Massive HD video editing project- need advice

Rogue_Apprentice

Rogue_Apprentice

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 6, 2010
Messages
309
Up until recently I have been the primary usage of my rig has been to play games and some occasional FAH. That is until however I was laid off from my "real" job and I had to either find something for my PC to do so my wife didn't question its need for existence in our home, and rightfully so with it doing nothing other than heating our basement. ;)

So this is when I decided to put the knowledge I had gained turning my parents mountain of home videos into DVD's so that they could actually watch them again and to preserve their "priceless" memories of me as a child, to work. I started doing it for others. I advertised on CL and other places and soon the word of mouth thing went gonzo and I was up to ears in VHS and Hi-8 tapes. Anyways before this turns into a novel I ended up meeting a guy who gives me tons and tons of HD footage to edit and then author to DVD. Lots of DVD's. 500 last month alone. I have been using Nero 10 ( I know EPIC FAIL) to do my editing and authoring. This is not cutting it and he saw that as well. He has since provided me with CS5 Master Collection. Besides the huge learning curve I am going through I am finding out my machine is not set up properly to do utilize CS5. This is where the massive knowledge of others who have gone before me come into play.

My specs on my machine are in my sig. I need to know what I should upgrade and what to do first. I am thinking more and tons of memory and a bigger RAID setup for the OS to start. Should I ditch the Green drive in favor of something faster? Should I upgrade my video cards? I would be willing to go down to a single card. Not doing much gaming anymore.:( I also am very happy with my motherboard, having come from a nightmarish ROG board but I am running out of SATA ports and would like to purchase one with more. Suggestions are welcome and thanks in advance for your wisdom Hard members.

Budget- $1000 to start
When? My GOD man now!
Where? I live in Michigan within driving distance of a Microcenter
Why? Because my very existence depends on satisfying this customer! :D
 
More RAM will help matters, so see if you can pick up two more 4GB set of the same RAM that you currently have. You'll then have 12GB of RAM, of which you can convert 4GB into a super-fast swap disk for your Adobe CS5 programs.

Since you "need" more SATA ports (for now, I'm taking your word on it), buy a SATA II (or SATA III) card with more ports.

If you really want to go with faster/larger drives for a RAID 0 setup, replace the Raptors with two of either the WD WD5000AAKS or the Samsung F3 HD502HJ drives. Yes, seriously. Both of those drives use a single-latter 500GB setup that makes either of them faster than your (second-gen?) Raptors. Micro Center also has the HD502HJ available for $45 (but check to see whether your local store has any in stock).

If you want to sell parts in order to recoup some of your "losses," go ahead and sell one of the GTX 260s and your Raptors (if you follow my advice, but not before erasing them with DBAN). As a storage packrat myself, I'd be torn to choose between selling the 750GB Caviar Black and the 2TB Caviar Green; out of the two, however, the extra storage capacity of the Caviar Green makes it more "valuable" for your tasks.
 
You don't need to upgrade your video card at all since you can do this workaround that'll allow you to actually use your video card in Adobe CS5
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1532552

You may have to disable SLI mode in order to use the GTX 260 well in CS5.

I concur with the rest of tiraides' recommendations. I recommend this SATA card with future expansion in mind:
$100 - SuperMicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 PCI-Ex4 8 Port SATA Controller Card
$120 - Supermicro AOC-USAS-L8i PCI-Ex8 8 Port SATA Controller Card
$16 - 3ware SFF-8087 to Multi-lane SATA Forward Break-out Cable (You will need this for either card).
 
Danny Bui said:
You don't need to upgrade your video card at all since you can do this workaround that'll allow you to actually use your video card in Adobe CS5
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1532552

You may have to disable SLI mode in order to use the GTX 260 well in CS5.
Click to expand...

