[Keith Moreau]

I got some of the hardware, an 8 port managed switch, an extra Sonnet PCI-E card for my PC which supposedly supports link aggregation and somehow passes that onto the built in Ethernet (which I have serious doubts – in PC land this stuff is very arcane and iffy I have found) and am about to try the link aggregation, thanks again for all the great help.

The next problem has to do with sharing the same project files over the network between Mac and PC. If I take a project, for example created on Mac PPro, then open it in Windows over a SMB share, Premiere Pro doesn’t seem to have any clue where the files are and asks me to locate every one. In addition Premiere Pro doesn’t give me a clue about the original path, it just tells me 00000.MTS could not be located I happen to use AVCHD a lot and therefore there are multiple 00000.MTS files throughout my project.

Is there some utility on Windows that allows me to ‘fool’ Windows into knowing about the Mac paths that are stored in Premiere Pro, some type of mapping or configuration file in windows where I can say, for example “5500_GB_EXT_2” == “Z:Mac-Pro5500_GB_EXT2” Since on my Windows I have fixed drive mapping to my Mac’s shared drives over the network, this would be a one time setting. If not I can’t bear to have to spend hours relinking every time I use the same project, created on Mac, on Windows.

Thanks for any advice!

[Keith Moreau]

I just got a ATEN CubiQ CS1642 2 port Dual KVM that supposedly supports a 30″ and 24″ dual link DVI at the same time (my current Mac Pro setup). I haven’t yet tried it but I’m hoping it can help me use my PC running Premiere Pro along with my Mac running everything else. I’ll report back on how it works

[Keith Moreau]

Petros, that is so awesome, thanks for doing it. I imagine something like this also exists for Windows PCs, I need to get a managed switch, as I have a large ‘unmanaged’ one, but the fewer port ones are cheap, I just need 4-8 ports for the current use.

Thanks so much!!!!

-Keith

[Keith Moreau]

Thanks Petros, that’s awesome. Is there software or hardware that you use in particular?

[Keith Moreau]

Yeah, I think it’s called “Jumbo Packets” and it sounds great if it works, I’ll let you all know.

[Keith Moreau]

Thanks, that’s good to know. I already have a Gigabit ethernet network so hopefully this will suffice. I’ve done some tests and it tops out at around 70MB/second. I have not gotten my PC yet to test but I’ll report back my findings here or on the other forum.

[Keith Moreau]

Hi Tom

I read your article, thanks for putting it together and making it public, very much appreciated.

Still, I’m in a quandary. I have no doubt that a super PC like the one you’re putting together would run circles around the Mac Pros we now have, however, the ONLY think I need the PC for would be Premiere Pro, in every other way and for all my other apps my current Mac Pro is fine, for Music, Photoshop, InDesign, and of course all the other Mac ‘iLife’ and iCloud infrastructure which is very useful in very many ways to me. The Mac isn’t just a tool for me, its kind of part of my life.

I’m considering just getting a fast, perhaps over-clocked PC (i7?) to do Premiere / CS5 Editing, maybe get an off the shelf Dell or something just to try it out, what do you think?

-Keith

[Keith Moreau]

I used both 4800 , 4000 and 285. I thought the 285 added some instability to the system, I think at the time perhaps because the drivers were older. I settled on the 4000 and like it. I don’t think the 4800 is worth the extra money and is bigger and hotter.

I do think that experimenting with non-supported cards might yield some better performance, mostly in real time rendering of effects and on export, it does make a big difference.

I am in a quandary though because I have the same system as you, the 3,1 and really wanted to upgrade to the “New” Mac pros that were refreshed but the refresh is so lame… I’m actually contemplating a PC! Wow.

Still there is a bit of struggling and lagginess with AVCHD footage though it is usable. Ram helps as well.

[Keith Moreau]

I personally saw the ‘drag clips lag’ issue disappear with CS 5.5 and Mac 10.7 on my Mac Pro 3,1 which was supposedly immune to the issue (however I experienced that problem), I’m happy with that. Prior to that I was sizing my timeline to fill up a large part of my 30″ cinema display which also was a workaround, but using 10.7 is a much better solution.

As a side note, in general with more difficult codecs playing (AVCHD) on the timeline on separate tracks, the more laggy PPro gets on my system. You can see all the CPUs kick in on my aging 2008 Mac Pro when playing, and sometimes it just lags a bit on playback and scrubbing, example, press play and it takes a second to start. My workaround for this is to disable all the non-essential tracks while I’m doing extensive editing, then turn then on after most of the heavy editing is done.

[Keith Moreau]

I’m hoping that there will be more native plugins for Premiere Pro. Since they have a ‘common’ api I’m wondering why AE plugin don’t just work in Premiere Pro.

Though I’m grateful for dynamic link to AE for the effects plugins it has, it’s a pain sometimes and basically when I do something in PPro and send it to AE, I usually dup it and put it on another track so I have the original in case it loses the link or just doesn’t work out. Then when playing in Premiere Pro, usually when it gets to the linked clip, the performance plummets as it an effect that needs rendering, so I usually wind up exporting just that portion as a Prores clip, then import it back in and placing it where the linked clip is, i just find it’s less troublesome in the long run to use it this way. I also don’t like not having any handles on either side of the linked clip, it’s immutable.

Am I being a bonehead?