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RAID is soooo much easier to do these days as compared to when it first debuted. In fact, many middle-of-the-road motherboards support RAID right out of the box: Just plug in 2 or more drives and set a few things in the BIOS, etc and you're ready to go. The new "lightning" interface drives make it even easier, although not that many motherboards support it out of the box yet.
But yeah, if you're doing this professionally or semi-professionally it's best to keep it as simple as possible and not clog up your system with unnecessary programs that can waste space and even interfere/conflict with your main software, whatever that might be. Basically, we're talking about a dedicated workstation for editing.
Russell1967
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Yeah, true. Cases and power supplies, etc aren't super expensive and it's nice to have new parts under warranty, etc.
There are several free (open source) or free-for-non-commercial-use programs out there that can 'migrate' your current OS partition to a new drive without changing anything or having to re-install anything. All you do is install the new drive as a secondary drive, run the migration program which will move everything from the old OS drive (and its installed programs, etc) to the new one and set its boot flag to 'Yes'*. Then you shut down the system, install the new one in place of the old one and start the computer back up. Worked like a charm for me. ***OF COURSE IT'S ALWAYS A GOOD IDEA TO BACKUP YOUR SYSTEM BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING LIKE THIS. I recommend the free-for-personal-use 'Macrium Reflect' to make an image backup of your main system disk. It's easy to use and bootable (The download, if I remember correctly, is an ISO file that you burn to disk).***
(* = You might want to clear the boot flag on the original drive so Windows doesn't get confused with two boot drives, although usually it boots the FIRST bootable drive it finds).
Russell1967
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Nice system! It uses the 6-core i7 4930K, which is equivalent to 6 processors. And the 'K' on the i7 indicates that it is 'unlocked' for overclocking (which I do NOT recommend in most cases, unless you're going to be over-clocking 15% or less. And in that case, is it really worth the potential trouble?). I believe PD can take advantage of multiple threads (processor cores in this case), 6 instead of 4 is good.
Remember that SOME of your current computer parts may be able to be used on the new system, saving you money. For example, if your system has a 500W power supply or higher, you can probably utilize that. System RAM, unfortunately, is not backward compaitble so you can't plug in your DDR2 memory into the DDR3 slot. Granted, DDR3 has large speed advantages so you wouldn't get the best performance, but anyway...
You may be able to use your case if it's not proprietary (Some, like certain HP desktops, etc, have a non ATX style arrangement so you can't use other motherboards).
Anyway, let us know how your build goes. If this is your first build, just take it slooow. One step at a time. If you run into an obstacle, stop, check everything you did and, if necessary, go online and research the problem/solution.
Good luck!
Russell1967
p.s. The link is clickable in the final post, so no copy/paste is necessary.
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$1500? Is this a super gaming system? You can build a VERY fast system with a top-of-the-line video card, i7 processor, loaded memory and the works for a lot less than that.
Whoa, did you say 16 processors? Is this a motherboard that supports dual 8-core processors or 4 quad-core processors or what? If so, rock on! If not, explain what you mean. (99% of non-server motherboards support only one processor, perhaps with 2,4,6 or 8 cores).
Russell1967
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I've found that to be true. And it makes sense, too, because the OS is CONSTANTLY accessing the hard drive - even when you are essentially doing nothing with your app(s). The other reason is that, in the case of PD, when you are rendering a project, the program is basically reading from your source drive, processing that info (rendering) and then writing the output to the same drive. And since those two locations - the source 'folder' and the destination folder - are not necessarily close to each other on the drive, the drive head has to go back and forth continuously between those two points. Not only does this slow your system down, but it puts more wear and tear on your hard drive. This applies to mechanical hard drives. SSD or RAM drives drives can randomly access any area of its storage (RAM) at any time and so the wear and tear is virtually non-existent (The flash memory used by SSD drives does eventually start breaking down, but that's another matter).
