Best way to work with 2 Computers?

briggs wrote on 12/31/2003, 6:53 AM
Any recommendations out there for an efficient way to make use of two computers? (i.e. edit on one while the other renders)

How are people currently doing this?
- vegas on 2 machines; and physically swap drives from the edit machine to the render machine?
- network the machines and transfer the edited source files and .veg to the render machine? (seems like it would take a bit of time to transfer)

As a practical example, if you've captured, say, 1.5 hours of footage and will be editing/rendering in sections as you go along... Any practical way to do this?

Thanks...

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 12/31/2003, 7:05 AM
If the two computers are close enough to connect with 100Base-Tx ethernet then i would opt for this choice. You should be able to shuttle the files back and forth over this sort of connection at about 3x real time or better. Half an hour to copy the 1.5 hours of footage isn't too bad; do it while you're having lunch. In any case, it seems simpler than futzing around moving drives.
Myke_Hart wrote on 12/31/2003, 7:21 AM
Me! Gigabit is the only way to go. I put 2 network cards in each computer. I used a home made cross over cable to connect the 2 gigabit cards. (a Gigabit crossover cable is not the same as 10/100, trust me, they are completely different. You will not be able to buy one at a retail store.) Then I used the 10/100 card to attach to the regular 100Mb network and get on the net and stuff. I set up the Gigabit on a private network. I set one card to 10.10.10.1 and the other to 10.10.10.2 or you could use anything you want so long as they are on the same subnet. Don't us the built in automatic IP assign function that XP has because it will change at every other reboot. If you want to connect to the other machine you just type it's \\10.10.10.1 address in your start run and POW! All your shares pop up in a fraction of a second. I can transfer 500M of data in 55 secs through my gigabit. Takes about 20 mins on Full duplex 100Mb. This is not tweaking any settings at all on the gig side. I don't recommend editing video over the network because one should be rendering while you are saving and editing on the other. It would bog down your render machine. Transfer the files to the rendering machine when you’re done and render away. I did this just to keep up with my customers. I hated waiting 18 hours for video to render and not being able to edit. Plus it was taking way too long to transfer my 27G captures between computers. There are also programs out there that will borrow processor power from the other machine by splitting the rendering between the 2. You can render simultaneously on both. I was planning on setting up a few of the shared rendering programs this weekend to try it out. I have a huge 4 hour of video project I am working on and wanted to try out some of these progs to see how well they work. I will let you know.
beatnik wrote on 12/31/2003, 7:50 AM
You should also use a keyboard, mouse, video switcher to connect both
computers to one keyboard, one mouse and one video all together. This
way you don'e clutter your work space. To switch from viewing and
working from one computer to the other it's as simple as double clicking
the Ctrl key on your keyboard!

With this suggestion and the ones above you will have the perfect setup!
craftech wrote on 12/31/2003, 12:52 PM
Use the other one for this:

http://www.theonion.com/onion3536/e_toilet.html

John
groovedude wrote on 4/12/2004, 10:16 AM
"There are also programs out there that will borrow processor power from the other machine by splitting the rendering between the 2"

Will they work with Vegas 4, where can I find these programs?
David_Kuznicki wrote on 4/12/2004, 10:26 AM
Although it isn't terribly efficient, I just sneaker-net a firewire drive between two computers.

Why? Because I'm lazy & haven't networked the two yet!
But it works out fine, I suppose-- there's no waiting for the footage to transfer & you don't necessarily run the risk of working on an out-of-date file & not knowing it, as you hadn't transfered a newer version.

But that's just my BS excuse, I think! I really SHOULD get around to wiring the two machines together!

David.
groovedude wrote on 4/12/2004, 10:33 AM
No, no, I have a network, I was just curious if there was software that will split a Vegas rendering job between the two. I don't think I'll be able to afford to upgrade to V5 anytime soon.

If not, I suppose I could just manually split a render job between the two, but that's just not as sexy as having some downloaded freeware that I can playwith and tweek :)
wcoxe1 wrote on 4/14/2004, 8:09 AM
I just use a removable, NON-Firewire, NON-USB, drive. Turn off the two computers, swap drives, turn the computers back on, and away we go! About 3 - 4 minutes, at most.
rmack350 wrote on 4/14/2004, 8:21 AM
If you are copying data (rather than just moving the disk between machines) you might want to look into programs to synchronize files. I use Synchromagic Pro and am satisfied with it.

What this gets you is a program that just syncs the new stuff. Most likely, once you've got the media files on both machines there won't be much syncing left to do come render time.

Also, just a reminder, Vegas 5 is promising a network rendering feature. In the mean time you might want to just split your project and creat a second veg file. Then you can render one on each machine.

Rob Mack
Liam_Vegas wrote on 4/14/2004, 2:06 PM
I use an external firewire/usb2 drive enclosure WITH a removable drive setup. To swap drives I just power off the external housing.. slide out the old drive.. slide in the new... power back up. No need to shut down the whole computer this way. Works great for me... I have 14 hard drives that I swap in and out this way.

rmack350 wrote on 4/14/2004, 5:51 PM
The advantage here is that you not only save a little money but you can also swap these drives directly into a system if you first installl a matching removable bay. Installing directly into a system should provide better and more reliable performance but you can't hot-swap.

In the future, look for hot-swappable SATA bays that can be inserted into 1394 boxes made for SATA drives.

Rob Mack