Latest Hottest System for Vegas HD Editing?

jrazz wrote on 5/5/2010, 10:09 AM

My system works fine. it is over a year but under 3 years old. It is built off the skulltrail mobo by intel. it is dual socket and the only issues I have is with Sony AVC encodes. But then again, I also have the same issues on my icore7 Lenovo laptop as well. look at my system specs.

j razz

Xander wrote on 5/5/2010, 10:43 AM

I just built my new system a month ago as I too realized my Pentium 4 D had passed beyond its prime. I built mine for AE CS5 but Vegas runs fine on it too:

Core i7-980X (BX80613I7980X)
24 GB RAM (6 X KVR1333D3N9/4G)
Windows 7 Professional (Needed if you have more than 16GB RAM)
HP 30" Monitor (LP3065)
PNY Quadro FX 4800 Video Card
ASUS P6X58D Premium LGA 1366 Intel X58 Motherboard
300GB 10000 RPM SATA OS Drive (WD3000HLFS) - would go for new 6Gb/s version now
2TB SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive (WD20EADS) - data drives w/o RAID
LG Black 10X Blu-ray Burner (WH10LS30)
COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-UW Black Aluminum Bezel Case
COOLER MASTER Silent Pro RSA00-AMBAJ3-US 1000W ATX12V PSU

I would probably go for a bigger case or a smaller video card - Vegas does not benefit from this video card. The video card is very long so I could only slot in 2 out of 3 HDDs into the internal slots. Luckily I have internal HDD docks for the other.

This is definitely the fastest computer I have used. Most software does not use all available cores so you can still multitask very effectively.

Tom Pauncz wrote on 5/5/2010, 10:44 AM

Cal,
Check out my system #1 specs. Very happy with it. Was custom built to my specs and it was not outrageously expensive. Still using 32bit Windows XP-SP3

My website (in About Us) has a picture of the edit suite - dual monitors and an HDTV for previewing from the timeline.

For further discussion, email me offline if you want.
Tom

Former user wrote on 5/5/2010, 12:34 PM

You might want to consider going directly to the source for a recommended system configuration: Mastersuite systems

I would think it would be a good reference for optimum system specs for you to get a handle on what's needed (or not needed ;-)

Jim

Editguy43 wrote on 5/5/2010, 12:46 PM

Xander,

How do you like the 30" monitor, I have been debating 2 24" inch or a 30 but I don't know anyone who has one.

Tom,
In your picture of your edit suite what is above your timeline? and that setup is pretty cool.

Paul B

jazzmaster wrote on 5/5/2010, 1:10 PM

Just out of curiosity, what determines a faster speed--the quality of the video card or the amount of RAM?

Xander wrote on 5/5/2010, 1:18 PM

The 30" monitor is very big. It takes some getting used as you can't really look at the whole screen at once. You tend to find yourself looking at portions of the screen, i.e. at the places where you are currently working. I like the 2560x1600 resolution as you can actually have full HD in a window. You definitely get to uncramp the workspace and get to see a lot of timeline and layers, etc. Working with images in Photoshop is also great as you can work on HD at 100%.

Applications like PhotoShop, AE and Vegas I use the whole screen for and that gives you a lot of work area. For applications like Internet Explorer and other applications, I use those in a window and there is plenty of room for them.

If you are wanting a second screen as a preview monitor then you will probably still want two screens.

My previous screen was a 24" which I really like -still use it on the old computer. I also debated getting a second one, but decided on the 30".

Former user wrote on 5/5/2010, 1:45 PM

"I just built my new system a month ago as I too realized my Pentium 4 D had passed beyond its prime."

I just did a little checking on Newegg and your system prices out at around $6200. That's a pretty sizable chunk of change -- but then again, it's a pretty sizable system ;-)

SWS wrote on 5/5/2010, 1:48 PM

Love my 30" Samsung SyncMaster 305t can't go back to duel 19" screens. But as I speak I still plug in the little 19" as a second monitor for bins and scope and such...they'll never be big enough I guess.
mp

Tom Pauncz wrote on 5/5/2010, 6:56 PM

Thanks Paul.
I presume you mean the window that is overlaying the timeline on right monitor?

It's the mixing console - View -> Mixing Console. Just wanted a bit of extra stuff to show. I rarely use it.

