Multi Tasking

Here I am in my little radiation room multitasking on my PC.

Encoding out HDV m2t files form Premiere Pro timeline.

Encoding the m2t files to H.264 ones for a client.

FTPing the H2.64 clips up onto the server.

Posting on wetpixel

Here is something real cool...as it's encoding to a m2t from out of the timeline the second encoder is encoding the m2t file being made into the H.264....

Gee I hate PC's

Well, I reckon you could sell your Phenom and FX1, and buy a dual G5 Mac with a huge hard drive, and pick up a 30" Apple HiDef flat panel Cinema Display, and have enough left over to buy a basic Inspiration closed circuit rebreather.....

I probably could there Dave but I think I will keep my Phenom & PC. I'm going to get a 3 port Matrox graphic box so I can have 3 x 17 inch LCD screens...one big huge timeline then

Rebreathers, well how do I control my buoyancy by breathing then to control my videoshots? Im also hopeless at cleaning dive gear never lone CO2 scubbers

I hear you Wagsy, I hate PC's so much I had to order another one. It's a custom workstation from Monarchcomputer.com, that I configured to edit HDV. Shipping this week.

Cooler Master RC-810-SSN1 Stacker - this case has 16 bays, with fan cooled modules that mount 4 HDD's in the space of 3 bays. No more red hot HDD's, or lack of space.

Cooler Master Real Power 550, RS-550-ACLY, 550W Power Supply

Asus P5WD2-E Premium 975x Audio/GB-LAN/IE

Intel Pentium D 950 LGA775 3.4GHz 2MB per core

Matrox Parhelia APVe 128MB DDR/PCI-E Triple Head - this will run my two 19 CRT's and 22" HDTV.

4GB DDR2 (667) PC2-5400 OCZ Special OPS Edition

Pioneer DVR-111D Dual-Layer DVD Burner

Western Digital Raptor 74 GB 16 MB 10,000 RPM - system drive

Western Digital Caviar RE2 500 GB - and a few of these to add to the HDD's coming out of my old PC.

This should keep me happy for a while. My old computer had HDD's hanging out of it with a house fan blowing on it for extra cooling. 9 HDD's make a lot of heat. Then a little over a week ago, I dropped one of my 400 GB Raided drives, and destroyed an almost full 800 GB Raid of HDV footage. Ordered new computer (was already on my wish list) same day. Lots of work now, to re-capture and trim footage. Moral of the story: Don't have hard drives sitting outside your computer on a cardboard box, over a ceramic tile floor. Accident waiting to happen.

Sounds like a nice setup, the Matrox tripple port card is a winner. I cannot work on single screen computers anymore.

I have stayed away from raid for that reason, just single SATA drives. Overheating is a problem here in summer, I have 4 internal fans and a tiny cool water cooled one when things get really hot. Might get a water cooled prosessor heat sink then it will never get hot when encoding.

9 drives ..ya beat me I have only 6

Once it's built you should back the system drive up so you can rebuild the system drive in case you have a problem. I downloaded a program today which really messed up my complete editing system, so set my backup going and by the time I had finished my coffee it was all back perfect again. Even keep a copy on DVD in the draw incase I loose the system drive completly and have to put new one in. Even if the computer will not boot it's still no problems, just get it to boot of a special floppy I made to access the special single compressed file to unload it over the system drive again. Cool Hey

I have not used bug programs or virus software since 1999 just use a firewall as it quicker to do a restore than scan for bugs / updates etc..KISS

Of course computer shops / IT people dont' want people really to know how to run their computers this way.

Long Live Macs!!!!!!!!!!!!

Steve B)

Once it's built you should back the system drive up so you can rebuild the system drive in case you have a problem

800 Gig of HDV! That's 60 hours isn't it? You need to get trimming! Trashing it has probably done you a favour as 2nd time round you'll capture the best stuff first and then give up on the rest and go diving

Dan I'm jealous of that setup. That's going to be seriously fast.

Let us know how the Pioneer DVD drive goes. Having had a couple of Pioneer DVD writers and been happy with them, the last ones I tried (both 110 I think) were coaster makers. I think the quality dropped when the manufacture left Japan. I have a Benq now and I'm very happy with it. It's more tweakable than the Pioneers too if you like that sort of thing.

I've got the WD Raptor too and it's been a great system drive. I deliberated over the 36Gb or the 74Gb and went for the smaller one. It's absolultely rammed with software (my start > All Programs list is 3 full-height columns, most of them folders) and still only half full.

For backups I use Acronis TrueImage. So far so good. I backup onto my old external IEEE1394 data drives that I outgrew.

Got a copy of Retrospect Express with my last Western Digital external drive so I might do a backup on that too. Belt and braces. Acronis and Retrospect both have a very good reputation.

Wags, did you say you got a SATA splitter? My too SATA sockets are both full and I'm not keen on investing in more IDE drives.

Nick

Nick

Acronis TrueImage does not pack it all into one single file though or does it now.

If you run out of SATA ports just get a PCI SATA exspansion card an away you go.

Here some cool news, I have a company asking for some HDV footage for a TV project and there were some requests for fooage that I did not have on HDV. So I upconverted some MINI DV to 1080i and loaded it up onto the server and they have just said that it looks OKAY...so there ya go could be a good month...

Hope they aren't reading this board wagsy

Yes Wags, Acronis does pack it into one file.

Just got back from a quick 30 min air shoot flying over Ningaloo Reef for a promo DVD I'm working on for a mob here. Water looks OKA as well...that means diving tomorrow......

No I told them about the upconvert and that we can give it a go to see how it goes. I gave them a few full size m2t fles to watch. You can tell the difference thats for sure from true underwater HDV shot stuff, but good to see it can be used for certain small cuts.

Its quite cool to send them material over the internet. Don't even have to send a tape anymore.

O... have to have another look at Acronis then Nick.

Long Live Macs!!!!!!!!!!!!

Steve B)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Steve, you say that like there's any other choice...I mean, I have heard legends of something called the "Pee-See" in the past, but I thought that was just a story that loggers and prospectors told each other over the campfire at night to keep from getting bored.

You're almost right, actually, after much research, I uncovered that they were the original campfire horror stories.

Steve B)

Long Live Macs!!!!!!!!!!!!