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**zeb7** · 11 March 2001, 18:32

A small amount of performance can be achieved by formatting you're capture drive or partition with a larger cluster size
this reduces capacity a little.
PartitionMagic by PowerQuest is a great tool for this job
I use 32k cluster fat32 on win98 and a 64k cluser on winNT/2000 (NTFS)

**Dr Mordrid** · 11 March 2001, 21:30

For Win9x you can get some ideas from Matrox's editing FAQ;

http://www.matrox.com/mga/support/fa.../video4.cfm#33

Dr. Mordrid

**Brian Ellis** · 12 March 2001, 03:16

Kleinbull

I generall agree with the FAQs mentioned by Doc, but a couple of extra kopecks worth:
1. Put your fixed-size swapfile in an ad hoc partition reserved ONLY for that. This will prevent fragmentation which can slow transfers to and fro swap files enormously. On all my computers, I run the swapfile at 25 Mb less than the partition size.
2. Make sure your video drive is master on IDE1 and NEVER slave on either IDE0 or IDE1.
3. Adjust your fixed vcache size to between 20 and 25% of your RAM size. This doesn't hog too much RAM but caches adequately.
4. Run Sandra and note the hints it gives you.
5. If you re-install Windows on top of your existing one, you must reset your fixed swapfile and vcache settings: these disappear at each reinstallation!
6. Reformat your video disc before starting a project.

1/3 of a kopeck each: good value!

------------------
Brian (the terrible)

**kleinbull** · 12 March 2001, 23:12

OK, thanks y'all.

I'm formatted, scanned, and defragged and ready to go. I've set up the HD cache, and fixin to do the vcache from the web page. I'm not sure how to avoid slaving with 2 HD's and 2 media drives, should my HD's be masters to my media drives on IDE0 and IDE1?

The first thing I'm gonna try is a 704x480 on HuffYUV. It was nice to see the quality of the Huff compared to the MatroxMJPeg, I can't wait to see the higher res capture vid.

Anybody have any luck with the Abit BE6r2 w/highpoint66 drivers for Maxtor and WD hard drives?

Thanks again for the help

[This message has been edited by kleinbull (edited 13 March 2001).]

[This message has been edited by kleinbull (edited 13 March 2001).]

**dchip** · 13 March 2001, 22:46

Brian is right about always avoiding the slaving setup with the hard drives. To avoid doing so you will need a controller card to plug into one of your PCI slots. I use a now "old" Promise Ultra 66 PCI card and have two hard drives on it. Works fairly well for the lite video work that I do. The IDE connectors on the motherboard, I use for CD and CDR. If you absolutely have to use a master-slave combo for the time being, try to avoid doing it on what will be your capture drive.

There are more up to date drive controller cards from Promise and others and they won't set you back much scratch. Perhaps someone here will suggest one for you. Good luck getting up and running.

**Dr Mordrid** · 14 March 2001, 07:31

When adding a new controller for the purpose of moving your video drives off the mainboard connections you have some things to consider;

1. Standard controller or RAID?

If you're doing DV you don't really need a RAID array. A single large drive will do nicely. Ex: Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 80 gig. More than enough for a long time.

RAID is more for those doing analog video or those who have mixed DV and analog systems (me, for example).

2. Whatthehell is a RAID?

Book def: Redundent Array of Inexpensive (or Independent) Disks

RAID arrays can be used in many configurations only three of which are commonlly used for video.

The main way people use RAID is for RAID0, or Striped, arrays. This is where several identical drives are be strung together into one huge virtual drive that is much faster than any single drive could be. My fastest RAID0 can write video at over 70 mb/s and read it at 90+ mb/s. Lots of overkill there

The second most common array type is RAID0/1. This sets up one pair of RAID0 drives to mirror another pair so you don't lose anything if one drive in the primary pair craps out.

As noted the rub with both RAID0 and RAID0/1 is that you really should match the drives. Each drive in the setup should be of the same brand, type, size and RPM. Exact model matches are preferred.

A third RAID type that can be used is the JBOD, or SPANNED, array. JBOD = Just a Bunch Of Disks. In a JBOD you don't have to match the drives, but also there is no speed increase. All you get is additive capacity.

3. SCSI or IDE?

IDE is just as fast, reliable and cheaper, so don't let that be a concern. Unless you're setting up a huge studio go IDE.

4. Promise, 3Ware or Highpoint?

Promise is the most cost efficient, mature product line and they make plain IDE controllers as well as RAID. 3Ware makes good RAID controllers, but they are expensive. Don't even think about Highpoint. Their product is far from mature and has some compatability problems, particularly on VIA & Apollo chipped mainboards.

Here are my recommendations;

Plain IDE controller: Promise Ultra100

IDE RAID controller: Promise Fasttrak100

Even if you don't have ATA100 drives get the ATA100 models. There are major improvements in them vs. the Ultra/Fasttrak 33 and 66 models, especially in terms of their PCI latency.

Dr. Mordrid

[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 14 March 2001).]

**kleinbull** · 18 March 2001, 16:47

Thanks again gang,

I really appreciate y'alls help getting me through this so quickly. That AVI_IO/HuffYUV combination is great. I'm working on a Sponge Bob archive, and this is working better than I expected.

How will the ATA-100 board/drive affect my conversion speed? I'm pretty sure it will improve my capture dropped frames rate right?

It takes about an 45 mins - hour to convert 10 mins Huff to Mpeg-1. Is that about normal? just curious.

Oh, is the Promise ata/100 pretty forgiving when it comes to PCI/Irq location and set/up?

0
<V>
/ \

[This message has been edited by kleinbull (edited 18 March 2001).]

**Dr Mordrid** · 18 March 2001, 20:48

My Fasttrak100's are very forgiving of what IRQ they're on as long as I use the latest drivers.

Example: my FT100 RAID array is on the same IRQ as my RT-2000's IEEE-1394 OHCI device. No interference at all.

Drives & drive speed very seldom have an effect on conversion speeds. The CPU, memory speed and the encoding software are the real bottlenecks.

Dr. Mordrid

[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 19 March 2001).]

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