Burning Time - How long should it take? « Videomaker Community Forums

M-323
Member

ok I had a new PC built to Premiere Pro 2.0 specs (and added some)

Went with AMD 4200 dual core, 2GB ram, 256mb graphics card SATA drives etc. should be pretty fast I though.

Tonight, I started burning a program I have been working on for sometime.

its over all length is 1.5hrs (historic footage) typical titles, transitions, a few pans and zooms nothing out of the ordinary.

its a dual layer burner as well but first PP2.0 said there was not enough room to burn the program - so I went into the settings, set it for 2 passes where its supposed to recalculate whatÂ’s needed, then be able to compress it more efficiently.

I set the output on high quality dv (and inadvertently used the setting for Dolby Digital Surround sound although it was not shot in DD)

anyway, I started the process at 1730hrs. Its now 2000hrs. The encoding process bar shows 50% complete however the over all progress bar under it is somewhat less, maybe 30%.

By those calculations, it might finished sometime tomorrow morning!

I the new pc would be smokin fast! - at least 1:1

is this normal? any suggestions to speed things up?

Any other success stories or different configurations would be great to hear as well.

Posted 5 years ago #
compusolver
Member

Something doesn't sound right.

Are you saying there wasn't enough room to burn this on a dual layer disc?

Something is way out of whack, if that's the case.

Try settings for 5Mbr CBR 1pass. You should get close to real time with that.

Posted 5 years ago #
M-323
Member

Compusolver

thats what is said initially.

there were some settings on the pre-burn screen where you can specify, anything easy to burn, use 1mb/sec - the second one I set for 6mb and the last one at 7 - idea being that the average wouldcome out to about 6mb/s

I did not notice anywhere however if there was a place where PP shows the disk space avaialble?

my last NLEP would show the media, DVD disk 4.7gb avaialble.

where would this show this info and is there a setting to change it to dual layer?

Posted 5 years ago #
Video-maniac
Member

M-323

anyway, I started the process at 1730hrs. Its now 2000hrs. The encoding process bar shows 50% complete however the over all progress bar under it is somewhat less, maybe 30%.

M-323,

I'm sort of confused on what you're actually doing but if you were encoding using the VBR 2-pass method, it could be that when you looked at your progress bar that you were on the actual 2nd pass. I'm kind of loss with the 2 different bars you're talking about.

Forgive me only because I don't know how much you know about encoding but remember that if you are using 2-passes, it takes twice as long as a single pass. All the first pass does is examines the entire movie and takes notes as to what compressions settings it will need where. Then it will come back and start all over again only this time it will actually physically do the encoding using the information it obtained from the pass before. This is why a VBR movie can be compress more yet maintaining a high quality picture. A single CBR pass will compress the whole movie using the pre-set bitrate you gave it but it will not compress the movie as small as the 2-pass VBR method but the quality should still be good as long as you don't go to low with your pre-set bitrate setting.

I only have a single chip AMD and I want to say that for an 1-1/2 movie @ 2-passes, I'm thinking that it took like 6 hours give or take. I usually just let it go over night.

On a side note that 1-1/2 movie encoded using a 2-pass VBR should fit on a regular size DVD. Also, keep in mind is that DL DVD disks aren't really liked by a lot of set-top DVD players out there.

RAM

Posted 5 years ago #
M-323
Member

Video-maniac

by the two bars I meant the encoding bar and the overall progress bar - are you using 2.0?

Posted 5 years ago #
Video-maniac
Member

M-323
by the two bars I meant the encoding bar and the overall progress bar - are you using 2.0?

Hummm... that explains the extra bars. I'm not sure why they have two but there must be a reason.

No I'm still using 1.5. Just haven't felt like upgrading yet.

I guess the point still remains that your 2-1/2 hours for encoding a 1-1/2 hour movie to 30% isn't that out of line when using a VBR setting. That seems about right IMO.

I realize that you feel that your PC should do this faster because it has a duel core CPU but I guess I was under the impression that duel core chips were designed to shine or show there stuff when multi-tasking. Maybe someone can fill me in on this. :-?

In other words if you are encoding you would be tying up one core only and the other would be available for you to maybe run something else on your PC and not have either application suffer any loss of processing power and speed. I could be completely off on this. I do know that having a duel core setup is not as fast as a duel CPU chip setup with their own bus architecture and all.

BTW: I don't think I have ever read about any normal home style PC being able to transcode 1:1. Maybe a super computer like at IL&M. I think those things have pipes hanging out the side and have to use radiators to keep them cool. X-D

RAM

Posted 5 years ago #
M-323
Member

Video-maniac

radiators! funny! X-D

well my first burn on this PC was more than 2.5 hrs IÂ’m afraid.

