Aspect HD

[David Newman]

Jonathan, laptop HD editing in real-time can be done.

Issues to keep in mind:

1) Get a Laptop that uses a desktop P4 rather than a mobile P4. The mobile P4s can slow the memory system down to conserve power. A good laptop example with a full P4:
http://www.alienware.com/system_pages/area-51m.aspx

2) New laptops may have 800Mhz FSBs (Front Side Buses) yet the memory system is still commonly 266Mhz. This will limit the number of real-time filters that can be applied, and effect the number of real-time layers. This will change in the next couple of months (maybe weeks), with the release of true 800MHz memory laptops.

3) Disk speed. There are laptop that have multiple drives for software RAID, this is the best solution. See:
http://www.1beyond.com/products/laptops.asp
Firewire drives are only so-so due to the data-rate capacity of 1394a. 1394a will limit the best firewire drives to 2 (sometime 3) streams.

If all you need are dissolves, color correction and a motion title or two, any modern workstation class laptop with an external 7200rpm firewire drive will do.

Otherwise wait a few weeks and get a multidrive system running with a 800Mhz memory system.

[Jonathan Sarno]

<<<-- Originally posted by David Newman : Jonathan, laptop HD editing in real-time can be done.

Thanks for the prompt replay but what about the Toshiba Satellite laptop?

I can hold off for a few weeks if need but what about this computer.

Have you or anyone at aspect tested it?

[Jonathan Sarno]

Otherwise wait a few weeks and get a multidrive system running with a 800Mhz memory system. -->>>

What companies will come out with the computers described above?

Also....what about the voodoo computers?

[David Newman]

<<<-- Originally posted by Jonathan Sarno : <<<-- Thanks for the prompt replay but what about the Toshiba Satellite laptop? -->>>

It should be a solid dual stream system when used with an external firewire drive.

<<<-- Have you or anyone at aspect tested it? -->>>

CineForm is new and small company so we will not be able to test for performance on every PC model (no one does.) We have tested on a large cross sequence of systems in the office and beta tester systems, so we have a good idea how well each calls on PC will perform.

[David Newman]

<<<-- Originally posted by Jonathan Sarno : Otherwise wait a few weeks and get a multidrive system running with a 800Mhz memory system. -->>>

What companies will come out with the computers described above?

Also....what about the voodoo computers? -->>>

All good PC companies will be releasing faster systems with the 800MHz memory. Voodoo will likely be a leader here.

The Voodoo M600 is very close with RAID 0 drives, but the memory achitecture is not the new one yet.
http://www.voodoopc.com/systems/advanced.aspx?t=1&p=190

[Steve Mullen]

When you say streams to you mean streams of video, or video plus titles.

I assume that most folks would want 2 color corrected video streams with transitions between these 2 streams.

On top of this they want real-time scolling titles.

Sounds like a 2.8 is fine for this. Right?

And it sounds like 2 ordinary ATA133 7200rpm drives in a software RAID would support 2 streams. Right? How about 5400rpm?

I note in the Reviewers guide that capture and conversion are NOW being done in 2 steps. Will the computer need to be more powerful to handle a one pass mode?

[David Newman]

<<<-- Originally posted by Steve Mullen : When you say streams to you mean streams of video, or video plus titles.-->>>

Only counting the video clips as title overlays are a lot easier. It is possible to have a couple of video channels with five or more simultaneous titles.

<<<---I assume that most folks would want 2 color corrected video streams with transitions between these 2 streams.-->>>

All systems meeting the minimum requirements for Aspect HD can do this.

<<<--On top of this they want real-time scolling titles.-->>>

A motion title yes, a scrolling multiple page title no. Aspect HD accelerates many of the Premiere's features, unfortunately the Premiere titler creates scrolls in a way that can't be efficently accelerated. If you create credit scrolls in single pages, those pages can be motioned in real-time for the same final result.

<<<--Sounds like a 2.8 is fine for this. Right?-->>>

Yes.

<<<--And it sounds like 2 ordinary ATA133 7200rpm drives in a software RAID would support 2 streams. Right? How about 5400rpm?-->>>

The RAID of 7200rpm drives should support 4 streams (a single 7200 rpm drive can support 2.) As for 5400rpm drives, these are hard to find now, but I guess they are about 20%-30% slower.

<<<--I note in the Reviewers guide that capture and conversion are NOW being done in 2 steps. Will the computer need to be more powerful to handle a one pass mode? -->>>

No, we are just finishing up this very clever capture solution that enables one step capture and convert even on slower PCs. If a PC is too slow for real-time conversion, an intelligent buffer allows the conversion to occur in as near to real-time as possible. Capturing an one hour tape might take 70minutes to complete capture AND conversion, eliminating any need for the separate conversion step.

