Minimum Processor for M2T (HD) Real-Time

gdstaples wrote on 11/17/2005, 5:05 PM

I am currently using Vegas 6 with a 3Ghz HT P4 (WinXP) and 2GB of RAM. I also use fast hard drives. I also have an AMD 64 4000+ similar components. Editing files from HDR-FX1.

I capture using Cineform ConnectHD in both RAW M2T and CF AVI. I cannot edit in real-time with the M2T files. I get stuttering, dropped frames etc. I have no problem with the CF AVI workflow as the files are decompressed taking the load off of the processor but massively inflating the file sizes from 13GB/hour to over 50GB/hour.

What is the minimum system requirements to edit native HD (m2t) files in real-time without the issues listed above? It would cost me less to upgrade computers than it would to keep purchasing TBs of hard drives.

Thank you.

Comments

Serena wrote on 11/17/2005, 5:17 PM

The short answer is "you don't edit m2t files". That's the purpose of the Cineform intermediate avi files. Are you generating "large" or "medium" cineform intermediates? Medium is quite sufficient for most purposes. Hard drives are actually very cheap.

gdstaples wrote on 11/17/2005, 7:38 PM

I generate medium files but even those files are 40-50GB+ per hour. I just cut down a 23 hour project. I nearly filled two 1TB RAIDs for a single project. There has to be a better way.

At online discount prices that is $2K per project in hard drives. I must be missing something here.

Thanks,
Duncan

GlennChan wrote on 11/17/2005, 8:59 PM

On a dual core dual Opteron, you can edit M2T (very close to) real-time (Spot/DSE here has that machine and I saw it in action- very nice). You need to run 6.0c and not before, as c made things faster.

2- Not sure if Gearshift would help, but it makes DV proxies of HD footage. And then you can 'change gears' and convert all your footage into whatever format.

Spot|DSE wrote on 11/17/2005, 9:04 PM

gdstaples,
you don't want to edit m2t. Not because of decoding, not because of small files, but because you aren't seeing "actual" frames.
MPEG is I, B, and P frames. With the Z1/A1, you have 2 I frames per second. The B and P frames are seen for your viewing enjoyment, but they're not actual frames....if you're color correcting, this can be very problematic. Proxies or CineForm are the only way to have accuracy.

gdstaples wrote on 11/17/2005, 10:50 PM

Thank you all for the replies. I guess it is time to consider an Edius NX/SP or an Avid for real-time editing and close to real-time rendering.

Duncan

Serena wrote on 11/17/2005, 11:10 PM

Duncan, that's a fascinating reply. Do you understand what DSE has told you?
Apart from that, a 22 hour project is going to need a lot of HD, but obviously you have sufficient and presumably you'll back up the project to other media (hence clear the RAID for the next project).

gdstaples wrote on 11/18/2005, 12:52 AM

Serena:

Yes thanks. I was just under the impression early on that Vegas 6 would natively edit the M2T files but I was wrong. I was thinking that the M2T files were a form of highly compressed MPG (RAW) type file that could either be decoded with software or a dedicated hardware solution. I have no problem using the CFConnectHD program

Duncan

JJKizak wrote on 11/18/2005, 5:39 AM

Remember m2t and ac-3 files are "transport" files. I used to have the Pinnacle 2000 mpeg editor and you really don't want to get into that.
I gave it to my buddy after switching to Vegas.

JJK

Coursedesign wrote on 11/18/2005, 8:38 AM

Duncan,

Did you look at the native vs. intermediate comparison?

It's a good eye opener I think. The reasons are simple and straightforward and matches what I have found in other formats.

gdstaples wrote on 11/18/2005, 1:59 PM

Thanks for the link. I need to read more about the file format as I don't understand why one wouldn't want to edit the M2T as long as it will remain first or second generation. The file size differential is more than 5x and if one had the horsepower to view in real-time it would seem not un-wise but as others have posted, it is not an actual video format. I need to read more about what a transport file is vs. something like the CF Intermediate file.

