New PC Specs for PPro . . . .

[R***@adobeforums.com]

Hello:
Please allow me to submit an email with my questions, and the reply by Steve Gotz for your consideration.

Please feel free to let me know what you all think.

Thanks -

RRR

Here's my questions to Steven:
Dear Steven:
I came across your site while looking at some forums. I have been using Premier Pro 1.5, (PPro) for about six months. I've mainly been learning the program while putting together slide shows. My main use for the program will be still slide shows set to music. Only really well done ones. The kind that make people cry.

Before I got PPro, I made several shows using Photodex ProShow Gold 2.0. This works very well, but it is also very limiting. (I'll get to my questions soon.) As much as I like working in the PPro, I have yet to successfully export anything I've done on PPro to a DVD yet, because my computer isn't up to the task - (I think.) I got the following error: (DVD Err, 721100) whatever that means. I haven't gotten a good answer yet - but I think it may have something to do with an incompatibility with my DVD burner.

Anyway, that's why my friend the PC genius is building me a new one with a Pentium Dual Core processor, 3-160Gb HDDs (Raid,) 1 Gb RAM, a super fast video card, and many other things that should make it work well for video editing..

My questions are these:
Why does it take so long to render clips (stills) that have video effects on them? (I found that the Twirl effect takes well over an hour on my present machine (AMD2600 / 512 RAM) What should I spend the most on to get these times down? RAM? HDDs? Video Card? Processor
Or - do people with fast enough PCs simply not render as often as I need to because they can see satisfactory results in the monitor window on the PC. In other words, do people usually render only just before they go to bed - and let it run all night?

Here is his reply:
Rod,

The reason stills take so long to render is that each and every frame must be calculated and sent to the disk. Faster PCs don't require as much rendering, and yes, people render overnight. I do.

Your new PC has two possible problems as far as I can see. I would double the RAM to start with. And be very careful with a RAID. Most people have trouble setting them up for the speed required. It actually ends up being slower than a single IDE drive for some people. Also, you need a separate drive for programs, one for capturing and editing, and possibly one for a scratch disk. So rethink the RAID.

Ask your question on the Premiere Pro forum at <http://www.adobeforums.com> - you may get even more answers that help you decide.

Steven

[C***@adobeforums.com]

I agree with most of what Steven was saying... a 80 GB system drive added to that raid will solve most of your problems. The 1 GB RAM should be sufficient for rendering purposes, as ram is most helpful in playback preview.

1. Make sure your computer is properly cooled... a hot computer will go dog-slow. I have an almost identical system to what you have and I'm VERY pleased with my speed right now... especially in contrast to my Athlon XP 2500... seems we're on the same CPU path.

Add a large 120 MM fan to the back instead of 2 80 MM fans. The 120 is better than 2 80s, and it's quieter as well. Add one hard drive cooler and an exhaust fan to the bottom fo the case.. you can buy them that fit in the bottom PCI hole in the case. Go out of your way to OVER COOL your system. And check the fans every couple months to make sure they're still working.

2. Don't use twirl effects. If you think the ladies cry about your pictures now, stick to the pan, tilt, and zoom-in, zoom-outs... Ken Burns style. DONT use digital juice backgrounds either, it looks cheesy. Most videographers (mostly male) do absolutely horrible picture montages that they think are teriffic. We got 35 demos from the Detroit market and 2 of them were good. That's sad. More effects and more action in the background make for bad video. Remember, the pictures are what is important to them, and the effects added to those pictures should compliment the picture, not overpower them.

[J***@adobeforums.com]

I'd actually agree with Steven that you should consider 2Gb RAM - it's dirt cheap these days so there's not really any reason not to when you're speccing out a machine to do the job properly.

What hardware are you going to use for capturing? If you're concerned with render times then a dedicated card like the Matrox RTX.100 or Canopus DVStorm will give you a whole bunch of 'real-time' effects - no rendering required. Such devices also provide a neat solution for driving an external TV monitor for preview purposes - essential for professional work in my opinion.

On the subject of the video card, note that there's really no need for it to be 'super fast' - the video card itself has nothing to do with render speeds and any modern card can more than happily handle video displays. What's more important is choosing one that lives happily with Pro (and AE if you have it). There are many posted problems on this site that turn out to be related to video card conflicts (either hardware or software).

Have you considered dual monitors? All that space is lovely...

Jon

[C***@adobeforums.com]

I would recommend against the Matrox or Canopus cards... I've had both and like neither. Even when working properly it feels too glitchy for me. I recommend a GeForce 6600 with 256 MB because, just like the Ram arguement, the better card is only $50 or so more expensive and more likely to incorporate any future Premeire functionalities... like Liquid has for Avid.

