Need advice for new NLE/general purpose system

[JScott]

Time for me to de-lurk and ask a question. I'm a hobbyist DV editor (21st century kids need 21st century home movies, after all) and I'm going to upgrade my home computer soon. Here's my current rig:

Asus P3V4X/PIII 800MHz
768MB SDRAM
Tekram DC390-U2W SCSI host adapter
Seagate Cheetah 9GB/10K RPM boot drive
3ware Escalade 6xxx PCI/ATA RAID
2x Western Digital 100GB drives in RAID 0 for capture/editing
Matrox RT2500
Win2K, Premiere 6.0, blah, blah, blah...

My big annoyance right now is the render times for MPEG1 and MPEG2 output from Premiere. I'm also getting a little tired of Premiere's plugins; everything has a different UI. The Matrox real-time FX are great but I'd love to have something more consistent. And another thing: TitleExpress really annoys me. I'd love a better titling solution.

I plan to replace mobo/CPU/memory at least, buy another SCSI drive (18GB) and move to Win XP, if possible. I also plan to get a DVD burner (prob Sony DRU-500A) and switch from VCD to DVD output for video editing. I'd like my NLE solution to:
- be fast in applying transitions and FX
- handle output in multiple formats (MPEG1, MPEG2, WMV, QT...)
- have a decent UI, good FX and good titling software

I can keep the RT2500, but I feel like upgrading the hardware around it is a compatibility risk. I've also heard that the RT2500 and XP don't get along so well.

The budget *might* support an upgrade to RT.X100, but I'm not sure it's worth it. I'm in home-movie territory, so the real-time color correction stuff doesn't really float my boat. If it had better titling and good DVD editing software, I'd probably do it.

I could go with a software-only solution, like Pinnacle Edition or Ulead MSP (which I'd not heard of before coming here). But how does its render/FX application times compare to a hardware-based solution? Speed in editing matters to me.

In terms of plaform, I'm looking at an nForce2 or Sis 748-based mobo with Athlon XP 2500+ and 512 or 1024 of DDR RAM. I want to keep the existing SCSI and RAID adapters from the old system. Of course, it depends on exactly what NLE solution I go with.

So, if you were in my position, what would you do?

Thanks in advance,

JScott

[SpiralDragon]

i would have sugested an Avid system but that would be overkill for what you want.... besides it dont have great titling features.... but the UI and FX are probably the best i have seen in a long time.... use it once and you will understand why premier and the rest feel toylike.... their lates version is the Avid XpressProfor $1,600 (you can get it at a student discount price for $500) and you may or may not want to get the Pices of HW that is specialy built for it ... its caled Mojo.... composit in and out dv etc... RT preview is suported WITHOUT the HW.... its quite intresting but it is not geared for home users... its more adequet for film students and smale DV based production house and mobile editors....

but i would sugest you at least look it up and see what it can do...

btw... you odnt realty need a DP system as stated in the recomended HW section but a P4 with HT would help as would lots of mem... and i am Sure that Matrox Graphix cards are welcome... they are IMO the best option for Avid xpress DV 3.x .... i dont know if they will perform as well in Avid XpressPro (which is realy Avid Xpress DV 4 but renamed)

[Brian Ellis]

Personally, even though it will bust my budget n times, I'm looking hard at an 845PE m/b with a P4 3.06 HT processor ans PC2700 RAM, for use with MSP7 (which I've already been using for several months ).

This will give RT, reportedly better than hardware RT for most jobs. Most of my work is DV, but for analogue I/O, I use a Canopus ADVC-100 bridge with my cheap and nasty IEEE-1394 card. I can keep all my other existing hardware, including RAID, networking. I shall keep W2k SP2 as I see no real advantage at this time in moving to XP, only lots of disadvantages. It remains to be seen how HT will work with W2k, as this is also BIOS-dependent. I hope NOT to have to move to XP.

