[Walter Soyka]

[Alperen T. Ayhan] “If you want to buy a PC I strongly suggest that the CPU must be AMD. Because AMD proccessors are more stable and constant. Also cheaper than Intel.”

AMD is a great choice when budget is the main factor — but Intel is the better choice for performance. I’d want an Intel core i7 if I were shopping for a laptop for After Effects.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Walter Soyka]

I work in live events, so we put our laptops through a lot of travel, and I’ve found the gaming laptops haven’t held up very well. Also, the styling of a gaming rig (glowing alien eyes?) can look a little unprofessional.

I’d look at “mobile workstations” from Boxx, Lenovo, HP, Sager, or Dell.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Walter Soyka]

[Chris Panzica] “AE shows under preferences that I have 16 processor cores, but does show the correct amount of RAM (16 GB). Does it double the cores for some reason?”

The Intel Nehalem chips used in the current Mac Pros have a feature called hyperthreading which causes the OS to report 16 virtual cores instead of the 8 physical ones.

I believe that AE only uses physical cores when rendering, so only 8 instances should launch.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Walter Soyka]

Sure; you’ll want to use time re-mapping to speed up your footage.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Walter Soyka]

We’re not really talking about one video file; we’re talking about the presenter’s confidence on-stage and reputation to his or her audience.

Of course, just about any modern computer can play a 1920×1080 h264 file; after all, DDRs are really just modern computers. You can certainly use computers for playback; we do it all the time, and I even suggested computer playback with the appropriate hardware and software in my first post. I also agree the Blackmagic card is unnecessary.

Maybe I wasn’t clear about why using a “standard computer” is risky for playback. There are simply too many variables to give a blanket recommendation for computer playback. What are the system specs? What software is it running? How well do the graphics drivers handle multiple displays or typical plasma resolutions? What other software is installed and running in the background — anything that could cause an interruption or dropped frames?

A show computer is be tuned for performance and reliability, and tested in show conditions before it ever goes on-site.

Matt, I’m glad that you’ve found a solution you’re comfortable with. Good luck with your event!

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Walter Soyka]

If your animation is generated entirely within AE (no external movies or image sequences), you can simply drop your 30p comp into a 24p comp. Make sure that “Preserve frame rate” in the original comp’s Advanced settings is turned off. Double-check that any camera moves or quick animations are acceptable at the lower frame rate. Voila – now your animation is 24p.

If you do have external footage, you’ll want to use some sort of optical flow-based technology like the ones Dave mentioned; I’m a Twixtor fan, but you could also try AE’s pixel motion-based frame blending.

Don’t ignore Dave’s advice on double-checking the frame rate — 23.976 fps is often called 24p, but the difference is not negligible!

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Walter Soyka]

I think the behavior changed in CS3; if I recall correctly, AE 7 did pause RAM preview without resetting the CTI. It’s a nice tip to know that you can get the old behavior back by clicking the RAM preview button.

I agree with Dave on trying to edit in AE; an NLE is way better suited for that sort of work. Even when I finish in AE, I start in FCP and lock down the edits when they must be cut to track.

If you’re really desperate to do this in AE, you can use the * key on the keypad to add layer markers during RAM preview or audio preview.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Walter Soyka]

[Bob Crampton] “Wow 32GB of ram Walter, now I’m really envious.”

When I ordered the system, the salesperson paused and said, “32 GB of RAM? Are you sure? What are you doing with this thing?” Adding the RAM doubled the cost of the workstation, but I work with some really large custom frame sizes, so I viewed it as an important investment to allow me to really use multiprocessing.

Like I said, for my HD projects, it’s complete overkill, and 16 or 24 GB would have been enough.

For my large format work, though… like Michael said, when 64-bit AE CS5 comes out, I’ll be upgrading RAM again.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Walter Soyka]

I’ve got an eight-core Mac with 32 GB of RAM.

I’d estimate that for most of my HD renders, I usually have between 8 and 16 GB free, so that means I can leave other apps open and running. My large-raster widescreen renders nearly max out the RAM.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Walter Soyka]

[Chris Parkinson] ” I can only average about 40% CPU usage out of the first project, however the second project maxes out all my CPU’s to 100%, and keeps it there for the entire render. My comp is running XP 64, 8gb of ram, q6600 quad-core proc.”

All this indicates as that your first project is not CPU-bound, but your second project is. The limiting factor on your first project is either RAM or hard disk speed, since you mention you have a lot of layers and effects. In other words, the CPUs can’t get up to 100% utilization because they are waiting for the disks to catch up or RAM to free up.

Through multiprocessing, AE can use up to 4 GB per core with a 64-bit operating system. You could use up to 16 GB of RAM for AE alone, and if your renders are RAM-bound, this will help speed them up.

If your renders are disk-bound, you might also look into a RAID for your media, or using 3 separate drives for your system, footage, and renders.

Finally, I think that Knoll Light Factory Pro can use the GPU for rendering, and I think that blocks AE from using multiprocessing. Do a RAM preview and look in the Info panel for the message “Multiprocessing disabled.”

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events