Tom

xberk wrote on 5/5/2010, 7:08 PM

If you are ready to spend upwards of $3000-$4000 -- I'd build Intel Twin Xeon's (8 cores) as in the Vegas Master Suite mentioned above. ObviousIy Sony likes the Twin Xeon's for Vegas even better than the Extreme i7's... I think you can build this yourself in the $3000 range .. maybe less... My opinion and what I"m aiming for myself. On the low end -- check my specs - i5-750 for maybe $500-600. I built that waiting for the six core Intel's to come out -- but now I'm thinking 8 cores -- Twin Xeon !!

* Microsoft® Windows® 7 64-bit Operating System
* Two Intel® Xeon® processors E5520 (8M Cache, 2.26 GHz, 5.86 GT/s Intel® QPI)
* 12 GB RAM
* 1 TB System Drive
* 1 TB Data Drive
* DVD-RW Drive
* Blu-ray BD-R drive
* Nvidia® Quadro® FX580
* MSRP $4,999

Editguy43 wrote on 5/5/2010, 9:29 PM

Hi Tom,
OH ya I see that is the mixer, but I was looking at the left monitor over the timeline with all the thumbnails what is that is it the project media window.

Paul

Tom Pauncz wrote on 5/5/2010, 11:16 PM

Paul,
Yes .. the project media thumbnails.
Tom

Editguy43 wrote on 5/6/2010, 6:41 AM

Tom,
Thanks

Paul

Former user wrote on 5/6/2010, 7:23 AM

I just did some research on the Supermicro "Extreme" system and found that on Newegg you should be able to build it for ~$4000 (based on the SUPERMICRO SYS-7046A-T). Of course, you still need a monitor(s) for it. The FX580 video card spec'd for the "Extreme" system does offer the dual DVI output the HP LP3065 requires to operate at the 2560x1600 native resolution.

If you want three monitors then you would need to do a little more research as to which video card(s) would work best for you.

plasmavideo wrote on 5/6/2010, 10:01 AM

Check out the systems from http://www.edithd.com/

George demo'd one of his systems for us recently, and it just literally blew me off the seat.

Pretty amazing stuff.

Cliff Etzel wrote on 5/6/2010, 10:09 AM

plasmavideo wrote on 5/6/2010, 11:31 AM

Cliff,

Yes, he is a big Edius and Edius NEO advocate, but the systems he builds should really rock with Vegas.

I use Edius as well, and it fits my workflow for most current projects, but like you, I jump into Vegas if I need some more intense layered video, video effects, most anything requiring decent alpha channel work or heavy duty audio work. The Edius multicam mode is quite good.

Tom

Kevin R wrote on 5/8/2010, 5:23 PM

I'm not putting a lot of gold stock into the "Mastersuite" systems. It's silly to think in terms of good/better/best. There is no "best". It completely depends on your application. I've been speccing out hardware solutions for years and always spend great effort to interview clients and study their needs, workflow, and the overall system goal and budget.

While there is certainly nothing wrong with the Mastersuite systems; a few things jump out at me:

(1) The exclusive use of Quadro workstation video cards. I'd certainly go with that for a busy professional, but Vegas works just fine with consumer video cards that are a whole lot cheaper.

(2) Supermicro motherboards. They are good--in fact they produced a custom BIOS for me once for a particular video card, but I'm an Intel fan in the end. Who is Intel gonna blame when their CPU doesn't work in an Intel motherboard which is connected to Intel SSD's? You tend to get more features and bling with other brands, but Intel is solid (opposing arguments accepted, it's my preference).

(3) 1 TB system drive? What? I'd never use a 1 TB drive for the OS in a multi-drive machine! Reason? Speed. A pair of small drives in RAID1 is much faster and decreases the chance of downtime. A Velociraptor beats the pants off a 7200 rpm drive and an SSD is even better and will produce an incredible ROI.

(3) 1 TB data drive? Now the problem is bandwidth. How about a pair in RAID 0? Or, perhaps RAID 1 is best for clients doing small jobs that are likely too lazy to back up their data?

(4) 16 GB RAM? Maybe, but not likely. The amount of RAM you purchase completely depends on whether you are editing multi-layer HD or simple SD timelines. 4 GB is overkill enough for simple productions. Save your money. [For perspective: I ran the rendertest-hdv.veg with 6 GB in my machine and Vegas only used 800 MB].

(5) Blu-Ray. Are you going to use it? If you're burning DVDs, then buy a DVD drive. It will certainly write better DVDs than a Blu-Ray drive, and it's cheaper.

I'm not trying to nit-pick the Master Suite systems as much as point out that cookie cutter solutions are only best for baking cookies. You should design and spec a system for your anticipated needs and budget. Remember, you can edit very complex scenes on a cheap laptop if you have patience.

