Any GOOD info on dual vs. single proc systems for graphics work?

[deadmeat]

I've been starting to do dig video editing, and it takes a LONG TIME on my athlon 950 w/256 ram- like 5-6 hours for a half-hour video, which isn't terrible, but I was wondering if a dually would be better, or whether going up to 1.2 ghz would be better. Any sites out there with GOOD benchmarking info (not just dick grabbing and testosterone slinging?)

Thanks!

 

[mobiusloop]

Hi deadmeat,

I've been doing video editing for 4 years now, since PII-266. In my opinion, dual processors is fairly useless, since programs such as Premiere doesn't really take advantage of the processors. Photoshop is another matter. Video editing is strictly rendering, the more CPU power, the faster it will render.

950 is MORE than adquate to perform your task. I'm using P3-550. The secret lies within the capture card you have, and the preference you set.

I've used Pinnacle DC30+ (analog), DV300 (firewire), and Canopus DVRaptor (firewire).
Of the three, only DVRaptor has onboard hardware condec, enabling the rendering process to be blazing fast! Otherwise, 30 hrs of video, with normal amount of effects applied to it, should be around 5 hrs. (average for me w/ DVraptor: 5 min video = 12 min rendering time, average for me w/ Pinnacle cards: 5 min video = 20 - 25 min rendering time).

Let me know what program and capture card you are using, we can go from there.

 

[deadmeat]

Hey, thanks for the reply. I just have Ulead VideoStudio 4 and a firewire card (dazzle) but I don't think it has much in the way of hoardware codecs. How much did that canopus card cost you? Can any software package take advantage of the hardware rendering? I am mostly converting video to MPEG2 at this point.

Thanks for any info

 

[mobiusloop]

Deadmeat,

As you said, Dazzle do not have the hardware codec. DVRaptor cost me around $450 when I bought it a year ago. Now, if you're simply converting avi to mpg, then nothing can really speed it up except raw CPU power. It takes time, and it does take that long.

 

[deadmeat]

I was under the impression that the Canopus could dramatically improve this rendering time. If I were to get the canopus card (which is now running about $300-350) would I see my MPEG video rendering time drop dramatically, or is it just the AVI rendering that benefits? AVI, for my purposes, takes up too much space. Does it have a hardware codec for capturing MPEG, or do you have to capture AVI and convert to MPEG (one of my gripes about Dazzle right now)

Thanks for your input once again!