Being pressured to go Mac « Videomaker Community Forums

pseudosafari
Member

On the subject of video cards, I have a BFG Tech card (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814143188) and it supports linking; is that a good card for video or should I switch less of a gaming card and more of a video editing card? If it's a good one, I'll probably buy another to link together and see what that does.

Posted 2 years ago #
yourvideographer
Member

doublehamm, I was in your shoes about 6 months ago, I almost went with Vegas. In fact, I bought Vegas 8 for $200, but no pc to run it on. So I did my research, I really didn't want to go with Final Cut Pro, but my buddy just Bought a MacBook Pro, He told me it is very stable, you don't get as many viruses as you do with a pc. So I soon realize that I wanted to go thru Apple because of the stability factor and I then realized that Final Cut Pro is pretty much the standard. Most Editors are using Final Cut, I wanted the ability to be able to work on other projects that require Final Cut, so that is another reason why I went Apple. So I bought a 17 inch MacBook Pro with Final Cut Studio and it has done everything I have asked it to do. You should make the best choice for your situation and I was in your shoes 6 months ago, so I went with Apple and won't go back to PC if I have to. Good Luck!

Posted 2 years ago #
lmenningen
Member

1. Rendering with Premiere Pro CS4 under Win7-64 bit on an i7 uses all eight cores (as shown by Task Manager). This capability is application dependent so I don't know about other software.

2. Gaming-capable graphics cards are not required by video editors (today). Remember that gaming cards need to build, shade, etc. millions of little triangles and lots of other stuff for each frame, on the fly, and that is why they use massive parallel processing. While there is a move afoot to design GPU's to perfom rendering algorithms, that is not today.

3. With PremierePro one can assign unique disk drives to various functions, such as C for the system, D for the camera files, E for the preview, F for the capture etc. Otherwise if the files are on the same disk the heads are moving constantly from file A to file B back to file A to file C back to file A etc. It is reasonable to assume other software does likewise, but I don't know.

Posted 2 years ago #
doublehamm
Member

pseudosafari -

What kind of effects are you adding in Studio for your rendering times? I almost always have a Magic Bullet looks effect on everything, and then add other effects like time change, sometimes stabilization and more. I frequeuntly end up with clips that have 5 or 6 effects added to them and this is why I am having issues.

The Magic Bullet looks effects themselves are pretty heavy on the rendering. I don't think these were available with Studio until Studio 14 (though many other NLEs support it). Are you also working with HD?

As for Vegas, I tried it, probably should sit and try it some more as it doesnt seem like all that tough to use. However, for Pinnacle Studio adding the Magic Bullet in the software bundle, I am kinda scared to move away. I know I can get it for Vegas, but that not only requires me to purchase Vegas, but then you need to buy the the Magic Bullet looks for anouther $200. Studio 14 total cost me $120 with some nice Magic Bullet software to boot! The Vegas rendering did seem faster though.

Now... with that being said I am sticking with PC FOR NOW, and now have an i7 laptop that I will be using to offload my CF files. As for a laptop, if I have a 500GB 7200rpm drive in my main PC at the moment, if I got a casing for it and made it eSATA to use on the laptop (which has an eSATA port) will is still be just as fast as an internal SATA drive for use in rendering?

I am gong to install Studio on there right now actually to see if I get any faster rendering on it.

Posted 2 years ago #