Brian

[JScott]

Originally posted by Brian Ellis
Personally, even though it will bust my budget n times, I'm looking hard at an 845PE m/b with a P4 3.06 HT processor ans PC2700 RAM, for use with MSP7 (which I've already been using for several months ).

This will give RT, reportedly better than hardware RT for most jobs.

Thanks for the reply. I downloaded the demo of MSP7 last night and played around with it for a while. On my 800MHz PIII as above, the effects were slow. I tried dropping an effect on a 30s clip - the render box popped up and I had to wait. With my RT2500 I can drop'n'preview effects without waiting for render, and I want to keep that going forward. Will a faster CPU and fast RAM really make MSP7 as fast as that?

JScott

[montepix]

Yes - I have two PCs (1.8Ghz and 2.4Ghz) and MSP7 pretty much does RT on both depending on how many layers you add and how complex they are. Titler is good with a lot of "extras" for just a titler, but MSP is very slow to render titles to final.

[SpiralDragon]

avid does a great job at software RT ... there is also a free version IIRC.... but ont know mutch about that......

as far as UI and performace goes nothing beets avid.. at least nothing that i have tried yet..

[Brian Ellis]

Yes, it will work in RT with a fast processor. Even on my 1.6 GHz P4 and 512 Mb of PC-100 RAM, it's nearly there at 3 layers deep of simple effects. I'm told with HT, it will do even more than 5 layers of simple effects or at least 5 layers of all the ones with a little R in the corner of the thumbnail.

Simple titles render fast, but if you add complex Animation and Type Effects, then it becomes trickier. I just experimented and a scrolling title worked in RT on my system, but there were some slight hesitations when I added an extruded shadow. I haven't tried timing it yet, but I suspect overlaying titles may be trickier. I'll let you know.

[JScott]

Originally posted by Brian Ellis
Yes, it will work in RT with a fast processor. Even on my 1.6 GHz P4 and 512 Mb of PC-100 RAM, it's nearly there at 3 layers deep of simple effects. I'm told with HT, it will do even more than 5 layers of simple effects or at least 5 layers of all the ones with a little R in the corner of the thumbnail.

Since you mentioned HT, would a dual CPU setup help for MSP or Pinnacle Edition? I was thinking about a dual Athlon setup as an alternative. I'd probaby get much better memory bandwidth with a single P4 or Athlon XP, though - not sure where the payoff is.

Thanks,

JScott

[Brian Ellis]

OK, I've just done another test.

Even a simple title overlaid on a video clip will cause non-RT viewing on my system. Add an extruded shadow and the line becomes deep pink with very definite RT anomalies. It will overlay on a still image, though, with RT.

I can therefore say that the more you do with a title, the greater the need for a high-performance system for RT.

[Brian Ellis]

Yes, MSP supports dualies. But, as you say, the 533 MHz double-width bus that P4 HT offers is, I believe, the performance winner for video work. Effectively, although it is not a dualie, you could say that the HT is a one-and-a-halfie with a single chip and 256 bits wide RAM bus addressing and will probably out-perform any dualie with 128 bit RAM addressing. However, as far as I'm aware, MSP7 is the only editor, at this time, that fully supports HT.

[KRSESQ]

Aside from the mobo and cpu, you have a pretty nice rig already. Unless you're determined to stick with Intel, don't neglect AMD as a possible upgrade solution. Comparable performance for a more modest cash investment, and you can put the money you save toward something else. Remember to check Matrox's hardware compatibility list to get the right mobo.

I'd also stick with Win2K, if it's not giving you any problems. Do you have SP2 installed? Latest Directx and all that?

Kevin

[Hulk]

Some things I've noticed:

MS Pro 7 with the latest patch works very well with XP. A few issues have been resolved by the patch. I personally wouldn't be worried about using MS Pro 7 (with patch E) and XP.


RT is a reality on my P4 2.4 for most of my work, the exeption being heavily effected titles and complex moving paths. In addition, with "multithreading" set to "0," playback start pretty much immediately. Just for reference, RT does NOT work well with MS Pro 7 on my PIII 1.2 laptop.