[Craig Howard]

I agree with Jon about the Matrox card and I agree with Chris about cooling (my new Zalman fan has changed my system).

Twirl effect - I do not know it but assume it is a DVE movement. That would be realtime in my Matrox system.If I was ever to use one - like never!

I agree with Steven about RAM and HD storage.

(I am very agreeable today it seems)

Make sure that your genius mate knows what hardware goes with what. eg Matrox is very,very, very fussy about what it shares a box with.

[R***@adobeforums.com]

Dear Chris:
Thanks very much for the thoughtful reply. I felt I had to respond to your point about the twirl effect. I just couldn't let you go on thinking I would ever use that effect in a still photo project. The time I did use it was for a project for myself where the Today Show logo twirls in to the famous Today Show theme music. It introduces a segment where my wife and I actually went to the Today Show on a trip to New York. I agree 110% that the reckless use of effects makes the project look very amateurish. I'm pretty much a straight dissolve man. I'll admit that I may have the tendency to use a bit too much motion, but I'm working on it, I'm conscious of it, and I'm trying to cut down. I also believe that the more time spent trying to synch the photos to the right music, the better. They cry every time. I only accidentally found that twirl thing - and it seemed to apply to what I was doing. But - more important, it seems to be one heck of a good test indicator for the PCs ability to deal with complex processing.

I will forward your advice to my PC building guy.

Thanks again.

RRR

[C***@adobeforums.com]

Glad to hear "Twirl" isn't you're everyday idea of good effects. That whole motion thing... my wife figured out that if you only zoom 5-15% for a 6 second clip it turns out best. And don't continue to zoom when you're dissolving... you probably knew that one though. It does look OK to me though when you desolve during a pan.

As to the Matrox card.. I don't know how much longer it will be a viable option, and I only like using it if I'm dumping to tape instead of DVD... or if I'm batch-encoding for the web. It is very glitchy for me even though I followed the compatability chart to a tee... 865 PE Intel Board, 3 seperate drives (system, video, and audio capture) P4 3.0, 1 Gig of Ram, Matrox Graphics card... the list goes on. I still get more dropped frames than if I did a strait firewire capture and sometimes my computer has uncomfortable pauses and hiccups. It crashes every now and again, too... this never happens on my other 3 systems.

[c***@adobeforums.com]

And don't continue to zoom when you're dissolving... you probably knew
that one though. It does look OK to me though when you desolve during
a pan.




Excuse me? Is this a personal opinion or an industry standard? And if the latter, then why? I dissolve in and out of pans and zooms w/o any visceral effects....real or perceived.

Keep Smiling

[R***@adobeforums.com]

"That whole motion thing... my wife figured out that if you only zoom 5-15% for a 6 second clip it turns out best. And don't continue to zoom when you're dissolving... you probably knew that one though. It does look OK to me though when you desolve during a pan."

I never knew that percentage. I'll watch for it next time. As for continuing to zoom while dissolving - I guess I always thought I should. That's why after adding my dissolves between clips - I noticed that PPro would move my keyframes to the outside edges of the dissolve. This was pissing me off because it looked jerky. So, I'd go back and move all the keyframes back to the edges of the clip so there would be continuous motion.

Then I learned about the "ease-in" function. So maybe I ought to go back and move the keyframes back where PPro put them after the dissolves were inserted - but this time - decelerate all motion by easing into the end keyframes.

What do you think?

[Craig Howard]

I think ...never listen to ones wife....

[K***@adobeforums.com]

I think... do what looks and feels good.

Know who told me that? My wife.
:)

[Steven Gotz]

Thanks for helping out guys. I have pretty much lost touch with the hardware side of things. I get lazy and order the fastest Dell I can buy and then do it again when something forces me to. Like getting a PCI-Express slot to use the Matrox Parhelia APVe. That is next on my list of "must haves".

I actually prefer to keep the movement going during transitions. I just happen to be starting a photo montage for my Sister-In-Law's pictures. A surprise from her husband (my brother) to show at Thanksgiving dinner. Will it be cheesy? A little perhaps. A twirl or two may even creep in there.

You see, people who do not edit video happen to like the cheesy montages. Why? They just think the twirls are harder to do I guess. So they like them.

I often zoom more than 25% on a 6 second still, but I like the very slight movement or zooms on many of the stills. It just keeps it more lively.

[c***@adobeforums.com]

I used to do corporate slide shows, where you have multiple pairs of Kodak projectors. Each pair is connected to a dissolve unit, whose sole responsibility was to dim one, whilst brightening the other, and changing the slide on the dimmed one(A/B Editing?). If you wanted a fade to black, you had to add "black" (opaque) slides to the tray(s).