It started at 5:30pm and ended sometime in the wee hours. - it could have been 10 hrs for a 1.5hr program. Since there is no time meter on PP, I dont know exactly how long it took. It was only about 30% over all at midnight - thats 6.5hrs for 30% (overall) -- but the encoder said 80% by midnight, so it might have sped up after the encoding was finished.

That was using a double pass. IÂ’m tweaking the program a bit more and next time IÂ’m going to try a single pass like compusolver noted above.

other than that, IÂ’m quite happy with Premiere Pro 2.0. I purchased some tutorial DVDs but they didnÂ’t talk about the things I wanted to know like multi camera editing, online collaboration where you can (evidently) email a portion of the program to others to collaborate on - and High Definition - render times are going to be crazy doing that if this is the normal?

I wasnÂ’t willing to spend 7,000.00 for a G5 Mac which they told me would be much faster but then you are taking about switching softwares, platforms and possibly having to buy a new PC every time they want to upgrade the software - evidently Macs are not as modifiable as PCs.

Posted 5 years ago #
On a Roll
Member

M,

Multi-cam editing is a snap. In your first timeline sequence, insert and sync up all your videos on the first 4 video tracks. Each track is a "camera". Then, create a new timeline sequence, and drag the first sequence into the timeline of the second sequence.

When you get that far, enable multi-cam mode in the clip menu, open up the multi-cam monitor, hit record, and you're on your way!

I'm guessing that since you already used it to create one project that you probably figured that out already, but hey, what's it hurt to post it so everyone can find out how?

As far as tutorials go, they show you some interesting stuff, but I don't like them. I learned PP2 just by playing with it, and occasionally flipping throught the help file. It helped having worked on other NLE's before, but even so, there is a lot to learn, I'll admit to that.

Posted 5 years ago #
compusolver
Member

To add to what Jim said about multi-cam editing in PP2.0, it is often a good idea to create a wav file of your combined audio - or at least the most important audio, then replace whatever is in audio track 1 with this and link it with video track 1.

The reason for this is that your multicam monitor only plays audio from audio track 1, and it can ease the editing process if you can hear what is happening as you choose the camera to switch to.

Later, in your target sequence, you can replace audio tracks.

Posted 5 years ago #
compusolver
Member

As for 1:1 render times, videoguy.com sells a set with a video card that supposively gives 1:1 times.

I use a two-step process with PP2.0 - render to mpeg2 then encode with Encore. I have a 3.4 Intel P4 processor wtih 2GB RAM, SATA drives (separate drive for video project files) and an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro video card. Render (CBR 7MBR 1-Pass) averages well under 2:1 and encoding is very fast - about 1:1.

Are all your drivers (especially video drivers) up to date?

I still recommend you try a 1-Pass CBR just to guage things. If this is also slow, you definitely have something wrong in your system.

Posted 5 years ago #
Video-maniac
Member

Comp,

Are you saying that if you have a 1-hour movie project setup on a timeline and you encode it to a mpeg format with PPro that this would only take an hour too?

RAM

Posted 5 years ago #
compusolver
Member

Render to MPEG2 would genreally take less than 2 hours. Please note that having tons of big still PSD graphic files, animations, transitions, color correction, etc. can drastically affect these times.

We generally have very little color correcting to do, but we use transitions in several segments (mostly just disolve).

Please note that, to burn a DVD, I would still have to import this into Encore and burn. Actually, for a one hour DVD, I think this part takes less than one hour.

Posted 5 years ago #
Video-maniac
Member

OK then it's not really 1:1.

That's still pretty fast though.

I think it would take me about 3 hours (CBR) to do a 1 hour movie but I don't have as fast as PC as you do. I actually use the exact same settings you do for encoding.

RAM

Posted 5 years ago #
compusolver
Member

RAM -

I don't think I ever said that I get 1:1. I said that videoguys.com (no affiliation with OKVideoGuy.com) sells a kit with a video card that claims to get 1:1.

After having worked with Pinnacle Studio (a year or two back) I'm happy in the 2:1 neighborhood !

Posted 5 years ago #
Video-maniac
Member

comp,

I think I was confused with the render/encode word usage again. No big deal! ;-)

Getting close to 2:1 is GREAT in my book. I'm not real happy with the speed of my PC's (after all they're 4 years old already and should be replaced) I usually just plan to do my encoding overnight so that I don't lose in productivity time during the evening.

Well gota head to the store to load up on more batteries for my wireless junk. I have a big big wedding shoot this weekend. They want EVERYTHING! $$$ Then Sunday morning I have to take the kid to college. What a weekend! Can't wait til Monday so I can catch my breath.

RAM

Posted 5 years ago #
compusolver
Member

Congratulations on your kid going to college!

I was just thankful mine didn't go to prison! :)

Posted 5 years ago #
On a Roll
Member

I was just thankful mine didn't go to prison! :)
Dad, is that you? :D

j/k. Sounds like a busy week for all!