If you simply want to spend big for a killer system, CALL ME, cause I'd love to sell it to you! J/K! Well, not really, I will.. Seriously, it's fun to have a killer rig, but if you're budgeting thousands, then find out what you really need and spend lavishly on that need, and save where you don't have a need.

The other thing to take away is none of the Master Suite systems are specialized in any way. Buy any solid hardware and you'll do fine. Chances are your problems will be conflicts with other software and settings on your machine.

srode wrote on 5/10/2010, 7:11 PM

Drive speed doesn't really help HD rendering from my experience. Processor speed is what determines the render time. The procesor is the constraint, not the drive. HD speed will matter if you are using an uncompressed file as an intermdiate or output format from rendering. If you want fast drives for uncompressed files then go with a Raid set up - but be careful what you choose, Raid 0 is not a good choice for saving data, Raid 10 is much better with the same speed for all practical purposes.

Ram will help with Ram Previews of effeects so you have real time views of the finished product, if this is important get a mother board that will take 24gb of Ram, more RAM will give you longer previews.

An i7 processor is the cat's meow with HD, and one that is either top speed or overclock a lower cost I7 to speed it up with a very good cooler.

Alf Hanna wrote on 5/10/2010, 10:03 PM

The latest HP Z800 workstations sound excellent, and some of them are processor upgradeable, which may be worth it. They have up to 12 cores (!) and up to 192 GB of RAM (!!!) They have excellent specs, power supplies, etc. I think this is the page you need to check them out.

http://www.hp.com/sbso/busproducts-workstations.html

Kevin R wrote on 5/11/2010, 2:00 AM

srode,

It is impossible to generalize what is "best". It depends on the particular use. While most render times are CPU-bound, projects with many tracks certainly could be storage-bound.

RAID 0 is very attractive for video. It is very good at sequential file access (video files are sequential). RAID 0 is the most economical way to increase storage bandwidth. I don't know what you mean by "RAID 0 is not a good choice for saving data". I assume you mean because of lack of redundancy. Use of RAID 0 in an NLE system is for the purpose of fast work flow, not backup. Your assets should be backed up whether you have RAID 0, RAID 10 or a single drive.

RAID 10 costs twice as much as RAID 0 and does offer faster read access, but is slightly slower for writes. If you are both reading sources and writing to a RAID 10 subsystem at the same time it isn't going to perform too much better than RAID 0.

RAID 5/6 is highly efficient for sequential read/write and can offer the most bandwidth (aside from RAID 0). This makes it particularly good for video. RAID 5 requires a more expensive controller with a hardware XOR engine for best performance. RAID 5/6 would be indicated in very large online storage situations.

HOWEVER, I highly recommend considering separate storage volumes (drives) to address speed bottlenecks:

Whenever a drive is asked to do two or more things at once it has to bounce around from file to file. The video you are rendering is held up because the drive has to stop reading the source files in order to write the output.

Consider a separate volume for writing--especially if your source volume includes a mirror (RAID 1 or 10). Write operations significantly affect mirrored storage. If you have a separate drive for your output, then all volumes can efficiently team up to get the job done.

The same argument holds for installing Windows. RAID 1 is the preferred configuration for your OS volume. Use smaller, faster drives here and don't intermix your data files with your OS because your data will quickly become fragmented with the OS files.

Place your video files on a separate volume. Add more volumes as your needs become more demanding or complex. Often, adding more independent volumes is much faster than a bigger RAID array.

srode wrote on 5/11/2010, 4:01 AM

Kevin, I don't disagree with you on HD space speed on paper, my point is only that in practice it doesn't pan on in my tests with Vegas. I have 3 HDD systems in my video editting machine. Raid 10 on 3Ware 9650se, a 4 disc raid 5 array on the ICH10 R and a Single disc. I compared rendering time for long complex AVCHD projects with different set ups putting the read, write to, and OS on separate discs and then all on 2 discs, then on single - there's really no appreciable difference. None of the drives are fully utilized in any scenario - the computations in the CPU are the constraint. Reading or writing AVI files is the only thing that fully utilizes the HD. Overclocking however does effect render times. My rendering time went down proportionately to my clock time of the CPU.

I prefer RAID10 because there is speed and redundancy. A good set up for me is put OS on one partition on this array and then storage on the remaining portion of the drive. If I need to reload the OS for some reason, my data is still intact. My RAID5 backs up my RAID 10 and my single disc is used for monthly back ups in the event of a catastrophic failure (it is only in the machine for the back up then removed). I normally read from the raid 5 and write to the RAID10 array.