Quad Core and Premiere Pro

[Bob Kiger]

Hi to All–

I’m back in Oceanside, CA after wintering in the Philippines and Maui followed by the CES show. I had hoped to see some 64 bit editing programs there, but could not find.

Here’s what I have done since last posting. I got the ASUS free upgrade from Vista Home Edition to Windows 7 Home Edition. Than I wanted to use the XP mode, but that only installs with Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate. So I paid for a download upgrade to Windows 7 Ultimate.

Installed my CS2 Premium in the XP Mode of Windows 7 but it took help from Adobe tech support because I had an upgrade disc without the pre-requisite Photoshop CS installed on the new computer.

Got through OK and all programs worked fine. Than tried to install a Plustek negative scanner that used to work fine with Photoshop CS2 on my old XP Pro laptop, but [even with updated drivers for Windows 7] the install went badly. Crashed the computer.

Got it back together with Microsoft Tech support who walked me through Vista/Win7Home/Win7Pro and than it dawned on me. I wanted ONE disc to install my Windows 7 Professional and eventually I want ONE disc to install my Adobe Master Collection. That is why I am willing to wait for CS5.

When we test all kinds of different hardware and routines on the new 64 bit machines, there are bound to be crashes. And the restoring should ideally be EZ one step.

So I’m recommending that Adobe set a date after which anybody who purchases CS4 will get a full CS5 collection by returning their CS4 disc. That way customers like me will have assurance that they won’t have a 2 step install as they would now with CS4/CS5 upgrade. I believe that would encourage sale of CS4 today.

I have been very cautious in picking programs that are 64 bit for the new laptop. Today downloaded Microsoft Office 2010 beta. It is sweet and very fast by subjective comparison to Windows/Office XP on my older machines. Also installed Windows Live Movie Maker, and ran a test on 1080 30p footage shot in Quicktime MOV [34 seconds long and 170MB] shot with Canon SX1 IS to SDHC card. The Save Movie command rendered this movie to WMV in 60 seconds and the file size was 32.3 MB ???

It looks great. Not sure if Windows Live Movie Maker is 64 bit but it does basic editing and outputs 1080 30p so I’m happy holding on for CS5 a bit longer.

Bob Kiger seminal author of “videography” [OCT1972-AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER]
http://www.videographyblog.com

[Bob Kiger]

Time has certainly marched on and as of this date 4/12/2010 I believe that my goals have been achieved. I am now running Windows 7 Pro with Microsoft Office 2010 64-bit beta suite, and as of today I have seen and had a chance to test Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 in 64-bit. It is blazing fast and has some wonderful features.

My favorite is a playback mode that samples 1080p original footage, which is what has been loaded into the project, but it plays back at various selected definitions for speed of editing. You can choose from a variety of presets.

I am going to invest in The Master Collection CS5 which the folks at the Adobe booth, here at NAB, have assured me is all 64 bit programming. I still have to buy a Window 7 Pro disc so I can restore in the event of a crash. It would be a big drag to have to load Vista Home > Windows 7 Home upgrade > Windows 7 Pro upgrade.

It’s been worth the wait!

Bob Kiger seminal author of “videography” [OCT1972-AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER]
http://www.videographyblog.com

[Tara Lama]

Bob, my system config is this:
Core 2 Quad Q8300 @ 2.5 GHZ 2.5 GHZ
RAM : 4GB
32 bit win7 home.

It’s a HP machine.

I want to upgrade to 64 bit win7 so I can upgrade to premiere pro CS5. With my current system, I only have to add more RAMS, which will make my system ready for 64 bit applications.

Now, I assume adobe allows us to upgrade from 32 bit premiere pro cs4 to 64 bit premiere pro cs5 @ their regular upgrade price.

Also, I would like to know if the projects I have worked on premiere pro cs4 can be rendered in premiere pro cs5. I have not been able to render them in cs4 because cs4 is crashing every 5 minutes. Encoding in the Adobe Encoder and sending to Encore takes overnight and most of the times they hang overnight though the status bar says ‘running’.

