Gone from Dual 2.0 G5 to 2.66 Quad Intel... at DVinfo.net

Nate Weaver · September 22nd, 2007, 09:32 PM

Just wanted to post a quick note that while I never had much trouble cutting native HDV or XDCAM on my old G5, I updated to a quad Intel 2.66 w/X1900 yesterday, and boy, what a difference.

I also noticed that moving my media to a 4-drive SATA raid made yet another big difference, whereas on the G5 having low bit-rate material like HDV didn't make a difference whether it was on a G-Raid or eSATA 4-drive raid. I guess with the Intel the FW drive is the bottleneck, where on the G5 it was the MPEG decoding.

Anyway, native HDV and XDCAM is like butter now. I never dropped frames before, but this is a whole new level!

Ryan Flesher · September 30th, 2007, 07:51 PM

Nate,
I am ready to make the jump to a new machine from the G5 dual 2.5 power mac I have.
If it takes 3 hours to process a 45 minute HDV sequence to a standard Dv QT movie with my system, about how long with your new setup?
Please give me some real world time comparisons.
Thanks,
Ryan

Charles Papert · September 30th, 2007, 09:34 PM

Nate:

How the hell are ya. (I'm guessing that little road-trip we talke about--no go?)

Please enlighten with your choice of SATA drives--what did you go with? andhow much faster than the G-Raids with your new system, d'ya think?

mazel tov on the purchase!

David Warren · October 2nd, 2007, 01:29 AM

this is off topic but im having trouble getting any replies in other threads..
do you guys think a 15inch 2.2ghz/2gbram/128meg 8600gtm macbook pro is good enough for editing 1080i 24f(p) hdv footage in fcp6?
do you think a macbook could handle it? specs page suggests the actual video card is required (vs. onboard intel stuff)

edit: im basically trying to decide between the cheapest macbook, the cheapest macbook pro, or the highest end macbook pro.. perhaps even upgrading the ram to 4gb..

Nate Weaver · October 2nd, 2007, 10:03 AM

Ack. I didn't see the replies to my own thread...

Ryan:
I'm seeing varying numbers compared to my old G5 when rendering out via Compressor. And by varying, I guess I mean "not as good as I'd like", but I have ALSO found out for the 4 core machines you have to trick Compressor to use a virtual cluster on the single machine to get your best times. I am still tweaking the virtual cluster stuff, but it seems that almost 2x speed from my previous G5 is possible.

Charles:
I'll give you a ring about the concert gig (it went away, then came back halved!).

I bought a Sonett Fusion500 last year which is a 5 drive eSATA enclosure of what I'd maybe call the "2nd generation" variety. It's big feature was that it could feed all 5 drives from one single eSATA cable and not bottleneck. The RAID aspect of it comes from the Apple Disk Utility, so it's a "software RAID". I get 280mb/sec with only 4 of the 5 RAIDed together, which is more than fast enough for uncompressed 1080p (by twofold).

These days I guess you can get the same deal with hardware to do the RAID part either in the interface card or in the enclosure, so I'd recommend that.

David:
I own a 2.0ghz Macbook Pro, and have done HDV on it. I don't recommend it. It works, and certainly can be done, but the desktops faster busses make a huge difference. I especially would not recommend a Macbook to do the job.

Any of these machines would be smashing for SD work, but responsiveness in FCP with the HDV material is lacking enough any real work is a bit frustrating.

David Warren · October 3rd, 2007, 01:10 AM

nate, thanks for your reply.
my problem is, as a film student, im not at home too often and I already have a fairly powerful home pc for editing.. i'd really like to make the transition to a laptop system but what you're telling me isnt very supportive :S are you talking native hdv only? what about using intermediate codec instead? i dont mind.. i usually use cineform with premiere.. obviously the 2ghz model is a little older but the actual architecture hasnt changed.. do you not think the added ram, faster video card, cpu, would make much of a difference?
thanks
-dave

Peter Ferling · October 3rd, 2007, 10:37 AM

This sounds promissing to someone whos wanting to switch.

Whats this I hear about compressor having issues? Is compressor the rendering engine or export tool for FCP (similiar to adobes media encoder)?
Does is crash? I don't mind slow renders, it's audio sync, non-responsive timelines and weird image handling that I need to get away from.

How would you compare this to Premiere CS3? (In terms of stability)

David Warren · October 5th, 2007, 10:01 PM

yes compressor is the exporting tool for FCP.. never had any issues with it when i use it really... but i pretty much just export mpeg-2 which is easy enough. it does a better job resizing hd footage to sd than premiere.. better quality that is. when i use premiere i have to export it master quality then encode to dvd with another encoder (tmpg, cce, etc)..