Reports on dual processing systems are not consistent at this point in time. One person with a dual Xeon 2.8 reported scores to me that show a 100% improvement in rendering, and everything he is doing previews in RT. Note that this system is dual cpus and hyperthreading supported. Obviously, MS Pro 7 is taking advantage of both, as the improvement indicates. On the other hand, a dual Athlon user cannot seem to get his dual cpus working to produce significant gains. The potential is there...


P4 2.66 machines are cheap these days and would provide very good RT performance. A 3.06 P4 would obviously be better due to the increased clock speed and hyperthreading, but I haven't had any scores reported with this cpu. Until I actually see the improvement with hyperthreading I am going to hold off on upgrading to a ht P4. That being said, if HT can give MS Pro 7 a 20% boost, that combined with the 20% clockspeed advantage over my P4 2.4 would give the 3.06 P4 a 40% theoretical advantage over my current processor. For me this would effectively be RT, since most everything I do is RT now, and my render times are already quite reasonable.

Finally, if you do decide to get on the MS Pro 7 train, remember that as you upgrade your hardware in the future, your OVERALL video editing and computer performance will increase. Starting with a P4 2.66 or higher now will give you good RT performance and that will only improve in the future.


Since I'm a MS Pro 7 user, I can only speak to that software. I am very happy with it on my P4 2.4 running XP. You'll have to find all of the opinions you can find and make the final call, there are lots of good options out there.

Hope this helps, good luck!

Mark

[JScott]

Originally posted by KRSESQ
Aside from the mobo and cpu, you have a pretty nice rig already. Unless you're determined to stick with Intel, don't neglect AMD as a possible upgrade solution. Comparable performance for a more modest cash investment, and you can put the money you save toward something else. Remember to check Matrox's hardware compatibility list to get the right mobo.

Well, there's the rub. Matrox has stopped compatibility testing the RT2500, so there's no official word on support for some current chipsets like the nForce2 and SiS 745. Keeping the RT2500 is definitely an option but I feel like there's a risk that it won't work in my new system.

And I'm not an Intel bigot - I'd be just as happy with a fast Athlon, or two fast Athlons.

I'd also stick with Win2K, if it's not giving you any problems. Do you have SP2 installed? Latest Directx and all that?

Yup, I'm running SP2 and DX9. I tried installing SP3 but had some weird issue where the system would lock up for a few minutes, then be OK for a minute or so, then lock up again. It took me 2 days to uninstall SP3 but after I did everything came out OK.

I'd be fine with sticking with Win2K, and if I keep the RT2500 I think I'll have to do a Win2K install on the new box.

JScott

EDIT to correct to SiS 745

[KRSESQ]

It does appear that Matrox is a couple of revisions behind in mobo compatibility testing. But at the risk of over-generalizing, I'd be willing to risk trying a SiS 745 or greater Athlon MB, or AMD chipset above 761. Despite several VIA chipset boards being on the list, I'd avoid those.

(I'm full of all kinds of good advice when it isn't my money!)

Doc M, if you're lurking around, have you tested the RT2500 with the newest boards?

http://www.matrox.com/video/support/rt2500/rec/mb/home.cfm

Kevin

[Ray Austin]

If you're into serious effects you might want to check out the RTX100 Xtreme that is coming in June.

It's simply amazing what can be done with it and just a software upgrade to the RTX100 and for free.

I have been able to do 4 dv layers each with a 3d effect plus a graphic. Now this isn't RT, but with Xtreme preview you can see what you are doing all the time. With out so many effects it will play back a little bumpy on a 2000+ processor.

It's definately worth your consideration as it has RT DVD export to disk as well as mpeg1, WMV, real media that can be exported simultaneously in any kind of settings you can dream up.

As a side note I set up my RT2000 in a sis 735 and it worked fine. [ECS K7S5A] .... this board currently has the RTX in it.

Cheers....