Because of the random access nature - and speed - of SSD drives, you can put your OS and PD source files on the same drive and still see large performance gains. Here's what I do: Since I only have a 250GB SSD in addition to my 3 mechanical drives, I only have about 50GB of free space on the SSD once I migrated my OS from my old mechanical OS drive to the new SSD drive with all of my installed programs, etc. So, I COPY (keep the originals in a safe place, always) my source files - all of them, including audio tracks, subtitles, whatever - to a folder on my SSD drive during the render. Once everything is done I delete the copies. This seems to have a significant impact on overall speed of PD, especially on HiDef types of projects.
Lots of system RAM is helpful, too. In fact, if you have a lot of it you can get a program such as DataRam's RAM-Disk (free for non-commercial use but limited to 4GB of 'storage') and use your own system RAM as an extra drive! And system RAM is even faster than SSD memory - by a LOT (DDR3 has a throughput rate of 6400 megabytes per second - Really fast SSDs have a rate of between 500 and 900 megabytes)! One downside to this approach is that system RAM is volatile - It will cleared when you shut the system down. However, DataRam's Ram-Disk has an option where it can copy its contents to your physical hard drive when you go to shut down and then do the opposite when you boot back up (copy it back into RAM). This can make shutdowns and reboots take a bit longer, but it may be worth it. [note: Windows 7 Home Premium and lower can only access 16GB of memory - no matter how much RAM you actually have installed. I found this out the hard way. You need Windows 7 Professional or higher to have access to all of it (up to 192GB!). If you have a 32 bit OS, then you will be limited to 4GB no matter what.]
Anyway, yes, I would highly recommend an additional drive for source files. If you instead migrate your OS to the SSD and use your old mechanical drive for the source files you will not only make PD faster, but your overall system will be much faster as well, including other programs you have. Loading of programs, for example, is virtually instantaneous. If I had another SDD for source files only, I'd be in heaven!
Russell1967
p.s. DataRam's RAMDisk can be found here: http://memory.dataram.com/products-and-services/software/ramdisk (scroll down about halfway and click on the 'RAMDisk Lite' download button under the 'Personal Use Software' section).
p.p.s. The non-free version of the personal use RAMDisks from DataRam comes in 4 'flavors': 12GB, 24GB, 32GB and 64GB. The 12GB (which is more than I would probably need in 95% of projects) is only $9.99. Although it looks like it's a physical product on the website, it is actually just a program that supports a certain amount of RAM disk storage.
p.p.p.s. (Whew!) There's a totally free RAM disk program that supports more than 4GB called ImDisk. It can be found here: http://www.ltr-data.se/opencode.html/#ImDisk
I don't know anything about it, but it may be worth a look if you don't have the $$ for the other RamDisk option.
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I'm with BarryTheCrab on this one. The drive that PD is accessing the most during a render - in this case the one with the source video files on it - should be the fastest one you have access to: Your local system drive(s). With a quad core processor and 8GB of RAM you should do fine with rendering speed (8mm is standard definition, so super high amounts of RAM aren't as critical as with HD source files). Three to four hours for each file seems like a lot of time to me to render a single SD file: Probably because of the time it takes to access the cloud drive (That cloud drive could literally be thousands of miles away from you!).
If I were you, I'd place those source files on your local drive - a separate physical drive from your system drive if possible, not just a different partition on the same drive - and go from there. If you only have one physical hard drive in your system I would seriously consider buying an addition one just for projects such as this. Nowadays you can buy 1TB hard drives for well under $100 and really fast ones too! If you do that, I'd be willing to bet that your rendering times will be a quarter or less of the original time. I just bought an SSD (Solid State Drive - no moving parts) and the overall system speed is WAY faster than it was before. I move my source files to that drive at the beginning of the project and remove them when everything is done. The whole editing and rendering process is soooo much better now.
Anyway, good luck!
Russell1967
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Well, cloud drives are not really 'memory', but storage. I suppose you could, in theory, use cloud storage as some sort of virtual memory - but I imagine it would be excruciatingly slow.
How much physical memory (RAM) do you have in your system? What kind of videos are you rendering (resolution, length, etc). And when you say you've been rendering for two days, you don't mean you've been rendering for 48 hours I hope!
