Cineform Intermediary Codec / Connect HD and Vegas 7.0

[Jay Hancock]

Jon - no offense was intended. Why did I make the comment that it needs more than just a Google search to conclude that 64-bit computing is useless? Because I use it every day, even now as I write this. It seemed to be a statement without basis in personal observation, because it was so blanketly strong and (in my experience, at least) so very incorrect. I accept your retraction. Please accept mine about the "Google" comment.

Perhaps your statements were based on experience with Windows Vista. I wouldn't doubt that for now, Vista may be a nearly useless computing platform. Personally I am not willing to try it out.

Back to XP, I've read articles in computer magazines saying that 64 bit has no advantage. Those articles were generally aimed at the masses, who would never push a PC hard enough to gain any advantage from 64 bit computing. Maybe they push their video cards for gaming, but that's about it.

We as video editors are in a different category of PC users from the mass consumer. We squeeze every ounce of performance from our PCs, and anything that gives us a significant boost can be great.

On the whole you're right about weak industry support for XP x64. Drivers are only available for newer hardware (though it's actually a lot more plentiful than you might think). Great for someone who carefully builds a new system, but useless for the majority who don't have brand new hardware. Microsoft said themselves upon release that XP x64 was geared for the most demanding applications, not for the general consumer. This is why.

And it probably take a few years to create 64 bit XP. I didn't mean to say they never worked on 64-bit stuff until yesterday. But having projects and demos in the lab isn't the same as having a released OS with a customer base testing it.

For me, building my system around 64-bit XP was not much of a risk. I have a dual boot with 32 bit XP. If the 64-bit didn't work out I'd just dump it. But it worked out so well that I almost never boot the 32-bit partition. It worked because 64 bit drivers are available for my particular hardware and 32 bit apps run on the OS.

Heck, if you love technology so much, screw 64-bit processing and just move to parralell rendering. Build 20 computers and run your rendering process through all of them and finish your job in a record 3 minutes as opposed to 2 hours! :)

I don't have the money to build a 20-PC rendering farm. Why the sarcasm? I only wish to say that 64-bit computing is a path to building better digital video workstations, and it is working today. If it gets adopted and supported by vendors and users (a big if), it can help us out. For some people that means greater productivity and greater income generation. But you're right, it'll only happen slowly.

[Jon McGuffin]

Originally Posted by Jay Hancock

Jon - no offense was intended. Why did I make the comment that it needs more than just a Google search to conclude that 64-bit computing is useless? Because I use it every day, even now as I write this. It seemed to be a statement without basis in personal observation, because it was so blanketly strong and (in my experience, at least) so very incorrect. I accept your retraction. Please accept mine about the "Google" comment.

Perhaps your statements were based on experience with Windows Vista. I wouldn't doubt that for now, Vista may be a nearly useless computing platform. Personally I am not willing to try it out.

Back to XP, I've read articles in computer magazines saying that 64 bit has no advantage. Those articles were generally aimed at the masses, who would never push a PC hard enough to gain any advantage from 64 bit computing. Maybe they push their video cards for gaming, but that's about it.

We as video editors are in a different category of PC users from the mass consumer. We squeeze every ounce of performance from our PCs, and anything that gives us a significant boost can be great.

On the whole you're right about weak industry support for XP x64. Drivers are only available for newer hardware (though it's actually a lot more plentiful than you might think). Great for someone who carefully builds a new system, but useless for the majority who don't have brand new hardware. Microsoft said themselves upon release that XP x64 was geared for the most demanding applications, not for the general consumer. This is why.

And it probably take a few years to create 64 bit XP. I didn't mean to say they never worked on 64-bit stuff until yesterday. But having projects and demos in the lab isn't the same as having a released OS with a customer base testing it.

For me, building my system around 64-bit XP was not much of a risk. I have a dual boot with 32 bit XP. If the 64-bit didn't work out I'd just dump it. But it worked out so well that I almost never boot the 32-bit partition. It worked because 64 bit drivers are available for my particular hardware and 32 bit apps run on the OS.

Heck, if you love technology so much, screw 64-bit processing and just move to parralell rendering. Build 20 computers and run your rendering process through all of them and finish your job in a record 3 minutes as opposed to 2 hours! :)

I don't have the money to build a 20-PC rendering farm. Why the sarcasm? I only wish to say that 64-bit computing is a path to building better digital video workstations, and it is working today. If it gets adopted and supported by vendors and users (a big if), it can help us out. For some people that means greater productivity and greater income generation. But you're right, it'll only happen slowly.

Okay Jay,

With this in mind... I'm putting together a new editing system as we speak but haven't finalized my purchase... I purchase Vegas 6.0 from B&H for $99 then turned around and did the $149.95 upgrade via Sony's website for Vegas 7 + DVD 4. The editing system I'm putting together has the following spec's:

$53.99 ARK 6099S BK Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
$74.99 Enermax Noisetaker II EG425P-VE 2.2 ATX12V 420W Power Supply
$327.99 Intel Boxed Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4Ghz LGA 775 Processor
$160.99 Abit AB9 Pro LGA 775 Intel P965 - ICH8R Motherboard
$279.00 Corsair XMS2 2Gb (2 x 1Gb) 240-pin DDR2 800 PC2 6400 TWIN2X2048-6400 ($40 MIR)
$139.99 XFX PVT73GUGE3 Geforce 7600GT GDDR3 PCI Express Video Card
$254.99 Viewsonic VX922 19" LCD Monitor 1280X1024
$254.99 Viewsonic VX922 19" LCD Monitor 1280X1024
$94.99 Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3320620AS 320Gb SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
$94.99 Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3320620AS 320Gb SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
$94.99 Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3320620AS 320Gb SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
$29.99 NEC 16X DVD+/-R DVD Burner ND-3550A Drive
$29.99 NEC 16X DVD+/-R DVD Burner ND-3550A Drive
$139.99 Microsoft Windows XP Professional

2 of the 3 Seagate drives will be run in a RAID 0 configuration for 640Gb of storage space.

I plan to purchase the ConnectHD 3.22 Codec and run it on my new version of Vegas 7. I also just purchased (2) Sony HDR-FX1 Camera's.

Jon

[Jay Hancock]

Jon:
Looks like you'll have a really good system. You get a lot of bang for the buck when you build your own system. You get exactly what you want.

Have fun with your new system!

Jay