September 22nd, 2007, 09:32 PM	#1
Nate Weaver Wrangler Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 2,100	Gone from Dual 2.0 G5 to 2.66 Quad Intel... Just wanted to post a quick note that while I never had much trouble cutting native HDV or XDCAM on my old G5, I updated to a quad Intel 2.66 w/X1900 yesterday, and boy, what a difference. I also noticed that moving my media to a 4-drive SATA raid made yet another big difference, whereas on the G5 having low bit-rate material like HDV didn't make a difference whether it was on a G-Raid or eSATA 4-drive raid. I guess with the Intel the FW drive is the bottleneck, where on the G5 it was the MPEG decoding. Anyway, native HDV and XDCAM is like butter now. I never dropped frames before, but this is a whole new level! __________________ My Work: nateweaver.net

September 30th, 2007, 07:51 PM	#2
Ryan Flesher Regular Crew Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: United States Posts: 56	How fast? Nate, I am ready to make the jump to a new machine from the G5 dual 2.5 power mac I have. If it takes 3 hours to process a 45 minute HDV sequence to a standard Dv QT movie with my system, about how long with your new setup? Please give me some real world time comparisons. Thanks, Ryan

September 30th, 2007, 09:34 PM	#3
Charles Papert Wrangler Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 6,810	Nate: How the hell are ya. (I'm guessing that little road-trip we talke about--no go?) Please enlighten with your choice of SATA drives--what did you go with? andhow much faster than the G-Raids with your new system, d'ya think? mazel tov on the purchase! __________________ Charles Papert www.charlespapert.com

October 2nd, 2007, 01:29 AM	#4
David Warren Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada Posts: 61	this is off topic but im having trouble getting any replies in other threads.. do you guys think a 15inch 2.2ghz/2gbram/128meg 8600gtm macbook pro is good enough for editing 1080i 24f(p) hdv footage in fcp6? do you think a macbook could handle it? specs page suggests the actual video card is required (vs. onboard intel stuff) edit: im basically trying to decide between the cheapest macbook, the cheapest macbook pro, or the highest end macbook pro.. perhaps even upgrading the ram to 4gb.. Last edited by David Warren; October 2nd, 2007 at 02:26 AM.

October 2nd, 2007, 10:03 AM	#5
Nate Weaver Wrangler Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 2,100	Ack. I didn't see the replies to my own thread... Ryan: I'm seeing varying numbers compared to my old G5 when rendering out via Compressor. And by varying, I guess I mean "not as good as I'd like", but I have ALSO found out for the 4 core machines you have to trick Compressor to use a virtual cluster on the single machine to get your best times. I am still tweaking the virtual cluster stuff, but it seems that almost 2x speed from my previous G5 is possible. Charles: I'll give you a ring about the concert gig (it went away, then came back halved!). I bought a Sonett Fusion500 last year which is a 5 drive eSATA enclosure of what I'd maybe call the "2nd generation" variety. It's big feature was that it could feed all 5 drives from one single eSATA cable and not bottleneck. The RAID aspect of it comes from the Apple Disk Utility, so it's a "software RAID". I get 280mb/sec with only 4 of the 5 RAIDed together, which is more than fast enough for uncompressed 1080p (by twofold). These days I guess you can get the same deal with hardware to do the RAID part either in the interface card or in the enclosure, so I'd recommend that. David: I own a 2.0ghz Macbook Pro, and have done HDV on it. I don't recommend it. It works, and certainly can be done, but the desktops faster busses make a huge difference. I especially would not recommend a Macbook to do the job. Any of these machines would be smashing for SD work, but responsiveness in FCP with the HDV material is lacking enough any real work is a bit frustrating. __________________ My Work: nateweaver.net

October 3rd, 2007, 01:10 AM	#6
David Warren Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada Posts: 61	nate, thanks for your reply. my problem is, as a film student, im not at home too often and I already have a fairly powerful home pc for editing.. i'd really like to make the transition to a laptop system but what you're telling me isnt very supportive :S are you talking native hdv only? what about using intermediate codec instead? i dont mind.. i usually use cineform with premiere.. obviously the 2ghz model is a little older but the actual architecture hasnt changed.. do you not think the added ram, faster video card, cpu, would make much of a difference? thanks -dave

October 3rd, 2007, 10:37 AM	#7
Peter Ferling Trustee Join Date: May 2005 Location: Wyomissing, PA Posts: 1,141 Images: 57	This sounds promissing to someone whos wanting to switch. Whats this I hear about compressor having issues? Is compressor the rendering engine or export tool for FCP (similiar to adobes media encoder)? Does is crash? I don't mind slow renders, it's audio sync, non-responsive timelines and weird image handling that I need to get away from. How would you compare this to Premiere CS3? (In terms of stability) __________________ Pete Ferling http://ferling.net It's never a mistake if you learn something new from it. -------------------------------------------

October 5th, 2007, 10:01 PM	#8
David Warren Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada Posts: 61	yes compressor is the exporting tool for FCP.. never had any issues with it when i use it really... but i pretty much just export mpeg-2 which is easy enough. it does a better job resizing hd footage to sd than premiere.. better quality that is. when i use premiere i have to export it master quality then encode to dvd with another encoder (tmpg, cce, etc)..