Russell1967
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True, but slightly related to Cyberlink (although not PowerDirector...).
Anyway, moving on...
Russell1967
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Why, that's Volcanic Seismic Techtonics, of course! Actually, it's Visual Studio Technology, an open source way to expand the capabilities of audio editors and the like.
As far as importing VSTs, it should be as easy as accessing 'Effects->VST->Import VST Effect' from the top menu.
There are lots of free VSTs around the internet. Google is your friend!
Russell1967
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"Saves a lot of fiddling around with CDs at 79 mph!"
Well, at least you're not driving 80... LOL
Wave Editor is a pretty basic audio editor, so I wouldn't expect it to be included in there, but I'd be surprised if de-clipping isn't included in Audio Director - possibly under a different name. I just checked Wave Editor and it isn't there.
Russell1967
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OSes can be so fickle. I have only had PD12 freeze on me one or two times, and other people have regular freezes. Having a quick look at your system specs shows that you certainly aren't using a mom & pop email machine, so who knows what it can be? Do you have other programs that you use regularly that freeze a lot?
On another note, your mention of Audio Director made me think of the Wave Editor that comes with PD12: Why does it strip the ID3 tag info off of MP3s when you import them, even if you're going to export them again as MP3s? I was modifying the volume levels of some MP3s I had - a lot of them - and was chagrined to discover that all of the tag info had been removed. Had to find a free MP3 tag editor to re-insert the info into EACH file again. Time consuming, but it worked. Would be nice if "Keep ID3 Tag info" was one of the options in Wave Editor...
Russell1967
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@BillyR: Was PD12 installed on the old C drive and did it freeze at that time, or did the freezes start when you imaged the old C onto the new C? That shouldn't have made any difference as it's the same thing from the OS's point of view. Any other new hardware or software additions or changes recently that may have coincided with the freezes?
Russell1967
p.s. Speaking of SSD drives, there seem to be two main types - SLC [single level cell] and MLC [multi-level cell] (There's also TLC, which is really MLC with 3 cells instead of 2 [triple level cell]). SLC is more reliable and faster than MLC or TLC, but holy cow is it more expensive! Intel has a 32GB (yes, only 32) that is about $425US. These are designed for super critical environments that have to be super fast and super reliable. But anyways, MLC drives have come a long way and they are getting close to the performance of SLC drives at 1/10th the price.
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Hmmm... On mine, my hard drive is a 5.9 (Boo!) while everything else is 7.3 to 7.6. Replacing the hard drive should make it the top scoring element, which would make the 7.3's the new "low". My graphics card is an ATI HD 4850 w/1GB: A few years old, but scores reasonably well. I'll bet if I OC'd my processor and replaced my graphics card with something more recent I could score close to a 7.9, but that's a lot of money just for a better score. If it meets my needs, that's good enough for me!
Also, does that SSD (Crucial) drive have a high speed RAM buffer (in addition to the core memory used for storage) and/or other facilities to speed up reading/writing? What is that drive rated as far as max read/write rates and iops? There may be some setting you can adjust to get better performance.
Russell1967
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Unless you're on the Jungle Cruise at Walt Disney World they're all real! It's not uncommon in some areas (mainly out in the "boonies") to see alligators crossing the street or just laying on the side of the road warming up. They rarely bother anyone and there are surprisingly few reports of attacks, even in the areas where they are more common (Near rivers or freshwater lakes, etc). Now, if you're air boat riding out in the swamps, then they're all over the place. But even there, they pretty much do what they can to get out of your area.
Gatorland Zoo is near where I live, and they have all the alligators you could ever want to see in your life!
Russell1967
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Yep, you're right, It's Phantom Drive. Thanks for the clarification. I've already used it several times to test a few burn projects. Works like a charm! And very simple to understand.
Another tool which I have purchased, but not received yet, is a Samsung 250GB SSD drive. Every site I looked at that had reviews for this drive gave it 5 stars. I'm looking forward to giving this drive a test drive with rendering a large project. I'll let you know how it goes.
