008 vintage, 8core 2.8GHz Xeon.  MacOS 10.7.5)  It did claim to be using most of all 8 cores...  That's not blindingly fast, compared to what other people are seeing, but it's also not dramatically slower as per "The Apple Store Experience."

(is that I reasonable test?  I thought Dave said he was going from the MTS to something else, and THEN running handbrake on it.)

My wife's newer but less tricked-out iMac (3.2GHz i3 with 2C, 4T) did much worse: 3:31 or so.  Don't get one of them!

[Someone]

....Me: "So how do a I copy these .MTS video files from my camera into Final Cut"
Dude: "You can't do that, it has be in the original card format"
Me: "You're kidding right? I can't just copy and drop a .MTS file onto the timeline"
Dude: "Nope, it's always been that way, it's silly"
Me: "That's almost a show stopper. How about this .MP4 file?"....

I don't see the lack of MTS files as a big fail, MTS is just a contender, in this case a transport stream, you can simple remux it to something like a mp4, it will be as fast as your hard drive.

It is a show stopper.
There is no way I am going to add another conversion step to my workflow, that would be silly. I like taking the file direct from the camera and start editing it.

The workflow with MTS files and sony cameras is actually not so bad, but the people in the typical store wont know the ins and outs of the pro software. Historically the resellers made a lot of money in training so they became specialists in specific market segments (music shops selling protools rigs with macs, resellers selling macs and video hardware).

http://www.pavtube.com/guide/import-avchd-to-final-cut-pro-7.html

No idea what the workflow is in their "X" version, but the support documents suggests they support it;
http://help.apple.com/finalcutpro/cameras/en/index.html

[RCMR]

Sorry, but I'm pretty sure Apple is not going to be worthwhile investment, so will not pursue it any more, it's just "the vibe"

Are you sure it's not Mabo or the constitution -- no, you're right, it's mainly "the vibe".

Find yourself a good rendering machine and take it straight to the pool room!

 

[NiHaoMike]

But seriously he should buy a good CPU, nothing out there is better for encoding than the 3930k add an overclock to that and he will be seriously happy. It may seem like a waste of money, but look at it this way I have have my Q6600 now for 7 Years and only one person on this forum has had better encoding speeds. This CPU has lasted me. i have had no need to upgrade for 7 years. Think of all the other upgrades people have wasted their money on in that time. Whilst i have kept my money in my pocket. Really did i waste my money when i bought the Q9900 many many years ago and paid top dollar? I dont think so. Yes maybe now its time to upgrade, but to be honest the only thing that stresses this machine is video encoding and i don't do a lot with that. Again its faster than most people machines 7 years later.

If you're going for a high end machine for video editing, a 3930k is the way to go. With a good fan (I highly recommend Delta), it's very easy to push it up to 3.8GHz continuous by tweaking the Turbo Boost settings.

As for a video card, a GTX 650 is a great choice for general use, though you'll want a GTX 660 or above if you plan to do gaming/advanced 3D CAD/CUDA/etc. Even more so if you're going to be using a 120Hz/240Hz 1080p or above monitor - a 680 or two 660s would be a good minimum for that. (My 560 Ti can do 120Hz 1080p in D2X-XL but it frame jitters on really detailed levels. I plan to buy another video card in the near future and use the existing one as a secondary CUDA card and to drive more monitors.)

As for SSDs, they're worth it if you value a fast boot, but you'll definitely still need HDDs for video editing. Go for at least 16GB of RAM since it's really cheap nowadays. (Note that once you have that much RAM, the kernel has a lot of disk cache to work with and the advantage of using a SSD is much smaller.)

[EEVblog]

I use a desktop machine with 3 RAIDS and a few individual 7200rpm and SSD drives - and I've noticed a difference in the process when using the RAIDs when editing large videos with multiple tracks - and there are certainly plenty of sources that suggest RAIDs - even Adobe themselves - you just have to Google Final Cut Pro and RAID. But hey, it was just a suggestion - I know what works for me but everyone has their own particular needs.