My projects are about 90 minutes long and they are not avchd files.

Any light on these will be highly appreciated..

Tara
Sydney Australia

[Jon Barrie]

I can tell you that upgrade pricing includes CS5 versions of PPro and AE, it also includes the CS4 versions for those without 64-bit systems as AE, PPro and AME are all 64-bit only apps and they don’t want to leave people in the lurch if they only have a 32-bit OS. But the benefits of 64-bit are massive. 1 is render times.

And in my experience so far. CS4 projects opened in CS5 and rendered out are faster and better quality too.

– Jon Barrie 🙂

Jon Barrie
aJBprods
http://www.jonbarrie.net
http://www.suiteskills.com

[Bob Kiger]

OK Tara–

I spent a lot of time talking with an Adobe friend, from Premiere Pro CS2 beta, at NAB. He spent a solid hour helping me understand their system pretty well. CS5 really handles multi-core well but to optimize you need one of the Nvidia video CUDA cards that has been optimized by Adobe for the Mercury engine that powers CS5.

See: <https://www.nvidia.com/object/adobe_PremiereproCS5.html>
Only certain of the CUDA cards have been optimized and they are listed on this page.

[Note to Adobe. It would be nice if you enabled the GeForce260 because you’d pick up my notebook, which is one of the few notebooks that has full 1920×1400 screen resolution and an ExpressCard slot.]

So Tara, if your running a tower you should invest in one of those enabled graphic cards for optimum performance. As to memory, with notebooks or towers, the quad cores work best with multiples of 8GB of RAM. [8-16-32-64]. Using the enabled memory card with CS5 balances beautifully the load of the RAM per CPU and things purr along. Even half a dozen color corrected scenes side by side on the timeline will play without rendering in real time.

As to the Windows OS, you really must be sure to get an original Windows 7 Pro disc. It’s cheap insurance in case of a crash downstream. I also recommend Microsoft Office 2010 64-bit. I love it’s functionality and it complements the CS5 64-bit even better than I dreamed when I started this thread.

On the right laptop a long held dream of a “videography workstation” is at hand. My existing ASUS Quad core is maxed out at 6GB and unless Adobe adapts the Nvidia GeForce260 CUDA card. I will never get this machine to optimal with CS5. I will still go ahead with the purchase discs and install of Win7Pro disc, Adobe CS5 Master Collection and Microsoft Office 2010 on my existing machine. Why?!

Because of the aforementioned screen resolution and the ExpressCard. I emphasize the ExpressCard because a dear friend, the president of Addonics, says “Since your system has an eSATA port, you can connect an external storage system with a 4 drives RAID5 using our 4-port HPM. With this set up, we have achieved over 200MB/sec sustain data transfer with 4 standard SATA II hard drives. If you need faster than 200 MB, you can strip two sets of RAID 5. This could get you close to 300MB/sec with 10 SATA II hard drives. Your system will need to have 2 eSATA ports with RAID capability. Or if your system has PCI-Express 2.0 slot, you can add one of our 6 Gbps eSATA PCI-e controllers.”

Ironically the ExpressCards will be going away soon because of USB 3.0 coming fast into notebooks. But as of this writing date I don’t see a notebook that has the screen resolution, the i7 processor, the RAM, the optimized Nvidia card and USB 3.0 . . . so I will plug along for a while and learn on my existing machine.

BTW: Watch out for “early deals” from Chinese/Taiwanese notebook companies. They put out “Press Releases” like the one I suckered for when I started this thread last summer. They get the orders piled up before they start delivering. It can take months. ASUS never delivered the $100 rebate after I sent a ream of paperwork and clipped original skews to receive. They don’t seem to be following any known “standards and practices” of commerce that I grew up with in the USA.