Posted 5 years ago #
M-323
Member

Guys,

-> this is all great info! (!)

I havenÂ’t had the opportunity to try the multi camera inputs yet - sounds simple enough (famous last words)

Video-maniac;

:-? When the wedding party wants "everything" do you just burn the raw footage to disk with no effects, etc or do you make a mini-series / saga that goes on with music throughout etc?

:-? ...IÂ’m wondering could I be getting a bottleneck at the external drive? it has USBII and firewire connections. They told me that all external drives were IDE - not SATA - the raw files are on the external drive.

(its a NexStar II 3.5in drive.)

will it be any time savings at all to move the files to the main internal drive?

compusolver said color corrections would add to encoding time - actually this historic footage IÂ’m working on has lot of color corrections (which work pretty well however)

IÂ’m really interested in that add on shake eliminator filter - there are a few on the market that IÂ’ve seen - one wanted $500.00 - it would be ideal fro this type of project which was shot, handheld using a wind up 8mm camera - some of it out of a car window (IÂ’m surprised they had cars back then)

:? organization is still difficult for me - Adobe wants to create its own folders - some are temp folders, others different again and I want to have everything in a file called "my videos" so we are all fighting against one another - that plus I have my Cheerios telling me what to do - gets pretty hectic at times.

Posted 5 years ago #
Video-maniac
Member

M-323
Video-maniac;

:-? When the wedding party wants "everything" do you just burn the raw footage to disk with no effects, etc or do you make a mini-series / saga that goes on with music throughout etc?

As for the answer to your question, when I say everything that means that they want a photo-montage for the reception done (which it is), they want the rehearsal and dinner captured, they want the preparation elements captured, they want the arrivals to the church, the ceremony, the immediate reception line, pictures, the limo ride with a stop at the park, the arrival at the reception location, and pretty much everything that happens at the reception including setting up and showing the montage. My partner and I have a detailed plan-o-gram drawn up so that we can be in the right place at the right time in order to pull this off. All of this will then be edited up very nicely, which includes all of the sugar and spice in a somewhat chronological order to form what I term their wedding experience.

You see I use an alaÂ’carte approach for putting together packages. In other words, the couple can pick and choose what they all want and then thatÂ’s what I do. Of course there are prices associated with each item they choose. It gives the couple more flexiblity especially when it comes to the amount of money they are willing to spend. IÂ’m finding that this works out very well. Couples have made comments about how much others are charging for a set package, but arenÂ’t willing to part with that much money. This way when they found me, they had options and could pick what they felt was important and yet stay within their budget. Pretty much they get what they pay for in other words.

RAM

Posted 5 years ago #
M-323
Member

Video-maniac

Brilliant! Im sure the couples will be happy to have such a complete set of memories. This way tehy can show it to their subsequent partners 8-O

Ironically, I dont think I watch my own wedding after the fact - maybe part.

Got some more questions however...

I don't know if it's the size of the project I'm working on for some other issue but in the middle of working on this 1.5 hour historical project, sometimes everything freezes! It's like you can't move anything. This last sometimes for a few seconds up to a minute, then the things seem to stabilize.

At one point, I actually shut everything down and turn it back on again. Any ideas as to what might cause this?

Second because it seems so convoluted, I'm off to something like 14 sequences.

The first pass I made at this project was a very rough draft in order to see how long it would take to burn for one, and for two because my dad wanted to see the footage on DVD so he could make his own notes at home.

So Im into the second edit and this time trying to simplify things by adding the sequences - using them as bins or boxes of sorts in order to try to keep all the different clips organized.

However what I never thought out in advance was what happens once you get all the sequences put together?

I'm assuming that you have to build one master sequence and dump all of the sequences into that master. Is this correct or is there an easier way?

Secondly, my father mentioned that there were other family members that might want at least sections of this project.

Is it possible to tell premiere Pro or just to burn of those sequences? Or do we have to make another master sequence, and place all the necessary sequences into that sequence and burn that?

Example, if there is footage of Joe, Sally, Tim and John but only Joe and Sally would be interested in their own footage, can we just take the Joe and Sally sequences and burn them alone? Or do we have to create a new timeline to dump those into in order to burn them in their own group?

-> [Legal notice, names have been altered to protect identity]

Posted 5 years ago #
RB
Member

If I understand your question and you are using Premier, then the answer would be ... you'll have to make another time line. I've done this several times for various reasons and it isn't that hard or that time consuming. That is, if the music tracks don't give you any trouble.

I just do a save as of the original project, then rip it appart, re-bake, save and export.

Posted 5 years ago #
compusolver
Member

You don't have to copy all the clips from the various sequences - you can actually bring other sequences into your new sequence. Just remember if you shorten the original sequence, it will not automatically shrink to the new length - you need to remove and reinsert the sequence into the containing sequence.

Posted 5 years ago #