7D video clips in CS5 too SLOW ??

[George D.]

When editing video clips from the Canon 7D in Adobe CS5, I have noticed that when trying to speed through the clip it will sometimes skip or stall to the point where you cannot see the progression of the scene.

Am I doing something wrong? Is the data too big for CS5 to handle at that rate?

It did not do this when I was practicing with low-res video from a little camcorder. But, some of these 7D clips are rather long, and watching them in normal time is way to time consuming, etc.

It is not the computer, because it is a custom built, brand new PC with more than enough power and RAM.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[wildfly]

Power and RAM is great... however hard drives can be a bottleneck. Tell us about your drive setup. Are you clips residing on a RAID array? A dedicated drive? Or residing on the same drive as your OS is on?

 

[George D.]

Power and RAM is great... however hard drives can be a bottleneck. Tell us about your drive setup. Are you clips residing on a RAID array? A dedicated drive? Or residing on the same drive as your OS is on?

I know very little about computers. I'm a cinematographer with many years experience in film, NOT a computer expert. I do know that the clips I'm experimenting with at the moment ARE on the main drive as the Windows7 Operating System. If this is a problem, please let me know, because I didn't know that could create difficulties, etc.

It is no problem at all having the clips on an external drive, if that's what it will take.

When I can afford it in the future, I will be getting a RAID Array, but for now, something else, like an external hard drive, will have to do.

Thanks.

 

[mediamogul]

Hi George, try changing the resolution. Here is a video tutorial I did. It will help! http://www.vimeo.com/14276515

Cheers, Dave

 

[George D.]

Hi George, try changing the resolution. Here is a video tutorial I did. It will help! http://www.vimeo.com/14276515

Cheers, Dave

Dave,

WOW, I can't thank you enough. That little "hard to find" detail will help me immensely with the editing I'm currently doing, and especially the work I'll be doing in the future with RED-One footage.

Thanks much.

 

[mediamogul]

My pleasure! Glad to help!

 

[George D.]

I already have a quick question for you.

I tried your system of dropping the resolution and it worked, except it will NOT allow me to drop it more than 1/4. Why?

 

[mediamogul]

Im checking on reasons why this might be happening. Can you let me know your system specs? cheers, Dave

 

[George D.]

Im checking on reasons why this might be happening. Can you let me know your system specs? cheers, Dave

The basic specs are:

Motherboard is an Intel S5620, with 1 Xeon 5620 processor, 12 GB of memory, and two 1TB drives, and an Nvidia FX380 video card.

When I had this custom computer built, it was according to the guidelines given to me by RED and other RED users, and that is all I could afford at this time. In the future when we get the RED-Scarlet or the RED-One, if I need to upgrade the computer then I'll consider it. For now, that is the way it will have to stand.

Thanks for your continued help.

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[mediamogul]

Ok cool, still checking on it. will post something soon.

 

[Averdahl]

Nvidia FX380 video card.

Do you mean Nvidia FX 380 or Nvidia FX 3800?

If Nvidia FX 380, i suspect that the card is to weak for HD footage beacuse it only has 256 MB memory on the card. (The more memory - the better performance with HD footage)

/Roger

 

[George D.]

Do you mean Nvidia FX 380 or Nvidia FX 3800?

If Nvidia FX 380, i suspect that the card is to weak for HD footage beacuse it only has 256 MB memory on the card. (The more memory - the better performance with HD footage)

/Roger

I will check to make sure, but I think it's the 380. The 3800 is just too expensive for me to afford right now at over $800.oo.

I'll just have to live with what I have to live with for the time being.

 

[bimdas]

A 2nd hand GTX 285 can be had for around $200 and will perform just as good as the Quadro FX 4800 in Premiere CS5. If you wanted to do the simple mercury hack, a $100 GTS 250 with 1gb of ram would kill your current video card. Quadro's really have no advantage when it comes to rendering video despite what nvidia or adobe would like you to believe.

And when it comes to editing, always use a separate drive for your video files to your OS and program files. For external drives, avoid USB like the plague, I wouldn't even trust USB 3. E-sata is the fastest most cost effective way to go.

 

[wildfly]

George, sorry I didn't get back to you sooner. Right now as your system stands, adding a dedicated hard drive for video will do more for your playback than anything else. You could add a single 1TB drive and get by editing one or two layers of video without much issue, or you could buy two drives (if you have the room inside the case) and do a striped volume (RAID 0) in Windows that will give you a lot better performance. In my opinion, a two drive RAID 0 is a minimum for editing 7D files comfortably. Just remember that a RAID 0 does not have any fault tolerance, so if one drive goes out you lose the data on both of those drives, so back your stuff up.

You are crippling the system you have now by editing with your footage on the OS drive. If you want help with adding drives (where to buy, what to get, how to install, etc) just send me a PM or ask more questions here in this thread.

 

[mediamogul]

Hi George here is what Adobe told me:

"Not all resolutions are available for all sequence types. For Standard Definition sequences, such as DV, only Full and 1/2 are available. For many HD sequences up to 1,080 frame size, Full, 1/2, and 1/4 are available. For sequences with frame sizes larger than 1,080, such as RED, all the fractions are available."

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/premierepro/cs/using/WS40D098AD-37B2-4a0e-A46C-2C27F2CD0864.html

 

[George D.]

George, sorry I didn't get back to you sooner. Right now as your system stands, adding a dedicated hard drive for video will do more for your playback than anything else. You could add a single 1TB drive and get by editing one or two layers of video without much issue, or you could buy two drives (if you have the room inside the case) and do a striped volume (RAID 0) in Windows that will give you a lot better performance. In my opinion, a two drive RAID 0 is a minimum for editing 7D files comfortably. Just remember that a RAID 0 does not have any fault tolerance, so if one drive goes out you lose the data on both of those drives, so back your stuff up.

You are crippling the system you have now by editing with your footage on the OS drive. If you want help with adding drives (where to buy, what to get, how to install, etc) just send me a PM or ask more questions here in this thread.

Thank you and Mediamogul for all the kind help. I understand the whole thing clearer now.

The work I have been doing so far is just to learn CS5. Nothing serious. When I "do" start actual editing of the important video, I will make sure I store it in another hard drive, and I will back "everything" up. I'm still learning, and coming from over 35 years in film, and only being on computers for a little over 5 years, leaves me with a LOT left to learn yet about "digital" production.

Sure is fun though. And, I wish I was rich, and could afford a $25,000.oo computer, but I'm not, so I have to work with what I have.

Thanks again, and I wish all forums were frequented by more guys like you two. There are, unfortunately, too many out there suffering from over-inflated egos.