The dissolve units were hooked together to a master synch/controller unit, that actually provided the commands, usually recorded on a 4 track audio tape: (2 tracks for stereo audio), a voice/voiceover track, and a control track w/coded blips for the dissolve units. Some larger shows utilized up to 16 projector pairs(32 projectors).

If any projector jammed whilst changing a slide, the show was screwed, the synch completely lost, (unless the baby-sitting operator was fast enough to locate the jammed projector, fix the jam, and advance/retard the projector to catch up to the correct slide spot in the show, all while the blips keep triggering further advances). If any bulb burned out.....

Would that I could have strolled into one of those expos with a single projector, a laptop, and a 1 gig USB flashdrive....

HOWEVER, despite the ability to "flash" multiple slides onto the giant screens in properly-timed split-seconds, an incessant, repeated request from the bigwigs was: "Is there any way you can make the slides move?"

Keep Smiling

[C***@adobeforums.com]

The only time I keep the zoom going into the dissolve is if I'm doing a 2 second desolve... we usually do 15 frames. I always use the ease function too.. so glad it was added to Premiere. I used to get the jerky motion before which made me start really focusing on getting what works best.

Steven: I hear what you're saying about the zooms... sometimes a faster zoom keeps the thing flowing. But I think you're more likely to get that jerky transition the faster the zoom. I like to do faster pans, and I always like to go from a pan to a dissolve of a zoom out, but that's definately my preference.

Craig: None of what I mention is "industry standard" just what I've found to work for myself. Should have mentioned that. You sounded a little indignant in your response (I can hear your keyboard). My wife is a better editor than probably 95% of all the folks that call themselves editors... having worked for State and national govt, Network news, documentaries, and even commercials. She also has 7 years of schooling. Now, as a mother of 3, she does weddings... and she loves it. She prefers Avid but I provide PPro. She still has trouble with shortcuts and I think she's slow, but her stuff usually blows mine away... and the competition's. My main area of expertise is hardware. I've built dozens of high-end systems, and am a consultant on many a Ford system. I used to edit more than I do now, but now i mainly stream video for the internet... sometimes I'm out of touch with editing, so I read-up here and on Steven's website (Go Gotz!)

We used to do all our pans/zooms/etc on an elmo machine with a remote-controlled camera capturing to Beta. Glad those days are over.

[c***@adobeforums.com]

Chris:

No indignance nor offense taken. I don't use smiley faces :) , so all I have is ! and ? for expressionism (Kinda like the car horn.)

As conservative as I am as an editor (Steven's described audiences might always ask me: "Who cut the cheese"), I do believe in letting the program content inform me of the transitions & FX to be used. If the music and content want drama or action, I won't flinch from a fast zoom, a rapid pan/tilt, or a sharp rotatation. Even the twirl! Still, I most often use simple cuts and dissolves for transitions. But this is a moving medium, so I always like to keep something changing. I can then feel free to use stillness as an effect.

And if there was any doubt, like your elmo machine feelings, the only time I'll touch a color slide now, is when I have to scan it (in).

Keep Smiling

[B***@adobeforums.com]

"Why does it take so long to render clips (stills) that have video effects on them? (I found that the Twirl effect takes well over an hour on my present machine (AMD2600 / 512 RAM) What should I spend the most on to get these times down? RAM? HDDs? Video Card? Processor."

It is all CPU!

If you are going to DVD, you do not have to render. I encode to Adobe Media Encoder and use Encore or something else to then produce and image file which can then be used by freebee DVD Decrypter to burn the DVD.

[Craig Howard]

What is a 'Twirl Effect'.

I want to try one.

[J***@adobeforums.com]

That's how it always starts. You think you can handle it - just once can't hurt right? Then a couple of years later you'll be installing effects off magazine covers and stealing to buy plugins.

Jon

[R***@adobeforums.com]

Hey, remember me?
Gosh what a great discussion! I honestly feel like a guy who's lucky enough to be eavesdropping at a party where a bunch of real experts are standing around discussing something that I'm interested in. Thanks for all the great ideas.

While reading all the above, I thought of two follow-up questions that have nothing to do with hardware, but since we're talking about technique, here goes.

1) Speaking of Ken Burns - I noticed while watching the great Civil War Documentary recently, that there is an ever so slight, ever so subtle camera shake, which was probably unintentional, and most likely real camera shake from his film camera motor as he actually filmed his stills. Is there an effect to automatically make that happen - or must I manually introduce random tiny movements myself.

2) What filter will give me a scratchy, speckly, streaky, old film effect?

Thanks very much - I can't wait 'til tomorrow to read more replies.

RRR

[Craig Howard]

@jon - you know me too well.

@rod - it would be best to start a new thread.

[C***@adobeforums.com]

Effects are like crack... they'll keep you skinny, but eventually you'll lose all your teeth.