New system recomendations for HD editing

[Hogan]

Who's built a new Edius system for editing HD that works great?

I'm looking for recomendations for asembling a new PC.

I know there is some information on the grass valley site, but I looking for specifics configurations of systems that are being used with success.
Motherboard, processor, graffics card etc.

Thanks.

[EasternSP]

I haven't gotten around to doing an HD project yet, but the recommendations for Edius 3.xx indicated that my set up would be quite capable. I'm just to busy with the day job and the few video jobs that I do have to shoot some meaningful HD footage and play.

[ccoston]

Are you looking to do "HD", or HDV? Two different beasts.

For HDV, I'd suggest a system running one of Intel's quad processors based on Core2 architecture. I've made a couple QX6700 based systems that fly with Edius (HDV clips, haven't tried HD).

For HD, I think it's recommended to do a dual- quadcore system based on Intel's quad Xeon processors.

If you go with the Core2 architecture, try the Asus P5W 64 Pro motherboard. It's a little more expensive than the other 975x chipset boards, but it gives you 4 (yes, 4!) PCIe x16 slots. Very important if you're going to drop an Edius NX HDV card(s) in and still have room for a PCIe video card and possibly a PCIe raid controller.

Video: I suggest ATI 1950PRO due to it's size. I have the 1900XTX and the cooling fan covers up one of the adjacent PCIe slots, rendering it useless. So the 1950PRO does video editing well and only takes up one slot width.

Hard drives: Plenty of posts here in the past on that. Just make sure you go RAID and have 7200rpm drives or greater.

Case: If you want an upright system (midtower, tower) I would definitely suggest the Coolermaster Stacker 830. My most recent build, and it's beautiful, especially if you add a few extra 120MM fans (you'll see where they go).

If you or anyone else wants an Edius NX Express HDV package, I have one I'm not using. I'll get rid of it for cheap, and it's hardly used. With or without the Edius 4 software.

[email protected]

[richnation]

I'd suggest a system running one of Intel's quad processors based on Core2 architecture.

REALLY??? I didn't know Edius took advantange of quad core processors.

As far as your video card recommendations, I just received an email from Edius Tech support and I quote:

Playback on the timeline of real-time footage without rendering is
completely dependant on the processor and HDD speed.

Im looking at a E6850 Core 2 Duo Processor to Edit HD footage shot with my HVX (P2 cards). Anyone had any success with this processor or similar, or should i throw out my motherboard for a Quad capable processor.

Thanks

[STORMDAVE]

Edius sees "8 Logical Processors" on my Mac Pro...so I think it does use multiple CPU's to some extent, plus software manufacturers have no other choice to optimize their applications for multi-core use because this is the way it's going, we aren't going to see 6Ghz single core CPU's anytime soon....

[Jerry]

[QUOTE=ccoston;12076]Are you looking to do "HD", or HDV? Two different beasts.



For HD, I think it's recommended to do a dual- quadcore system based on Intel's quad Xeon processors.

It is nice to have all that in AE...where it will be used....but, Edius is utilizing for the most part only two. So why spend it, if you can't use it.
I can get the same realtime performance, in Edius, out of my core 2 extreme that is clocked at 3.3 as the guys with the 4 or 8 core 3.0 Xeon systems.
I am currently editing uncompressed yuv 8bit 1920x1080 files all day long on that system. But, I also have two very fast raids coupled with my processors.

[Jerry]

REALLY??? I didn't know Edius took advantange of quad core processors.

As far as your video card recommendations, I just received an email from Edius Tech support and I quote:

Playback on the timeline of real-time footage without rendering is
completely dependant on the processor and HDD speed.

Im looking at a E6850 Core 2 Duo Processor to Edit HD footage shot with my HVX (P2 cards). Anyone had any success with this processor or similar, or should i throw out my motherboard for a Quad capable processor.

Thanks

The quad 6600 2.4 will overclock quite easily and the chip is only $318.
Very stable and with the right cooler runs quite nice.

[xmanflash]

The quad 6600 2.4 will overclock quite easily and the chip is only $318.
Very stable and with the right cooler runs quite nice.

Thats my chip too - I went up from an E6600 (Dual Core) to the Q6600 Quad (it halved in price) - and Mpeg rendering in a lot of the exports use all 4 cores. IMHO Its worth it for just that, whether or not Edius uses it..

[tingsern]

I use a Supermicro motherboard with dual dual-core (not quad core) Xeons at 3Ghz. 8GB RAM - for WinXP 64 (Adobe Photoshop + AE). For EDIUS - I installed it into WinXP 32. RAID 5 and RAID 0. RAID 5 for programs and reference data. RAID 0 is for all the Video editing stuff. Editing Panasonic DVCPro HD video stuff from HVX202 P2-based cameras. It works beautifully. EDIUS NX (PCI-64) card with component output daughtercard - no problems.

[ccoston]

REALLY??? I didn't know Edius took advantange of quad core processors.

As far as your video card recommendations, I just received an email from Edius Tech support and I quote:

Playback on the timeline of real-time footage without rendering is
completely dependant on the processor and HDD speed.

Im looking at a E6850 Core 2 Duo Processor to Edit HD footage shot with my HVX (P2 cards). Anyone had any success with this processor or similar, or should i throw out my motherboard for a Quad capable processor.

Thanks

I'm not sure how Edius addresses multiple processors, but I do know that a QX6700 can drop 5+ streams of HDV with various effects such as slow motion, old movie, PIP, and transitions in real time with a 4 drive RAID 0. I built the system for a colleague. I also have a system with an E6600 OC'd and it will sometimes give me 2 streams HDV with transitions and very few effects if I'm having a very good day.

On top of that, I'm not sure how you edit, but I multitask when editing and usually have other programs such as Photoshop and AE opened. With a quad core (or 8 core) you can map those other cores to the other programs and you can really get great performance, whereas with a dual core they have to share processing power.

In the end, you can probably get a liquid cooled, severely OC'd Core2 Duo to edit HDV ok, but not everyone wants to tinker with modding their system to the max. Some just like to have a stable system running under the manufacturers' recommended settings. That's what I made my recommendations upon.

It's no coincidence that Ashley Guy builds his systems upon the same principles. It works.

[DaveT]

I use an Edius HD turnkey system. Dual 3.6ghz Xeons (think it came with 3.2s, but I done blown the original CPUs up lol). For the most part it's fine. Think my RAID is going bad as it's once again chugging on clips played back off the RAID (Dual Channel SCSI 2.5TB HUGE RAID set at RAID 3, so 2.0TB) while I can play them back off my internal C drive

Believe we might have been the first or one of the first peeps to buy an EDIUS HD system back at the beginning of 2005.

Wonder if I can pop the HD cards in a dual quad-core 3.0ghz Xeon I have sitting around.

BTW, while software can take advantage of all kinds of cores, the interlying architecture/addons/codecs/etc all need to be able to take advantage of it to REALLY take advantage of it.

[GrassValley_BH]

Defrag-ed recently?

[DaveT]

I am actually doing that tonight. But considering that the last time this all happened, it took a complete fresh format to get it working smoothly again, think it's a RAID issue.

Also, the RAID right now is only about 15% full. :p

[GrassValley_BH]

Eww. What filesystem is the RAID again? NTFS??

[GrassValley_BH]

You know what, before you defrag, run CHKDSK - it might be that one of the array members is going bad. Drive reallocating sectors generally throws a delay into things, but defragging a drive that's on the way out is a quick way to kick it into its grave.