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Hi.

I'm just getting into doing video on my PC. Haven't done this before, apart
from a little messing around with captured footage. My two main interests
are recording TV programs for burning to DVD (ie, basic VCR function), and
making short movies with music. The music vids would involve at least some
cutting and splicing, possibly graphical overlays, and the dubbing of music
and sound effects.

I'd appreciate some guidance on PC specs to make this doable. My basic
approach is to use my desktop machine to process the video files, while
having the actual files on a separate file server. Machine specs...

Desktop PC.
Win2K, 1.2GHz Athlon with 1GB SDRAM. Hard disk is currently a 30GB 5400rpm
jobbie. I've been using ULead Video Studio 4 to render, and it seems to take
about 5-6 times the video length to get the job done.

Server.
Linux, 2.4GHz AMD Sempron, 256MB DDR RAM. Current disk is 40GB 7200rpm,
about to be upgraded to 80GB system disk, and 160GB data disk, both 7200rpm.
The desktop will eventually get the server's current 40GB 7200rpm disk.


The desktop seems rather slow for rendering - what is the limiting factor at
present? I imagine 1GB of RAM is pretty decent, so will a faster CPU improve
the render time, or is disk speed the main issue? (I haven't rendered to the
server's faster disk yet, although it would be fair to say that moving data
to/from the server is generally faster than using the desktop's local disk.)

If the 1.2GHz Athlon is too slow, what is a sensible spec for the desktop's
CPU and memory? (A CPU upgrade will entail a motherboard upgrade, which will
entail chainging to DDR memory!)

TIA,


--
Wally
www.artbywally.com
www.wally.myby.co.uk

On Sat, 1 Jan 2005 16:11:03 -0000, "Wally" <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>Hi.
>
>I'm just getting into doing video on my PC. Haven't done this before, apart
>from a little messing around with captured footage. My two main interests
>are recording TV programs for burning to DVD (ie, basic VCR function), and
>making short movies with music. The music vids would involve at least some
>cutting and splicing, possibly graphical overlays, and the dubbing of music
>and sound effects.
>
>I'd appreciate some guidance on PC specs to make this doable. My basic
>approach is to use my desktop machine to process the video files, while
>having the actual files on a separate file server. Machine specs...

I've got a 1.7 athlon here, and it struggles to capture *and* encode
full screen TV card (PVR) video at the same tim, getting frame loss.

Generally I'm encoding directly to WMV about 1/4 screen resolution
(somewhere near VHS I guess), or capturing full screen to raw AVI and
encoding later.

So my thoughts are a 1.2ghz is probably going to conk out on this
task.

>Desktop PC.
>Win2K, 1.2GHz Athlon with 1GB SDRAM. Hard disk is currently a 30GB 5400rpm

You'll need another drive. Probably 120GB is a fair size, and it'll
almost certainly need to be a 7200rpm with a big cache.

Keep programs off the drive, just use it for data. Make sure it stays
defragmented regularly too. You might be able to get a firewire drive
in an an enclosure which would let you daisy chain several drives over
time if needed.

>jobbie. I've been using ULead Video Studio 4 to render, and it seems to take
>about 5-6 times the video length to get the job done.

Sound about right. Offline stuff can be left to chug whle you make a
brew, so it's less of a problem rendering than capturing from a TV
card.

Neil Smith [MVP Digital Media] wrote:

> I've got a 1.7 athlon here, and it struggles to capture *and* encode
> full screen TV card (PVR) video at the same tim, getting frame loss.

What resolution does your card's full screen mode give? Mine does 768x576.


> Generally I'm encoding directly to WMV about 1/4 screen resolution
> (somewhere near VHS I guess), or capturing full screen to raw AVI and
> encoding later.
>
> So my thoughts are a 1.2ghz is probably going to conk out on this
> task.

I've since been fiddling about a bit, trying a render of the same file I
tried previously on the local disk. It would appear that the CPU is the
bottleneck. It was running maxed out, while only 330MB of memory was being
used. Lots of refreshes in Windows Explorer suggested that the rate of
writing to the disk was pretty low.


> You'll need another drive. Probably 120GB is a fair size, and it'll
> almost certainly need to be a 7200rpm with a big cache. ...

As I said, I'm planning to keep the data on a dedicated 160GB drive on a
server.


>> jobbie. I've been using ULead Video Studio 4 to render, and it seems
>> to take about 5-6 times the video length to get the job done.

> Sound about right. Offline stuff can be left to chug whle you make a
> brew, so it's less of a problem rendering than capturing from a TV
> card.

My TV card captures have been a bit hit-or-miss so far - still trying to
work out what resolutions and stuff I should be using (for eventually
burning to DVD), and which encoder, if any. The TV card is a Pinnacle PCTV
Rave cheapie, with stereo audio coming directly from the cable TV box's
scart outputs.


--
Wally
www.artbywally.com
www.wally.myby.co.uk

On Sat, 1 Jan 2005 19:17:36 -0000, "Wally" <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>Neil Smith [MVP Digital Media] wrote:
>
>> I've got a 1.7 athlon here, and it struggles to capture *and* encode
>> full screen TV card (PVR) video at the same tim, getting frame loss.
>
>What resolution does your card's full screen mode give? Mine does 768x576.

That's right (UK PAL-I). It's a Leadtek winfast DV2000 if that helps

>My TV card captures have been a bit hit-or-miss so far - still trying to
>work out what resolutions and stuff I should be using (for eventually
>burning to DVD), and which encoder, if any. The TV card is a Pinnacle PCTV
>Rave cheapie, with stereo audio coming directly from the cable TV box's
>scart outputs.

Neil Smith [MVP Digital Media] wrote:

>> What resolution does your card's full screen mode give? Mine does
>> 768x576.

> That's right (UK PAL-I). It's a Leadtek winfast DV2000 if that helps

Is this resolution okay for burning to DVD, or does it need to be converted
first? I had a look at DigitalFAQ.com, but it doesn't seem to cover
768x576 - it talks about 720x480.

Some of my attempts to make a DVD (using one of the CIF-type lower
resolutions) resulted in the Pinnacle software saying that the MPEG aspect
ratio was wrong. I'm not sure at present how to be sure that the resolution
I capture at will be okay for output to DVD - DigitalFAQ's stuff about lower
resolutions listed numbers that didn't match with those from my TV card.


--
Wally
www.artbywally.com
www.wally.myby.co.uk

"Wally" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Neil Smith [MVP Digital Media] wrote:
>
>>> What resolution does your card's full screen mode give? Mine does
>>> 768x576.
>
>> That's right (UK PAL-I). It's a Leadtek winfast DV2000 if that helps
>
> Is this resolution okay for burning to DVD, or does it need to be
> converted
> first? I had a look at DigitalFAQ.com, but it doesn't seem to cover
> 768x576 - it talks about 720x480.

768x576 is a square pixel format for PAL - 720x576 would be the equivalent
PAL DVD resolution.
720*480 is the NTSC equivalent.

HTH

Deep.