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Computer specs in regards to CS4
Hello,
I am currently editing HD footage (1080p) shot on a Canon 7D (yes, I converted it so it works smoothly in premiere). I used to convert to SD because i didn’t think it mattered since I would burn it to DVD in SD in the long run anyway BUT now I am uploading videos online so the HD is the way to go.
When I edited in SD, everything worked good. My computer was fast and snappy and I had minimal crashes with Premiere (maybe 1 every 3 weeks) but now that I switched to HD, my computer is laggy and crashes if I try to move too fast. I realize my problem is that HD footage takes more computing power but I wondered what component was my “bottleneck”.
I have a Dell Inspiron something or other… its about 3 yrs old so nothing too special. It has 3GB RAM, an intel Quadcore processor (still on 32 bit), and I believe an NVIDIA G-Force 512mb graphics card. I am running dual monitors (1 in 1920 x 1080) and the other is via VGA cable. Do I need to provide my keyboard specs as well? I kid… besides, its a logictech wireless…
the geek squad at best buy said that my graphics card was my limiting factor but I didn’t think the graphics card played much into your processing tasks.
Thanks for your help!
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4 Replies
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Key areas with your system that can bottle neck.
– RAM (which is limited in 32bit OS)
– 32bit OS (win7 is very good)
– separate drives for media (don’t use the OS drive as your media drive too)
– read write speed of media drive (RAID 0 or 5 can get smooth datarates for most HD editing)
– compressed or uncompressed codecsYour quadcore CPU can do the job, but i7 would be better. CS5 can edit native DSLR video and is 64bit so can make proper use of a 64bit OS and available ram.
Hope this helps.
– Jon Barrie
Jon Barrie
aJBprods
Jon’s YouTube Tutorial Page
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Hi Adam,
i just went through this same thing recently….I have a custom built Core-2 Quad PC with 8 gig of ram, GTX260 1 gig graph card, 2 raid-0 arrays for running scratches and media files separately,windows 7 64-bit and also a brand new Mac-mini core 2 with 8 gig of ram….both machines run SD footage FANTASTIC! with minimal crashes or lock-ups. Moving to HD has been another cup of tea.
Through tons of tests with my machines and others, I have found that on my systems personally, my bottleneck has been processor. I brought up the cpu/memory monitor in win7 on my pc and was using only 7% of the 8 gigs of ram memory, but processor was pegged at 100% and it still wasn’t enough. As Jon said, many different things can bottleneck a system, I was frustrated at first when I found out that my 2.4 Quad would not do the trick. My friend’s new 6-core AMD phenom 2 however has plenty of power, and edits AVCHD natively without a prob at all…..on only 4 gig of ram and a 5-year old 8800 graph card. (my old one, that i beat up on for 3 years, still keep tickin…gotta love that)
HD is just a “bear” I have learned the hard way through frustration and testing that you just gotta have power to play with HD.
Hope this helps.
Eric
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If you want to run footage on a system like yours you should look into using a intermediate codec like Cineform’s Neoscene,
https://www.cineform.com/neoscene/ -
Hey Brian,
I tried the free download of Cineform, and didn’t have much luck with it. Although admittedly it was right in the beginning of my AVCHD “adventures” so maybe I wasn’t doing something correctly.
I ordered my AMD 6-core proc, ASUS Crossfire board (with Sata 6 & USB 3) and 16 GB of 1333 mghz RAM, so this way I can jump straight into editing AVCHD natively and bypass the transcoding.
Thanks for your input though, maybe I will check out neoscene again though, just for the simple fact of “knowing”
Cheers
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