QFT. It is not worth the extra cost to upgrade that GTX 260 to a card that's officially supported in CS5's MPE for GPU acceleration. (By the way, the GTX 260 is functionally equivalent to a Quadro FX 3800 or FX 4800, which are on Adobe's official GPU support list from the original release of Premiere Pro CS5.) But since I personally already have a GTX 470 (which is one of the three new GPUs added to Adobe's official GPU support list for MPE as of the latest 5.0.2 update), I'm all set for the foreseeable future.
 
tiraids- Thanks so much. I am a storage pack rat myself and probably won't get rid of the 2TB, in fact I will be getting another soon as I very happy with its performance. For some reason my 750 is a huge disappointment. Its slow and has never worked as well as advertised. As far as the RAID setup is concerned. Your right they are older but for $30 each I can't complain and I think I will wait for SSD's to come down a little more by Thanksgiving and order a couple of those for my OS. Ram, I found this.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001O0DR28/ref=ord_cart_shr?ie=UTF8&m=AHB06BQJ8PXH8

Danny- I used the guide and my 260 is working now! Thank you so much. Looking into card and breakout cables.
 
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Avoid that RAM kit for two reasons:

1) OCZ RAM runs at 1.65V or higher. 1.65V is the limit for safe operation with Intel's Socket 1156 and 1366 processors. There are plenty of DDR3 kits that run at 1.5V to 1.6V; go with one of those instead.

2) Buying a large kit like that (with six 2GB sticks) is risky. If even one stick goes bad, you have to return the entire set for RMA. Plus, on many occasions, you could find two 3x2GB or three 2x2GB kits for less together than one 6x2GB set by itself.

Unless the SSD rumor comes true and newer, cheaper SSDs arrive around the holiday season, I wouldn't rely on them in RAID. Additionally, running two or more SSDs in RAID disables the TRIM feature on each SSD, and the loss of TRIM could negatively impact their overall performance. Stick with one good SSD if you could afford it; otherwise, consider my earlier recommendation.

Part of the reason behind the Caviar Black's poor performance is that it uses three 250GB drive platters whereas many of today's recommended HDDs now use 500GB drive platters. I believe that the Caviar Green uses four 500GB drive platters despite its (approximate) 5900rpm speed.
 
Out of curiosity Rogue Apprentice what's your workflow like? What programs/functions are you doing on a daily basis with CS5?
 
sugosugita said:
Out of curiosity Rogue Apprentice what's your workflow like? What programs/functions are you doing on a daily basis with CS5?
Click to expand...

I just got it last week so I am still in the learning stage. I however will be taking in footage from a Sony Professional HVR-A1U and editing it in Premiere and doing my DVD authoring in Encore. I'm sure I will be using Photoshop and After Effects at some point as well also.

Pulled the trigger on this today too.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145224
 
Rogue_Apprentice said:
Pulled the trigger on this today too.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145224
Click to expand...

OH NO!!! Don't let Danny Bui see you with those.....LOL just kidding. I added those to a proposed build last month and he shot them down. They're great for certain applications though.

Encore and AfterEffects looks pretty cool. I was on a mac until last month so I was using Final Cut Pro...good to know Adobe has some tools out there besides the old Photoshop/Illustrator suite.
 
I actually don't see anything really wrong with your current setup.
More ram certainly won't hurt and will help with After Effects when you start using it.

What issues are you having with editing the HDV footage from the camera?
 
Rogue_Apprentice said:
Pulled the trigger on this today too.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145224
Click to expand...
Yeah that was not good of a buy. Fairly sure you wouldn't have noticed any real world difference between that Dominator RAM and this G.Skill set:
$120 - G.Skill F3-10666CL9T-6GBNQ 3 x 2GB DDR3 1333 RAM

Any chance of you being able to cancel the order?
sugosugita said:
OH NO!!! Don't let Danny Bui see you with those.....LOL just kidding. I added those to a proposed build last month and he shot them down. They're great for certain applications though.
Click to expand...
LOL! If you have information showing that the Dominator RAM is worth the extra $70 over that G.Skill set, I would love to see it.
 