Russell1967
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I've had problems with Lite-On as well over the years - I guess you get what you pay for (they're often the cheapest non-generic models you can get). I steer clear of Lite-On the same way I steer clear of any Lexmark printers (bought 3 over the years and all of them had problems), Pinnacle NLE apps (had 3 different versions and all of them crashed on a regular basis - Plus I never liked the idea that any of the good features were an extra $5 here and $10 there...), etc.
LG (burners), Samsung (monitors), Sony (SD Camcorders), Canon (HD camcorders) and Gigabyte (motherboards) have all been good to me, to name a few.
Go with what you trust. Some may be a bit more expensive than their peers, like Sony, but I can't honestly say they weren't worth it.
Russell1967
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Thanks for the answer(s) concerning WTV and DVR-MS everyone. I don't really use my PC for home entertainment so-to-speak, so I guess that's why I've never heard of these formats.
Russell1967
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Yeah, it looks like Windows 8 is the new "Vista". I hear MS is going to skip the next upgrade to Windows 8.x and go directly to Windows 9 to distance themselves from 8. (Rumor has it that they're bringing back the start menu)
On the topic of audio sync problems, I can't believe how common this phenomenon is in this day and age. Can't we figure this one out, tech guys? I can't tell you how many times I've watched videos on the internet, mainly Youtube, where the sound is not just out of sync, but WAAAAY out of sync - like several seconds out of sync. Audio streams within the video IMHO should have periodic keyframes (not the same as motion-type keyframes in PD, but higher quality frames spaced out within the compressed video stream) that have the time stamp of their position in the video so that out-of-sync issues don't happen, or if they do, they would quickly get re-synced automatically by the player software. I use to get maddening sync issues when capturing within Pinnacle Studio. Turns out my computer wasn't up to the task of capturing directly in the higher compression modes, so I changed to the lesser compressed formats - but much much larger files - and then converted to the higher compressed formats later.
Anyway, DVR-MS and .wtv are unknown formats to me. Are these European formats?
Russell1967
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Your video chipset may be to blame, as Intel is not known for having fast video chips (They make great CPUs, but not video chips). Your chipset is rated here: http://videocardbenchmark.net/video_lookup.php?gpu=Intel+HD+4600&id=2451
Also, if you're using the integrated video on the i7, I don't know how much dedicated video memory is available for that purpose or what its speed is. (You'd think that on-chip video would be the fastest possible solution since there's no bus traffic to worry about, but so far both Intel and AMD's CPU+Video chipsets can not compare with their better dedicated video cards.)
You can find a decent PCIe x16 video card for around $100 if you look hard enough, and $200 will get you one with 2 gigs or more of memory and plenty of speed, sli (nvidia) or crossfire-x (AMD) capability, too.
Let us know how you make out.
Russell1967
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Yeah, way off topic, but...
Actually, I actually still do have my Commodore 64 (and the original box!) and fired it up this morning just for the heck of it and it worked! Hard to believe we used to have fun with only 38911 bytes of BASIC ram... My 1541 disk drive also worked! I have about 100 or so old games on floppy, tried about 10 (they take sooooooo long to load) and 6 of them seemed to work. Still impressive! The other 4 bombed out (Read errors or locked up the machine).
Emulators, such as the super excellent CCS64, make this unnecessary and it's nice to be able to load games in less than ONE second instead of 5 minutes! I have over 2000 C64 disk images on my hard drive that I "found" online... Ah, memories!
Ok, back to video editing!
Russell1967
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An option that I use, in addition to what you do (saving to multiple locations) is saving to an external USB drive that is not always connected. I have a 1TB USB 3.0 drive that I use for backups that is only ever connected for that purpose and is kept in a cool dry place when not in use. But even this is not foolproof. If you think about it, a 1TB drive has over 8 TRILLION individual magnetic 'spots' on its surface(s), so it is amazing that it can hold that at greater than 99.5% accuracy for years of use at a time.
I wonder if my old Commodore 64 floppy disks in the closet still work?...
Russell1967
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