[XPS_emc9]

I am sure I have read about setting up a Windows machine just for video editing. But I can't find it now. Any how my question is how do I make my computer optimized for video work. I seem to keep getting irregular results and wanted to know how to set up the best. I have set up a separate hardware profile and tried to shut down most of the regular office software with a second user named MyDVD. My aim is to put TV and VCR movies over to DVD. Some are up to three hours air time and with DTV-HD, Harry Potter is at 19 GB.

Roxio EMC 9 Suite

my machine is a Dell XPS 400 running stable for two years.
XP_SP2 + Media Center 2005 ( I do not use the Media Center software)
Pentium D 2.8 Ghz
3 GB 2.79 Ghz RAM
C: 144 GB
E: 350 GB

Thank you all

Tom

[Jim_Hardin]

I would get a larger HD for your C:\ and install XP w/o Media Center. To be honest, I have never used Media Center and have only seen problems with it… If someone wants to post a list of its benefits, please do.

But in reality you just need to make sure the PC is left alone and leave itself alone during rendering.

Your video card should be robust enough to support Hardware Render (mine is not).

EMC 9 & 10 do not really do HD well. They can convert it down to Standard Def DVD but they don't really output to burning very well.

But no matter what your processing time, render/burn, is still going to be about a 1:1 ratio. 1 hour movie takes 1 hour to render/burn, maybe a little better but not much.

[XPS_emc9]

Thank you for the your time Jim.
I only have the Radeon X300 SE 128 that came with the computer. I do have a Radeon X1300 that I could put in. It had an issue with the TV out port so I took it back out. Does the software work automatically with the video card because I don't remember selecting hardware rendering.

Also do I need the ATI control software running or is it unnecessary also?

I have 32 processes running when I am in the video editing mode is that still too much?

How do I get the Media Center off the computer, I don't ever use it.

[gi7omy]

To remove Media Centre you would really need a new bootable CD

You can make one (and also slipstream drivers, CD key, SP3 and anything else into it) and remove the sections you don't want installed

http://www.nliteos.com/

[XPS_emc9]

gi7omy,
Thanks for the how to. It is in the direction I am heading for a more efficient machine. But since I am trying to get video editing going already, I don't think this is the right time for me to learn about modifying the OS. I have other uses for the computer that would not allow an irregular OS.

Tom

[gi7omy]

Oh the OS is totally regular - you just drop bits you know you don't want (and it will also let you slipstream your drivers into it so you don't have to mess round afterwards getting and installing them later)

You 'make' it by copying off your original XP CD and the Service Pack - it will automatically add that if you tell it to so that when you boot up, the SP is already there (you can also slipstream in any hotfixes that may have come along but that's a bit of a pain collecting them first

[Jim_Hardin]

Before messing with XP I would run the system for a time and see how it works.

To see what you are using for Render, open VideoWave or MyDVD and look under Tools – Options. (default is hardware as long as the program thinks the card is OK)

The advantage of Hardware Rendering is that you can use 3D transitions and it should be faster.

My card passes the "Test" however the results are unacceptable. I get the well known blurring effect when there is motion or panning in the scene.

In V9, Hardware was slightly faster in rendering, but with that effect. In V10 I don't know about render speed but it brings the rest of the programs down to the speed of a snail!!! To go from Add Movie to the appearance of the selector 7 to 10 seconds. In V10 there is a warning when Hardware is selected and for my PC it should be heeded.

[XPS_emc9]

I checked Videowave as you suggested and it shows hardware selected. When I did the test it showed 134 FPS average with a blip of 74 FPS. You suggested a larger hard drive. Have you used the Roxio backup software to do a system move?

[XPS_emc9]

I changed out the video card to a Radeon X1300 Pro 256 and the test numbers doubled but the blip was still there. Should I see the blip in the test average?

[grandpabruce]

I changed out the video card to a Radeon X1300 Pro 256 and the test numbers doubled but the blip was still there. Should I see the blip in the test average?

Yes, but it isn't a blip. The first part of the test is Render only, and the second part of the test is Render and Copy.

[XPS_emc9]

Hey Gi7omy,
As I was talking about making system changes earlier. When I changed out my video card I did the little card test in MyDVD-options.
It showed a faster time with the new card as I had hoped. BUT in doing that same test once in my office configuration and once in my editing configuration, it showed a much faster avg FPS in the office mode than in the editing mode. So evidently when I set the editing config up I removed something that I should not have. My aim was to make things faster and I made them slower. I guess I will have to go back and delete one item at a time and test to see what it was that caused the slow down.

Thanks GrandpaBruce

I have run that test 4 times now and never noticed the display change.
With the X1300 card I am getting around 600 FPS in the render only and a peek of 350 FPS in render and copy.
With the X1300 card I noticed the average number of the render and copy section ramp up to the peek.

I had not seen that characteristic with the X300, it seemed to hover around the same numbers.

[sknis]

Hey Gi7omy,
As I was talking about making system changes earlier. When I changed out my video card I did the little card test in MyDVD-options.
It showed a faster time with the new card as I had hoped. BUT in doing that same test once in my office configuration and once in my editing configuration, it showed a much faster avg FPS in the office mode than in the editing mode. So evidently when I set the editing config up I removed something that I should not have. My aim was to make things faster and I made them slower. I guess I will have to go back and delete one item at a time and test to see what it was that caused the slow down.

Thanks GrandpaBruce

I have run that test 4 times now and never noticed the display change.
With the X1300 card I am getting around 600 FPS in the render only and a peek of 350 FPS in render and copy.
With the X1300 card I noticed the average number of the render and copy section ramp up to the peek.

I had not seen that characteristic with the X300, it seemed to hover around the same numbers.

There are three settings that seem to have major impact on video rendering. Using the card's control panel, make sure the card is set to best performance and not best appearance, second make sure that both anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering are set to "application controlled" or "use application settings".

The numbers are relative and don't tell you a lot. People do video rendering just fine with lower numbers. FYI my 1950 gives numbers in your range and I have had no problems with capturing and editing HD video. I do notice some pixilation with the newly captured or the edited video using WMP but none with VLC or CinePlayer.

This post has been edited by sknis: 07 August 2008 - 05:50 AM

[XPS_emc9]

Thank you Sknis. I found the settings you talked about and they were already where you suggested they should be.

Jim suggested a larger C: . That will probably have to wait a while. But how much free space should I have? Lets say as a percentage of the mpeg file size?