An example of this is shown on the back inside cover of the B&H Photo/Video catalog passed out at the NAB show and in the mail. It has an ASUS advertisement for “N” Series notebooks featuring USB 3.0.

A close look at the specs of the “N” series shows that none of them have full 1080p screen resolution. None of them have ExpressCard and they only have one USB 3.0 slot. None of them have Intel i7 processors. So I consider this ad another sucker ad, placed strategically where aspiring video editors might see it. By the time they order ASUS will already be introducing notebooks that are really set up for CS5. By that time a lot of other, perhaps more reputable companies, will introduce their “super Quad core laptops”.

Let me complete my ASUS discussion by saying that one of the two 500GB 7200rpm drives in my machine sounds like it’s going to die. Like an old washing machine. I have been writing everybody from the US Seller/Distributor to their Taiwanese “customer support” and for weeks have gotten no feedback or RMA.

Buyers beware!
It’s cut throat out there.

Hope this helps.
Bob

Bob Kiger seminal author of “videography” [OCT1972-AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER]
http://www.videographyblog.com

[Bob Kiger]

OK Tara–

Strongly recommend getting complete CS5 discs and not an upgrade, especially a download, when it comes to migrating from 32-64 bit. Go back to school for one credit and buy the upgrade with a student discount if necessary. You don’t want to have an upgrade install in the new 64-bit environment. Far better that every major suite including OS be original boxed version.

I spent a lot of time talking with an Adobe friend, from Premiere Pro CS2 beta, at NAB. He spent a solid hour helping me understand their system pretty well. CS5 really handles multi-core well but to optimize you need one of the Nvidia video CUDA cards that and has been optimized by Adobe for the Mercury engine that powers CS5.

See: <https://www.nvidia.com/object/adobe_PremiereproCS5.html>
Only certain of the CUDA cards have been optimized and they are listed on this page.

[Note to Adobe. It would be nice if you enabled the GeForce260 because you’d pick up my notebook, which is one of the few notebooks that has full 1920×1400 screen resolution and an ExpressCard slot.]

So Tara, if your running a tower you should invest in one of those enabled graphic cards for optimum performance. As to memory, with notebooks or towers, the quad cores work best with multiples of 8GB of RAM. [8-16-32-64]. Using the enabled memory card with CS5 balances beautifully the load of the RAM per CPU and things purr along. Even half a dozen color corrected scenes side by side on the timeline will play without rendering in real time.

As to the Windows OS, you really must be sure to get an original Windows 7 Pro disc. It’s cheap insurance in case of a crash downstream. I also recommend Microsoft Office 2010 64-bit. I love it’s functionality and it complements the CS5 64-bit even better than I dreamed when I started this thread.

On the right laptop a long held dream of a “videography workstation” is at hand. My existing ASUS Quad core is maxed out at 6GB and unless Adobe adapts the Nvidia GeForce260 CUDA card. I will never get this machine to optimal with CS5. I will still go ahead with the purchase discs and install of Win7Pro disc, Adobe CS5 Master Collection and Microsoft Office 2010 on my existing machine. Why?!

Because of the aforementioned screen resolution and the ExpressCard. I emphasize the ExpressCard because a dear friend, the president of Addonics, says “Since your system has an eSATA port, you can connect an external storage system with a 4 drives RAID5 using our 4-port HPM. With this set up, we have achieved over 200MB/sec sustain data transfer with 4 standard SATA II hard drives. If you need faster than 200 MB, you can strip two sets of RAID 5. This could get you close to 300MB/sec with 10 SATA II hard drives. Your system will need to have 2 eSATA ports with RAID capability. Or if your system has PCI-Express 2.0 slot, you can add one of our 6 Gbps eSATA PCI-e controllers.”

Ironically the ExpressCards will be going away soon because of USB 3.0 coming fast into notebooks. But as of this writing date I don’t see one that has the screen, the RAM, the optimized Nvidia card and USB 3.0 . . . so I will plug along for a while and learn on my existing machine.