I have no problems with editing at all, it's all instant, no lag, nothing.
Rendering and transcoding in Handbrake are the only things that take time and could do with some improvement, and both of these spend most of their time processing, not writing to disk, so having a fast disk system does not matter.

[EEVblog]

As for a video card, a GTX 650 is a great choice for general use, though you'll want a GTX 660 or above if you plan to do gaming/advanced 3D CAD/CUDA/etc. Even more so if you're going to be using a 120Hz/240Hz 1080p or above monitor - a 680 or two 660s would be a good minimum for that. (My 560 Ti can do 120Hz 1080p in D2X-XL but it frame jitters on really detailed levels. I plan to buy another video card in the near future and use the existing one as a secondary CUDA card and to drive more monitors.)

I have absolutley no need to play games or do anything else fancy, all the video card will get used for is the CUDA (with Nvidia), or OpenCL (Radeon) GPU acceleration with Sony MS (and perhaps Handbrake once it gets this capability).
I have had far too many issues with Radeon driver and Sony, so I'll almost certainly go Nvidia.

[EEVblog]

My old lab dumpster dive Dell XPS 420 2.4GHz Q6600 with 4GB of RAM and single 7200 drive renders EEVblogTestRender2min22-SonyAVC-1440x1080.mp4 in 3:02

[dimlow]

You do know that is its not OpenCL for AMD and CUDA for Nvidia ? Nvidia cards support both OpenCL and CUDA. NVIDIA has been delivering OpenCL support in end-user production drivers since October 2009, supporting OpenCL on all 250,000,000+ CUDA architecture GPUs shipped since 2006.

[dimlow]

My old lab dumpster dive Dell XPS 420 2.4GHz Q6600 with 4GB of RAM and single 7200 drive renders EEVblogTestRender2min22-SonyAVC-1440x1080.mp4 in 3:02

Clock speed is the key here.

[EEVblog]

You do know that is not OpenCL for AMD and CUDA for Nvidia ? Nvidia cards support both OpenCL and CUDA. NVIDIA has been delivering OpenCL support in end-user production drivers since October 2009, supporting OpenCL on all 250,000,000+ CUDA architecture GPUs shipped since 2006.

All I know is that Sony MS supports both CUDA and Open CL, and Radeon does not have CUDA so you are forced to use OpenCL with it, and I've had big problems with using Open CL with Sony MS. Maybe it's just a Radeon issue, but maybe not.
So I will be trying Nvidia and CUDA.

[dimlow]

Just for a heads up if you're going the Nvidia route, take note that the GTX 6XX series cards perform slower than the GTX 5XX when using CUDA and OpenCL. I use a GTX570 plus a GTX 580 for rendering 3D in Blender. some time back there were a lot of people disappointed with their new GTX 6XX cards and render speeds. Things may have changed now as i have not checked in a while and there have been driver updates. But this was only 6 months ago when i was looking for some extra rendering speeds.

see the third post here http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/347529-33-560ti-cuda

Oh an i don't play 3d games either.

[EEVblog]

Just went to my local computer stores, USB stick in hand to test some system.
But they don't have any fast machine configured in the store, just crap demo systems for the consumer. Real machines are built to order only.
Best machine I could find did the render test in over 3min

[dimlow]

Unfortunately if you want a fast machine , it is better to build it, or get someone that knows their stuff. You will also end up with better components. Most box shifters just want the specs to look good. When you open one of these up you often find that it may have a cheap micro ATX board and no room for expansion, crap cooler, all the mem sockets are full with cheap low performing RAM, only internal graphics and no spare slots to upgrade and a power supply that can only just do the job.

[EEVblog]

Unfortunately if you want a fast machine , it is better to build it, or get someone that knows their stuff.

Yes.
Any recommendations for a good online Oz supplier of systems that offers a ton of flexible options to build your own machine?

[dimlow]

Well how about Cairns, Queensland ?

But i think this guy goes a little overboard for what you want.

https://www.youtube.com/user/SingularityComputers

[EEVblog]

But i think this guy goes a little overboard for what you want.

