64 bit and the NLE

[Scott Osborne]

As I sit and wait for Main Concept to convert another avi into a mpeg file I can't help but wonder, Has anyone heard any commitments from Adobe on if they will be supporting AND optimizing there apps for a 64 bit op sys. I ask because conversion times and renders are starting to really kill me since I have been getting this recent influx of VHS to DVD coversion work. These wait have given me a chance to go poking around Newegg and taking a look at possiable getting a Dual Cpu machine. AMDs Opteron looks nice but I just can't see taking the plunge if there isn't going to be support. Not to mention I use a Matrox RTX.100 and who the heck knows if that will even work on the mobo at all. So I am just wondering what the rest of you guys are thinking. Or has anyone tried the Opteron yet? I know no one has really seen the effects on video editing with the 64 bit cpu as the wofully slow Microsoft is saying that Xp64 won't be ready until Q1 2006.

Maybe I am missing the bus altogether. Is there some way of offloading all of this number crunching onto another PC? If so with what software and further more how??? Really there must be some solution for guys at my level. Do people with less than $10k to spend really need to wait 15-20 hours to convert a 2 hour long clip in 2 pass VBR.

Well sorry for rambling but this stuff is consuming my mind and I would really like to find out what other people are thinking-doing about it.

Thanks

[Mike Rehmus]

Why not purchase a hardware card that will convert the avi in real time. And check out the Canopus ProCoder software. I think it is probably faster than what you are using.

[Glenn Chan]

64bit won't speed things up, it can only do more complicated tasks faster. 32bit numbers go up to 2^32, which is a fairly large number. You can get a 32-bit processor to do 48 or 64-bit calculations, but those will take a lot longer than 32-bit calculations. Programs might use 48-bit numbers instead of 64-bit as 48-bit calculations will go fast. If you have a 64-bit processor, you can do 64-bit calculations fairly fast.

In nearly all cases, you don't need numbers larger than 32-bit. For DVD encoding a 64-bit processor won't help. Probably the most room for improvement would be to get a Prescott processor, which has SSE3 optimizations. Performance will improve if programs are written with optimizations for the SSE3 instruction set. However, that's a lot of speculation and the Prescott isn't too good of a buy right now (performs slower on most non-video tasks than the cheaper Canterwood equivalent, runs hotter, and consumes more electricity which widens the price gap even more). I'm not sure on how Prescott vs Canterwood fares for MPEG2 encoding- I may have seen the Prescott being ~6% faster.

2- Options I see for you:
hardware card as Mike mentioned.

offload rendering to another machine:
A- dual Xeon machine (Xeons seem to be faster with the main concept encoder). slightly faster, comes with a hefty price tag.
B- Get a cheap Pentium ~3.0ghz machine with plextor 12X burner, gigabit ethernet, switch, and cabling. My guestimate of the price is $1500. Transfer files over a gigabit network to this new machine for encoding and burning. You can get places like monarchcomputers.com to assemble it for $50 (not sure if they have the plextor burner there- I think they do).

Another option is to get a faster encoder. The stuff by cinemacraft is one of the best ones you can get. Apparently it renders twice as fast as TMPGENC ($99) at the same quality. TMPGENC is also a good buy.

You could also get a DVD recorder, which will encode and burn real-time. Quality is probably not that good for 2hr stuff. But if it's VHS...

[Scott Osborne]

The Matrox RTX.100 has a realtime encoder but I can't say that I am all that impressed with the quality. I also have Canopus Procoder 1.2 and while I like the speed it just seems more convient to use the MC encoder because of its seemless integration with the Adobe package.

But for any work that I can use a stand alone encoder I use Procoder.

Glenn,
I can't see how 64 bit computing couldn't help encoding. If a codec was written to take advantage of 64 bit word length and the faster buses how could that not be faster?

Also not to interested in the Prescotts. I have a 2.8E @ 3.4 running in another machine and that thing gets so hot I have considered moving it to another room. As far as I can tell the only advantage that it has over my 3.2HT on a 845p that is my editing machine is the memory bandwidth. and that has nothing to do with the Cpu but more to do with the 875p and its dual channel memory architecture.

I was thinking about a P4 EE with the 2mb L2 cache as a option. I thought by remove the 512k waitstay that is inherint with the Northwood that it would offer faster speeds. But from talking to some people the yield just isn't high enogh to justify the cost.