BTW: Watch out for “early deals” from Chinese/Taiwanese notebook companies. They put out Press Releases like the one I suckered for when I started this thread last summer. They get the orders piled up before they start delivering. It can take months. ASUS never delivered the $100 rebate that I sent a ream of paperwork and clipped original skews to receive. They don’t seem to be following any known “standards and practices” of commerce that I grew up with in the USA.

An example of this is shown on the back inside cover of the B&H Photo catalog passed out at the NAB show and in the mail. It has an ASUS advertisement for “N” Series notebooks featuring USB 3.0.

A close look at the specs of the “N” series shows that none of them have full 1080p screen resolution. None of them have ExpressCard and they only have one USB 3.0 slot. None of them have Intel i7 processors. So I consider this ad another sucker ad, placed strategically where aspiring video editors might see it. By the time they order ASUS will already be introducing notebooks that are really set up for CS5. By that time a lot of other, perhaps more reputable companies, will introduce their “super Quad core laptops”.

Let me complete my ASUS discussion by saying that one of the two 500GB 7200rpm drives in my machine sound like it’s going to die. Like an old washing machine. I have been writing everybody from the US Seller/Distributor to their Taiwanese “customer support” and for weeks have gotten no feedback or RMA.

Buyers beware!
It’s cut throat out there.

Hope this helps.
Bob

Bob Kiger seminal author of “videography” [OCT1972-AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER]
http://www.videographyblog.com

[Ted Chance]

Dreadful problems with my quad core.
Gone back to my laptop.
Video files which play perfectly on other machines play with the A and V out of sync.
In P.P. CS4 captured files, which look ok during capture, get a strange hued tint in edit mode. Sometimes this is corrected by effects.
The edit window sometimes doesn’t display the last file I called up.
A and V go out of sync on the timeline.
I always run P.P. with no other apps. running.
Could be the A/V hardware as suggested I suppose.
Purely Audio programs work fine.

Ted Chance

[Bob Kiger]

Sorry to hear about your quad core tower having problems. Which processor do you have and how long have you had the tower. Lemons, it appears, come in desktop PCs as well as notebooks.

Small update on my ASUS G71gX lemon. I finally found a tech support live person in Fremont, California. I explained that my machine was purchased from their Tech Direct dealer in Chino on eBay and that I had been jerked around for months and now the hard drive sound like a washing machine. He listened to the machine over the cellphone and said “Oh yes. Sounds like hard drive. I send you RNA. What is model#. Back up your HD before shipping”.

Than I told him how Tech Direct had done a deal for me to swap out the 2-320GB HDs that came with the notebook, and installed 2-500GB as part of the original sale. He said that according to their policy the machine was therefore “not covered by warranty.” He suggested that I find Tech Direct and hold them accountable. Good luck. They haven’t answered the phone in weeks. I will hope that they are still in business and will take them to small claims court to get them to honor the warranty because they never said that their upgrade [as part of the original purchase] would null the warranty.

So that’s how it stands for my ASUS laptop Quad Core at this moment.
I think this thread is a bit old but does record the folly of myself and the shenanigans of the Chinese/Taiwanese importers of computers that advertise “deals” that seem to good to be true. My next move will be expressed in a new thread that is more contemporary. Quad Core Laptops and CS5″. I will reference this older thread for b.g. Thanks to all.

Bob Kiger seminal author of “videography” [OCT1972-AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER]
http://www.videographyblog.com

[Laura Petrella]

I am looking to get a laptop to edit Hi def with PPCS5. Do you have any suggestions? I was looking at a Dell…

[Bob Kiger]

Hi Laura–

I’m answering your question at a new thread entitled “Quad Core Notebooks and CS5” which will be at the top of this forum list shortly.

Hope it helps.

Bob

Bob Kiger seminal author of “videography” [OCT1972-AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER]
http://www.videographyblog.com