hi everyone. I just edited my first d8 video and i'm still learning. I have a few questions here that you guys might have a tip.
i'm using pinnacle studio 8.8 (great features) and really i love the transition effects of hollywoodfx pro.
my pc is a p3 700; 384mb system ram; gf4 64mb video card; 16gb available on my harddrive.
my question is does it really take quite sometime when you hit create and the program starts rendering. can the speed be boosted by adding additional ram like a 256 stick(in addition to my 384 already installed, or should I get an additional harddrive solely for video editing. my budget still restricts me from upgrading to a pentium 4 processor. i was hoping additional ram or harddrive would speed rendering.
need suggestion from you guys out there...thanks

Hi d8newbie,

I would say your 700 MHz cpu is your biggest bottleneck for speed of rendering. Adding more RAM might help some but it won't overcome the speed limitation of your cpu and more hard drive space would help the least although it would allow you to store more projects a one time.

I use studio 8.8 also and I think my system (P4, 1.5 GHz cpu) takes about 20 minutes to render a one hour video before writing it to tape. I have Studio set to render in the background during editing (on your setup/edit menu) which should help.

cwhiddon ---

thanks for the tip cw. i didn't know i could render in the background. i just learned too that i can use hardware acceleration for my 3d effect. just enabled it in setup edit.now i can make full use of my powerful geforce 4 ti video card. it sped things up here.
do you always edit you video as a whole. i mean the whole 1 hour of it in one editing. i tried it the other day and my system took so long i thought it hang. i break it up into segments ..the problem is i see blue blank scenes on the transition areas.

Hi again d8newbie,

I'm glad you found and are able to use the 3D hardware acceleration. Before I found and enabled mine the standard wipes/fades worked OK but my 3D transitions did show up but were very jerky - 3D acceleration smoothed these out.

I am able to work on an entire hour at once. This is where more memory may help. Studio8 specs say 128MB minimum with 256MB minimum recommended which you meet, however, more memory certainly could help depending on what else is running in the background on your PC. I have 768MB. I used to think audio files were big until I started working with video files. If your PC is having to write to the Windows swap (virtual memory) file often - if your hard disk is being accessed constantly while you work this would definitely slow you down. I would install as much memory as your system allows/you can afford - taking into account how long you plan on keeping this PC.

As far as the blank transitions, see if this still happens with the background rendering and 3D acceleration enabled. Did breaking the files into smaller bites help this problem before enabling these?

Other things that I've read about but not tried and might help incrementally are telling Windows to put the swap file on its own drive or partition, and/or specifying that Studio8 use its own drive or partition for its working and temp files.

Welcome to the world of video editing, I've really enjoyed learning to do it similarly to what I'd learned to be able to do with still images.

Good luck - Keep looking around at the other forums such as the computer DV one, or the buying & general, some of the miniDV ones may also have items of general interest that could apply to D8 as well. I've learned a lot from the various forums/threads/posts on these sites - a lot of friendly and knowledgeable people visit them.

cwhiddon ---

Hey d8newbie, I have two Digital 8 video cameras and have an anciant old pentium 2, with 20 GB hard disk, 394 Mb of RAM, only 4 Mb of video memory and the machine chuggs along at only 400 Mhz CPU speed, and it handles the Digital 8 very well, I was suprised when I got a Fire Wire card and my computer could handle it, plus I use Pinnacle studio 7.15.1, I am going to upgrade when I get all my tapes and two cameras back from the police, to a sony VAIO pentium 4, 2.8 Ghz machine with the latest version of Pinnacle studio.

When I click create, my computer takes it's time too, I dare say it would take alot longer than yours, but when you output your project back to tape, it will take as long as the move takes at normal playing time and as fast as the camera can record..,
but to speed up the rendering and Mpeg conversion or what ever, you can get a very fast 'State of the art' SCSI hard disk, they run at; of upto speeds of 15,000 to 18,000 RPM opposed to your normal 7,500 RPM hard disk, they will speed things up well and they are safer and alot better to use for Digital Video capture, that is what they were mainly created for..


Chester...

hey cw,

Nice to see you post. i was out of towm all last week-in pittsburg-and just got back.

I, too, have experienced a long time period when making a movie to dvd. You mention you have studio 8 & you set it to render in the background during editing. I am going to have to try this. Thanks for the tip.

I am using studio 8 as well, I have a pentium 4, 258 MB and I just purchased an 80 GB ext HD. I believe my CPU speed is 1.4 MHz, if that's what pentium 4 stands for.

Thanks again

Curtis

Hi Curtis and D8newbie,

Curtis, Hope you had a good trip back to the Burgh. The Pentium 4 is the most recent class of Pentium CPU and can range up to current max of about 3GHz speed, mine is 1.5GHz, the "4" doesn't indicate the speed.

When I activated the 3D hardware acceleration, I noticed an immediate improvement on the 3D HFX effects. I haven't been able to tell for sure what the background renedering is doing to benefit me. I do notice that the 3D effects do render immediately when I insert them and I'm not sure if they would if I disabled background rendering.

The main thing I wanted to share with both of you was the experience with my last tape - I had previously said that a one hour video took about 20 minutes to render on my PC then one hour to record to tape. These were videos that I had put in titles, fades, wipes and effects but no adjustments to the color, brightness, contrast etc.

With my last video I did quite a bit of exposure (brightness) adjustment throughout most of the video due to lighting conditions and it took forever to render and seemed to freeze up after about 6 minutes of video. When I went back to the default settings for brightness, my video took the 20 minutes to render everything and one hour to record to tape. I'm not sure what that's telling me but it looks like I'll have to be careful how much I do in the way of picture quality adjustments. In one of my other videos I did adjust one short scene for brightness and that didn't seem to bother things.

Just wanted to pass on some experience that might be helpful.

cwhiddon ---

CW,Thanks

I am going to try some of the tricks you mentioned. Good post, thanks for the info.

Curtis

just a month is video editing and learned a lot for you guys. this forum is better that reading to learn. thankds guys....

We'll soon be able to turn old Hi8 tapes into video files on our computer. I hope we'll have the patience to edit, get rid of junk, and create DVDs.

Machine: P4 1.5Mhz 500MB RAM ~100GB HD space

Question: Can just anybody speed things up by accelerating (or whatever) 3D in setup? Teach me.

Hi Keether,

The manual for Studio 8 says to enable the 3D hardware acceleration in your Setup/Edit menu where you can also enable rendering in the background. The manual says that if whatever 3D hardware you have is compatible, you're in good shape, if it's not compatible and you experience problems you would have to leave it disabled.

Where I see the noticeable improvement is when you insert 3D transition effects which you should see rendering immediately after insertion to provide a smooth effect when you view it in the preview window. On my system (similar to yours), without it my 3D effects appear jerky and may not show much in the preview window.

These comments apply to Studio 8, you didn't say what software you have. I can't speak for the other editing software packages.

cwhiddon ---

keether,

3d acceleration is done by the video card in your computer(which you use for video editing). the better your video card the faster it would render 3d. i would suggest that you go for the geforce card now available. they come in 64mb and even 128mb memory.
i used to be a computer geek now I love video editing and how it combines the pc in editing.