As for the Xeons well that seems like the option to go with. There reasonably cheap as compared to the Opterons and it just seems like most "pro" level software is optimized for the P4 architecture. However it seems like Adobe is forgetting about network rendering in all products except for AE. If PPro offerd network rendering I would put together 3 or 4 cheap Northwood systems and link them together via GigiaBit ethernet.

Thanks

[Glenn Chan]

Glenn,
I can't see how 64 bit computing couldn't help encoding. If a codec was written to take advantage of 64 bit word length and the faster buses how could that not be faster?

You can read up about 64-bit computing at http://arstechnica.com/cpu/03q1/x86-64/x86-64-1.html. 64-bit does have another advantage that I did not mention in that you can address more RAM and get more registers (in 64-bit mode). In any case, it makes more sense to get the better computer now [pentium/xeon] (and improvements from 64-bit are unlikely IMO).

[Scott Osborne]

Darn......It seems as though you are correct. Seeing how the FPU is primarily used for rendering it seems as though there will be no improvement except in the accuracy. Which although may speed up the process because of less error correction necessary. Even with that I just can't see there being huge performance gains just becasue they threw in 16 parity bits.

Well it seems as the Xeon makes more and more sense


Many modern processors support two additional data types: floating-point data and vector data. Each of these two data types has its own set of registers and its own execution unit(s). The following table compares all four data types in 32-bit and 64-bit processors:

Data Type Register Type Execution Unit x86 Width x86-64 Width
Integer GPR ALU 32 64
Address GPR ALU or AGU 32 64
Floating-point* FPR FPU 64 64
Vector VR VPU 128 128

*x87 uses 80-bit registers to do double-precision floating-point. The floats themselves are 64-bit, but the processor converts them to an internal, 80-bit format for increased precision when doing computations.

[Yi Fong Yu]

besides running NLE on *nix (which already has 64-bit support) there isn't a way to tell about performance yet. there has been no NLE performance tests performed on the current RC of Win XP-64bit. on *nix all i can think of is cinelerra (google it) and i dunno if is optimized for 64-bit, i mean you can take the source code and do it yourself but the team itself hasn't done it yet.

until XP-64bit goes GOLD and we see a FINAL version of it running on dual opteron 64-bit running a 64-bit optimized version of Adobe Premiere Pro 2? 3? and/or Vegas 5.5? 6? we won't know how it performs.

time-table wise listen to glenn, just get what you can buy now, don't worry about 64-bit... yet. here's some possible dates for 64-bit happenings:

2005 or 2006? for Windows XP-64 bit.
2008 or later for Adobe Premiere Pro 2? 3?
2008 or later for Vegas 6? 7?

as you can see, MS's release of XP x86-64bit will be heavily delayed til next year AT THE LEAST! i'll be very surprised if they release XP64 this year. even if they DO release it there are no 64-bit drivers and softwares to immediately take advantage of 64-bit. and even if they have it it won't be until 2005 that those drivers mature until a good point of stability. so 2005 is the year of XP64 if MS chooses so. otherwise i see 2006. and that's only a popular OS-support.

only after THAT os ruckus settles down will sony+adobe look at porting 32-bit software into 64-bit, which may not improve performance at all. it is only by starting from scratch to write a brand new 64-bit software will 64-bit truly shine. thus i predict that adobe's suite (including photoshop) will be ported from 32-bit into 64-bit by 2008 at the earliest (to release to public) but we won't see an adobe app written from scratch JUST for 64-bit until 2010 where we see the big performance leaps take off. same with sony.

having said that optimizing for opteron may all be for nought because Intel's power and influence is pretty mighty, they are very steep in multimedia software rendering. even though they have announced their own nocona (xeon 32/64-bit), the hardware isn't due to be widespread until 2005 or 2006. even with windows xp-64bit, it initially be INCOMPATIBLE with the nocona chip. only after testing will MS release a XP that is compatible with both opteron and nocona xeon. and by then it's probably 2007 or 2008. which is where we said adobe would've made software for opteron's x86-64. but being intel and how they can strong-arm, i think it could delay adobe+sony's releases until 2010.

so all and all, do you want to buy technology today that won't really be WIDELY and SIGNIFICANTLY utilized until 2008 at the earliest?

