Why is Edius choking?

[GuyS]

When I try import import and HDV clip into Edius Broadcast (originally from my Canon Firestore FS-C) and place it on the timeline when it tries to play it chokes up miserably. My computer is a Quad Core with 3 gigs of ram and a dedicated 7200 media drive.
I take the same clip and import it to Liquid 7.2 on a single core 3.4 hz machine and it runs smoothly no problems.

[Jerry]

When I try import import and HDV clip into Edius Broadcast (originally from my Canon Firestore FS-C) and place it on the timeline when it tries to play it chokes up miserably. My computer is a Quad Core with 3 gigs of ram and a dedicated 7200 media drive.
I take the same clip and import it to Liquid 7.2 on a single core 3.4 hz machine and it runs smoothly no problems.

What is the format that the FS-C records in? Don't expect a push from the Quads. You would see more of a difference with dual dual core Xeons. That said, Edius is written more for dual core operation than for Quad.
If you are using native m2t files, then expect it to bog down.
Try converting one of the files, from within the bin, to HQ and then try it on the time line. I bet you will see a difference.
Also, if you can stripe 2 drives to give you a small raid setup, you will notice more throughput from the drive side as well.

[antonsvideo]

also, make sure your project setting is on 1440x1080 and not 1920x1080 or it will choke

[THoff]

Or convert the files to Canopus HQ or Canopus Lossless for editing, you'll get much better performance that way.

[GuyS]

Problem is the Edius convert function takes longer than it would take to capture real time. It kind of negates the FS-C hard drive recorders advantage.
The program seems to be slowing down even more. I wonder if an un-install then re-install will help.

[GuyS]

The problem may be resolved. I have two 500 Gb media drives. I was trying to find solutions to the stuttering and decided to defragment the two drives. One of them is a Maxtor. Of all the drives I have ever owned...that failed... they have been Maxtors. I was a little suspicious when the Maxtor hung up while defragmenting. I pulled it out of my machine and presto! No more stuttering. The m2t files from the Firestore FS-C scrub and play on the timeline perfectly.

[GrassValley_BH]

To be fair, I've killed Maxtor, WD, Hitachi and Seagate drives.
Of the lot, Seagates seem to be the most tolerant of abuse like heat.

[antonsvideo]

there are 2 types of Seagate

the cheap ones and the 24/7 ones with NS at the end of the part number

[Jerry]

there are 2 types of Seagate

the cheap ones and the 24/7 ones with NS at the end of the part number

And, the price difference is not that much. But there is a distinct difference in performance in hardware raid configurations that work around those drives.

[GrassValley_BH]

WD also has 24/7-designed drives. That's the difference between their MyDVR Expander (designed for 24/7 use) and their regular MyBook and such.

[STORMDAVE]

If you do RAID5 you're pretty much safe, unless 2 drives fail at the same time then you're in deep waters. I rely on Seagate nowadays, I've had plenty of WD's and Maxtors fail on me. The most important thing is to keep drives cool, it gives them a longer life.

[Deeter2]

Is anyone concerned about the Raid CONTROLLER for redundancy?
I had one fail on a workstation... Raid redundancy did nothing when the Controller itself fails and seldomly you can rebuild it by changing controller cards... Not sure there is a solution to this!!

[GrassValley_BH]

If the controller fails, unless it fails in an extremely evil way, there should be no data loss. Just replace the controller with the same make/model and you should be fine.

I've migrated entire RAID arrays from one card to another - but they were the same make and generation (3ware Escalade 7000 series).

The only way I know around controller failure is to put in redundant controllers that are software-mirrored.

It's still difficult to avoid a single point of failure as the CPU, motherboard and graphics controller aren't redundant... so at that point maybe it's just better to have a completely separate redundant machine like in a cluster. But at that point you're past extreme paranoia for video editing at least.

Cheaper to just have a backup system (not a live backup) and back up project/data files regularly or at least use EDIUS's auto-save to save to a redundant location.

[redgum]

Now that's real common sense and cheaper too!

[Deeter2]

If the controller fails, unless it fails in an extremely evil way, there should be no data loss. Just replace the controller with the same make/model and you should be fine.

Unfortunately I have NOT have the same luck with 2 MBs that failed and were replaced with exactly the same ones including the controller...
Read also on Anand, I believe, that this is frequently the case :(