Yeah, that's kinda overboard 

These mobs do custom PC's with all the options it seems:
http://gamingpcs.com.au/?gclid=CMDWzfXdvLYCFSVNpgodvWkABQ
http://www.centrecom.com.au/catalog/build.php

And there are probably a dozen others.

[EEVblog]

Ok, it seems fairly safe to assume now that rendering speed is pretty much CPU (& memory) type/speed dependent.
My current 2GHz machine is highlighted here in red:
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_lookup.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-2630QM+%40+2.00GHz

Even the relatively "pedestrian" i7 3770 at 3Ghz or AMD FX-8350 is almost double the speed of my current processor.
I'd rather spend more on a fast motherboard, memory, and graphics card than flat out best CPU speed I think.

Some quick shopping cart playing shows a decent system to be in the $1200 ballpark minimum, with no OS.

[dimlow]

Yep, way overboard, but his systems are the dogs, er, i forget you're saying. I was not recommending him but he's the only guy i now in Oz that builds PC's

Dave i'm sure you are more than capable of assembling a system. You just need a parts list and a couple of hours. Building a PC is just like lego these days. I expect if you publish a budget here forum users could come up with a parts list for you. I would do it, but i'm off to bed now, its almost 6 am and i have been working all night on my GPIB-USB controller. Its time i got some sleep.

[EEVblog]

Dave i'm sure you are more than capable of assembling a system. You just need a parts list and a couple of hours. Building a PC is just like lego these days.

Yes, but it's just easier to pick and order everything from someone like this:
http://www.centrecom.com.au/catalog/build.php
Rather than buying this bit from here, this bit from there etc.
I suspect you won't save a huge amount by sourcing separately and building yourself? 
It's been decades since I built my own PC.

[dimlow]

OK, one last post before bed. I would think CPU speed is No 1,then MB, ram and drive speed SSD. I would not put too much into graphics card.

If you don't have an SSD i would seriously consider it. Night and day compared to Hard Drives. You don't need a big one just enough for OS and some software. Other files/storage  go on another HD.

By building, you know exactly what you put in it. If centrecom can build it at a reasonable price that you are happy with then fine. But building is not that difficult, you just need to make sure you have compatible parts. I don't think you will save money by building it.

I'll be back in about 6 hours.

[peter.mitchell]

Dave i'm sure you are more than capable of assembling a system. You just need a parts list and a couple of hours. Building a PC is just like lego these days.

Yes, but it's just easier to pick and order everything from someone like this:
http://www.centrecom.com.au/catalog/build.php
Rather than buying this bit from here, this bit from there etc.
I suspect you won't save a huge amount by sourcing separately and building yourself? 
It's been decades since I built my own PC.

Dave, have you checked out itestate or MSY, msy has a horrible website but their prices are great, itestate is a bit more tolerable.

Most "pre assembled" computers usually charge something around $60 + 10% on parts, however, centrecom are one of the few that don't charge the 10% on parts, so if their prices are comparable to itestate and msy, i'd just get it there, also a great place to just check the prices on parts is www.staticice.com.au

[moemoe]

Even the relatively "pedestrian" i7 3770 at 3Ghz or AMD FX-8350 is almost double the speed of my current processor.
I'd rather spend more on a fast motherboard, memory, and graphics card than flat out best CPU speed I think.

I don't see any reason – aside some of your programs needs some decent 3d capabilities – to buy a seperate video card these days. The integrated graphics core on the i* chips works quite well fucking awesome today, and the GPU in the K models is even better.

I built the system some pages ago (i5 2500K @3.3GHz, Win7 64bit, rotating rust: 1m48s) for about 500€ 1.5a ago. A modern system with Intel Core i7-3770K should be about 100€ more. Just add some mainboard, case, hdd, psu.

[EEVblog]

I don't see any reason – aside some of your programs needs some decent 3d capabilities – to buy a seperate video card these days. The integrated graphics core on the i* chips works quite well fucking awesome today, and the GPU in the K models is even better.

Possibly. I can always build the machine and try it with the integrated graphics first and see what I get.
I'm currently using my DV7 notebook with the integrated graphics driving dual screens no problems at all. I'm not using the extra Radeon graphics card built in othe notebook, as the drivers screwed up Sony.