[Scott Osborne]

Yes thats what I was trying to get at....Whether 64 bit is a viable alt. at this present time.

As for Cinelerra there is no port for 64 bit. Infact I have a box running it. I don't think the community is ready to write a new kernal anytime soon. Infact it was only 2 or 3 builds ago that it finally became stable enough for casual use....I know someone currently working on a patch that will support backround rendering across a network with cinelerra. Once and if that becomes avaible then I will take a look at using it full time. Its a great app with lots of potential and a pretty good community.

The release date that I have heard of for XP 64 in Q1 2006. By that time we should be atleast a gen or two down the road with Cpu arch. so we will see how that fairs. However with the implemtation of PCI Xpress and new command Queing HDs I think we will see a need for 64 bit CPUs. If someone can convince the manufacturers that Video edting and HD are a killer app for the 64 bit arch. I think we will see companys like Adobe and Sony pressed to release a 64 bit enabled NLE.....Also we will be seeing how a NLE reacts to 64 bit because the next final Cut was supposedly a re-write for 64 bit.

[Yi Fong Yu]

yesh i have forgotten about the mac os x for fcp. since the g5 architect is ready for 64-bit i think mac os will charge ahead and start revamping most of their apps for 64-bit by 2005 or 2006. if anybody's gonna be charging ahead in terms of multimedia in the 64-bit world it'll be jobs+apple. that would so awesome. mac os x 64-bit with fcp 64-bit would be the app-killer!

[Jesse Bekas]

Win XP 64 will be released after XP Service Pack 2, slated for second half of 2004 (after summer). That is when Intel will jump on the bandwagon and release desktop 64bit processors, and start talking garbage about AMD again (who beat them to it). Since AMD released 64 bit inexpensively (cheaper than the new 32bit P4's), Intel will have no choice, but to do the same. Windows will be 64bit long before the 2006 Lonhorn release, and probably before Mac OS.

[Yi Fong Yu]

jesse, it has already been announced:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=15149

as to availability, who knows =).

[Scott Osborne]

XP 64 wont be released in 2004...Much like the next season of Sopranos, XP64 won't be around till 2006.

IF you think that Microsoft is going to hurry up development for ANYone you are sadly mistaken. Microsoft will continue to delay for as long as possiable.

As for Longhorn I am thinking it wont be around until 2008. Longhorn is a totally different op sys. Its a total re-write. Its like nothin MS has ever done before. And there is a lot of Controversy surrounding it. I seriously doubt that MS will make it there first 64 bit op sys. That would almost guarantee that no Home user would buy it until its totally required....I could see business adobting Longhorn but I have yet to see a compeling reason to upgrade. Its seems to me that MS is set on XP as there home user opsys of choice for quite a while. And remeber that MS sees us Content Creators and mulitmedia pros as a secondary group. They are going to write ANYTHING just for us. For all they care we can just switch to OSX we don't represent a big enough portion of the pie. Doubt me now but I would put money on that home users will not be looking at Longhorn until atleast 2010.

Going to start trouble with that one

[Jesse Bekas]

I understand a lot of people's gripes, and lack of expectations with Microsoft, but to think that XP64 won't be out until 2006, and Longhorn 2010 is ridiculous! XP64 has been in Beta (maybe alpha), and parts of Longhorn are being written now.

[Yi Fong Yu]

we've come quite a long way since the windows 9x days, when BSOD used to be the norm. nowadays if users are diligent enough to keep windows home or pro edition patched then they will not be subjected to BSODs, unless their hardware fails. i've not had a non-hardware-related BSOD ever since i've switched to XPP. it's a great product and i don't see anybody moving away from it anytime soon. even if longhorn came out this year or next no one would adopt it. there's not enough of a reason to (unless MS were bastards and took XP support away, unlikely 'til 2010 or later). as for XP64, like i said, who knows, as of right now it's all guesses until it goes gold... and as i said up above, EVEN if it is gold and shipping, so what????? you have no apps, no optimized 64-bit drivers written from the ground up and just nothing else compelling enough to move to it unless you have 64-bit application.

[Yi Fong Yu]

well SPEAK of the devil, here is an article describing 64-bit being delayed by MS yet again:

http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/...elays64_1.html

i would expect even more delays =).