Danny Bui said:
Yeah that was not good of a buy. Fairly sure you wouldn't have noticed any real world difference between that Dominator RAM and this G.Skill set:
$120 - G.Skill F3-10666CL9T-6GBNQ 3 x 2GB DDR3 1333 RAM

Any chance of you being able to cancel the order?

LOL! If you have information showing that the Dominator RAM is worth the extra $70 over that G.Skill set, I would love to see it.
Click to expand...

LOL. Oh no! I bought this set for several reasons and you guys can tell me if I'm nuts or not but this is my thinking.

I looked at user reviews. 437 for the Dominator set vs 130 for the GSkill set. Also a better overal rating. I get nervous when I see people talking about dead sticks. My luck I would get a set with one.

Second reason, I have already owned 2 other, albeit DDR2, sets of Corsair memory with no problems whatsoever.

Third, and this may seem trivial but as money wasn't an issue the Dominator set looks IMHO way cooler. ;) I hate red. Oh and the gold OCZ set. Really? Gold OCZ? Isn't that for '84 Pontiacs? Just my attempt at humor. I am sure the OCZ set is a fine performer as well.

Lastly read my next to Zepher

Zepher- hitting 90% usage while using Premiere and my current Ram is $25 dollar a stick cheap ass Crucial stuff I got from Microcenter on a whim my last trip there.
 
Rogue_Apprentice said:
LOL. Oh no! I bought this set for several reasons and you guys can tell me if I'm nuts or not but this is my thinking.

I looked at user reviews. 437 for the Dominator set vs 130 for the GSkill set. Also a better overal rating. I get nervous when I see people talking about dead sticks. My luck I would get a set with one.

Second reason, I have already owned 2 other, albeit DDR2, sets of Corsair memory with no problems whatsoever.

Third, and this may seem trivial but as money wasn't an issue the Dominator set looks IMHO way cooler. ;) I hate red. Oh and the gold OCZ set. Really? Gold OCZ? Isn't that for '84 Pontiacs? Just my attempt at humor. I am sure the OCZ set is a fine performer as well.

Lastly read my next to Zepher

Zepher- hitting 90% usage while using Premiere and my current Ram is $25 dollar a stick cheap ass Crucial stuff I got from Microcenter on a whim my last trip there.
Click to expand...

Well, most of the Newegg user reviews are not to be trusted simply because most such reviewers have absolutely nothing at all whatsoever to compare against.
 
First reason is not so good for the reason that E4g1e provided.

I can buy the second reason. Though not good enough IMO to justify $70. You still could have gotten a cheaper Corsair set like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145259

Still would have been a better buy than the Corsair Dominators.

Third reason is just nuts. Fancy looking heatsinks that do jack shit aren't worth the extra $55 to $75 IMO.
 
Danny Bui said:
First reason is not so good for the reason that E4g1e provided.

I can buy the second reason. Though not good enough IMO to justify $70. You still could have gotten a cheaper Corsair set like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145259

Still would have been a better buy than the Corsair Dominators.

Third reason is just nuts. Fancy looking heatsinks that do jack shit aren't worth the extra $55 to $75 IMO.
Click to expand...

As I said money wasn't an issue. But I get what your sayin.
 
Danny Bui said:
First reason is not so good for the reason that E4g1e provided.
Click to expand...

That is exactly why I am not posting reviews unless or until I acquire enough models in the same class to compare a given product with. And like I said, more than 85% of Newegg user reviews are totally worthless (by my estimation).
 
Better yet, follow the reviews made by enthusiast sites like here. You can find a better consensus of what's good and what's not.
 
damn. I feel like a traitor now Rogue. sorry for selling you out, even if it was unintentional.

For what it's worth, I think they look badass.
;-):)
 
sugosugita said:
damn. I feel like a traitor now Rogue. sorry for selling you out, even if it was unintentional.

For what it's worth, I think they look badass.
;-):)
Click to expand...

No big deal. Everyone has a right to their opinion and in the end the buyer still has to make a choice that they can live with. I think they look badass as well. I've been doing pretty good lately so the cost thing really isn't a big deal.
 
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