Thanks again,
Duncan

Spot|DSE wrote on 11/18/2005, 2:30 PM

I guess you didn't understand me. Vegas CAN natively edit m2t files. You can also swat flies with a pencil. It's painful if you have to do a lot of it. The frames aren't actual, and so if you DO edit native m2t, (which again, Vegas can do, just like any other editor) then you may very likely be color correcting on B or P frames.
Canopus, Avid, Adobe, FCP, Ulead all can do this. Every one of them recommends you work with an intermediary codec. Do you suppose they've spend the thousands of $$ and hundreds of man-hours developing codecs that you shouldn't be using to make the experience better?
The only tool that handles HDV better than Vegas (IMO) is CanopusNX, and it's a *barely* better for a whale of a lot more money, more storage space, more system requirements, and fewer overall features. (I have an NX system, it's great, but it ain't nowhere near what Vegas is for ability) Canopus uses the NX codec. Apple uses AIC. Avid uses DnX. Adobe uses CineForm, same as Vegas. CineForm is the most efficient of all intermediaries, because it's wavelet based, and additionally, is a mastering-capable codec.

Serena wrote on 11/18/2005, 4:55 PM

Duncan, this link might be of help:
mpeg

gdstaples wrote on 11/18/2005, 5:21 PM

DSE - thank you for the response. Serena and others as well. I need to educate myself a bit more and thank you all for the information and the reference sources. I am sure this will all make sense upon further self-education.

DSE - on a side note, I have been considering a dedicated NLE box like Edius NX/SP. Is there any current hardware (under $15K) that can render HDV in real-time or extremely close to real-time? I read all of the reviews about Edius NX/SP etc., and they all indicate editing is no problem (real-time) but rendering is still at least 1:5 (1 minute takes 5 to render) on the fastest dual-core machines. Are there any hardware accelerated rendering systems?

Thanks again,
Duncan

Spot|DSE wrote on 11/18/2005, 6:50 PM

Without an Axio...and even that's not always real-time...I'm not aware of anything in the price range you're looking at. You might as well spend that amount on an uncompressed system with a monster RAID and an HD ingest system that will bypass using HDV as ingest. It will render faster, but you've already indicated you're not happy with storage. Uncompressed is a whale of a lot more than HDV. But uncompressed renders faster from an uncompressed source.

gdstaples wrote on 11/18/2005, 7:47 PM

Thank you DSE. It isn't so much about the cost, it is more about spending good money on time saving hardware. I would gladly spend $10K on something that would save me $50K/year in time.

Thanks,
Duncan

Serena wrote on 11/18/2005, 7:52 PM

Real-time rendering is largely a matter of numerical computing power and if you need to achieve this then using a cluster of PCs is an attractive way to go. We used to throw computationally intensive programs at Silicon Graphics servers, but found clusters provided more throughput for much less cost.

http://www.buyya.com/papers/ClusterComputingAU.pdf

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2005/nov05/11-15TechnicalComputingVisionPR.mspx

PeterWright wrote on 11/18/2005, 8:25 PM

> "It isn't so much about the cost, it is more about spending good money on time saving hardware. I would gladly spend $10K on something that would save me $50K/year in time."

Duncan - I always approach this laterally. If I was sitting around doing nothing whilst something is rendering, then yes, I would be interested in ways of reducing non-productive minutes/hours, but I simply never waste time this way - I usually have four or five projects going at once, and I am earning at full rate whilst rendering goes on. Either that or sleeping.
Even doing one job at a time there are always many other tasks that need doing.

On the other hand, if you're producing same day broadcast stuff, obviously you can't afford to wait, so I agree that we all need workflows to suit what we're doing.

gdstaples wrote on 11/18/2005, 9:13 PM

I work the same way as yourself Peter but often have very tight deadlines when working with time sensitive materials - not same-day broadcast but very time sensitive.

With 5 hour renders (HDV to SD) quite common, I can't afford to make too many mistakes and meet certain deadlines. Also, I currently have a backlog of work (paying projects) and the quicker I can get them out the door, the quicker I can get paid and move on.

I only have physical space for 5 workstations at the moment and two of the five are typically tied up on dedicated still photographic catalog projects and one of the three remaining workstations is typically dedicated to processing (stabililzing) aerial footage with Deshaker or is dedicated to rendering completed projects for either web streaming or WildForm Flix Pro, Flash encoding.

Reducing render times to near real-time would save me both hard dollars in additional workstation purchasing (also rent more space for the workstations) but also would provide me with more project bandwidth or provide a larger margin of comfort when working with tight deadlines.

Thank you all for the replies.

Duncan