[Brad Hawkins]

David, earlier you told Steve that the drives were more important than the CPU speed. I was wondering if you could expand on this.

For example, right now I'm running a system with dual AMD 2200 MP and the capabitlity for motherboard raid config. Would the fact that I have 2 processors and hardware raid offset the lack of CPU speed?

Brad

PS- thanks for answering all our questions, hopefully it will pay off with a few sales for you guys!

[David Newman]

Brad,

You system would would probably have sufficient CPU resources but it would suffer a little from poor memory speed. AMD hasn't been keeping up with Intel in the memory architecture. Your system will probably handle two streams reliably.

The best performance occurs when good memory speed (533MHz or better 800MHz) is meet with good CPU speed 2.5GHz (or greater), and good drive speed, two 7200rpm drives on a RAID 0.

[Brad Hawkins]

Sounds good. And if I decide I need more streams later I guess I can always upgrade.

thanks for the quick reply.

Brad

[Jonathan Sarno]

<<<-- Originally posted by Brad Hawkins : Sounds good. And if I decide I need more streams later I guess I can always upgrade.


"The best performance occurs when good memory speed (533MHz or better 800MHz) is meet with good CPU speed 2.5GHz (or greater), and good drive speed, two 7200rpm drives on a RAID 0." - David Newman

The question is: (and please excuse me if they are not phrased correctely as I'm not fully up to speed on different hardware configuration/capabilities)

Will it possible to upgrade to 800Mhz? I think not.

Also:
David, you mentioned that the external firewire drives can support less streams then the internal drives, particularly in regard to laptops but some computers are upgrading from firewire 400 to the faster 800. Will this effect the number of streams in a positive way?

If money was no object what desktop configuration would you personally purchase for Aspect HD? What laptop configuration/model would you purchase?

And lastly how much drive space will an hour of HD DV take up, using Aspect?

[David Newman]

<<<-- Originally posted by Jonathan Sarno :
Will it possible to upgrade to 800Mhz? I think not.
-->>>

The requires a new motherboard, CPU, memory replacement -- about $800 worth of changes to an existing system (and far amount of work.) This assume you have all yours drives, a good video card, monitor(s) and Windows XP.

<<<--David, you mentioned that the external firewire drives can support less streams then the internal drives, particularly in regard to laptops but some computers are upgrading from firewire 400 to the faster 800. Will this effect the number of streams in a positive way?-->>>

Yes, if there are RAID solutions that use IEE1394b (i.e. s800), the drive performance will be very good.

<<<--If money was no object what desktop configuration would you personally purchase for Aspect HD? -->>>

Either upgrade a box from Alienware or VoodooPC (add a Maxtrox P720 and drives), or go will a completely integrated system like HD Cinema from www.applied-magic.com.

<<<--What laptop configuration/model would you purchase?-->>>

I'm still waiting for the faster systems. They only days away (I just need comfirmation before a can say who will be selling them.) We are arranging to test these new systems.

<<<--And lastly how much drive space will an hour of HD DV take up, using Aspect? -->>>

About 30GBytes per hour using the Cineform HD AVI codec (CFHD.)

[Jonathan Sarno]

About 30GBytes per hour using the Cineform HD AVI codec (CFHD.) -->>>

That's reasonable, considering it's hi-def but I shoot documentaries and work with high shooting ratios - l0 to 1 minimum.

Is Aspect considering or any other company for that matter, considering a low res offline low res-online version, like Apple has with the JPEG format.

I'm able to get 25 hours of low res on my powerbook G4, which is great when you are shooting on location.

[David Newman]

<<<-- Originally posted by Jonathan Sarno :
Is Aspect considering or any other company for that matter, considering a low res offline low res-online version, like Apple has with the JPEG format. -->>>

CineForm's focus is on-line real-time HD editing. I imagine that there will be competitors that my use the low quality proxy file to edit HD. Those tools don't yet exist for HDV content.

[Steve Mullen]

<<<-- Originally posted by Jonathan Sarno : About 30GBytes per hour using the Cineform HD AVI codec (CFHD.) -->>>

Is Aspect considering or any other company for that matter, considering a low res offline low res-online version, like Apple has with the JPEG format.
-->>>

4HDV supports this type of editing because uncompressed simply is not feasible for most of us. It requires 300GB per HOUR of source.

At a 10:1 ratio, you would need terabytes!

Using 4HDV you need only 1.25GB per hour.