Are you using Onlocation Cs4?

Kit Hannah

Kit Hannah

Veteran
Hi there,
I'm trying to find out who uses the slowest PC for Adobe Onlocation Cs4 (or even CS3). I keep hearing that it's 2 - 2.4 Ghz, but I'm wondering if I can get away with using a 1-2 Ghz dual CPU. I want to see what the slowest possible processor speed is (with absolutely nothing else running). I know a lot depends on hard drive speed too, which I will install a solid state hard drive to take care of, but I would like to record DVCPRO-HD and see what the minimum processor speed is that I can get away with, of course without having problems. Anybody currently using anything slow?

Thanks
Kit
 
Honestly it isn't really the processor you have to worry about, it is the speed of the Bus that your Firewire card/Hard Drive is hooked into. I would guess anything over 5-7 years old won't have enough bandwidth across the Motherboard to handle DVCPROHD, but that is just a really rough guesstimate.

Though I suppose anything that you can get a Firewire card into, on a PCI bus should be able to handle it. Be careful of the Firewire card though, mine for some reason has problems with OnLocation and my HVX200a, it was a 9$ budget card.

J
 
Thanks for your comments, J.

I am very knowledgeable about computers - I understand how everything works. But different software packages have different requirements, and many manufacturers over-state those requirements so that they're on the safe side of things, for any situation, including but not limited to other software and processes running in the background and the most memory intensive situations the program can get itself in to.

So, I'm looking to see what some real world tests are - I'd like to see how Onlocation performs on slower systems, like Pentium 4's, mobile processors, etc. Especially just using things like DVCPRO-HD, which isn't as much of a resource gobbler as HDV - Writing to Hard disc and monitoring at the same time.
 
I recently started using OnLocation CS4 and even though I got off to a slow start I am very pleased now. Its hard to believe other companies like Apple don't have their own "direct to disk" recording software? Why oh why would they not have such program and what other programs like OnLocation is there?
 
Kit Hannah said:
Hi there,
I'm trying to find out who uses the slowest PC for Adobe Onlocation Cs4 (or even CS3). I keep hearing that it's 2 - 2.4 Ghz, but I'm wondering if I can get away with using a 1-2 Ghz dual CPU. I want to see what the slowest possible processor speed is (with absolutely nothing else running). I know a lot depends on hard drive speed too, which I will install a solid state hard drive to take care of, but I would like to record DVCPRO-HD and see what the minimum processor speed is that I can get away with, of course without having problems. Anybody currently using anything slow?

Thanks
Kit
Click to expand...

Hi Kit-

I know this doesn't (directly) answer your question, but . . .
I've got a 2 year old Toshiba Tecra A8. Bought it primarily for the PCMCIA slot to offload footage.
Upgraded to 4 gigs of RAM (and recently from a 120 Gb 5400 HD to a 250 7200 drive).
The drive change seemed to make a difference but I've never edited from the main drive . . . I usually have a G-Tech Mini hooked up via USB2 for my footage. Maybe that's "old school" but that's they way I've always done it.

Anyhow. I primarily use Edius Broadcast 5 but occasionally use CS3. Granted I only edit one stream of DVC PRO HD but it doesn't appear to choke down when rendering . . .
I'm supposed to receive the upgrade to CS4 mid-week--if you want I can give you a report on that after I install it?

I'd almost bet that if you stick to using your boot drive for the programs and maintain a second drive for your footage you'll be okay with a little bit slower processer.

Good luck.
 
Hey Dreg,
Thanks for the info. When you say "Drive speed made a difference", how? I mean, of course it's going to speed things up as far as the computer goes, windows booting and apps loading, but how did it affect Onlocation? Were you not getting a full 24 or 30 frames before the hard drive speed? This is n't something I will have to worry about since I am planning around a SSD (solid state drive for those of you who don't know), so drive speed is not going to be a problem.

I see that your PC is running the Intel T5500, which, in comparison to what I am thinking of using, is about 15% faster. This is VERY helpful because it is pretty close and I think I can get an accurate representation if this is going to work with what I'm using. Are you using your pc for other things? It sounds like you have a few other programs on there, but I'm just trying to get a feel of how well everything is running when you use CS3. It would be VERY nice if you could record something for a couple of minutes and report back the following:

1. Checking the performance monitor in task manager while recording DVCPRO-HD, what percentage of the processor is being used to do this? Please be sure that you have all of your waveforms and monitor enabled.

2. Does the monitor give you real-time playback while recording?

3. How much ram is being utilized?

4. Are you having any problems with dropped frames or anything?

That's all I can think of. If you get a few minutes, I would REALLY appreciate it!

Thanks
Kit
 
WorldStuntTeam said:
I recently started using OnLocation CS4 and even though I got off to a slow start I am very pleased now. Its hard to believe other companies like Apple don't have their own "direct to disk" recording software? Why oh why would they not have such program and what other programs like OnLocation is there?
Click to expand...

There are actually more programs built for Apple than I can find for PC. Onlocation seems to be one of the only logical choices for PC at the moment. It would be nice to know of any other ones. What would be really stellar is if there were any programs like Onlocation but based on a Linux platform that didn't cost any money... :)
 
ive used it several times. but im using it on a octocore macpro so im not sure that helps with your question...
 
Kit- Let me get CS4 installed when it arrives later in the week and I'll try to answer all questions (and then won't have to test twice). Oh yeah, I've got a lot of other programs on the laptop but nothing else running in the background when I use it for O/L. I have, however popped into AE to fix a file or two while editing in Premiere Pro.

I will say that Edius is still my favorite "down & dirty" NLE because it handles everything you through at it (and I render out my final thru ProCoder to DVDit for Blu-ray). Best part of the Adobe product, for me, is that there are just so many more options.
 
Hey Kit, maybe your best bet is to download the Adobe CS4 free trial software and see how it performs on your computer...just a thought.
 
Kevin McElroy said:
Hey Kit, maybe your best bet is to download the Adobe CS4 free trial software and see how it performs on your computer...just a thought.
Click to expand...

I'm trying to find a computer "slow enough". Both my Quad Core Desktop and Dual Core Laptop are a bit fast and they will handle Onlocation just fine. I have this crazy idea, so I'm tryin to see what the slowest processor that I can get away with is.

Thanks
Kit
 
dregenthal said:
Kit- Let me get CS4 installed when it arrives later in the week and I'll try to answer all questions (and then won't have to test twice). Oh yeah, I've got a lot of other programs on the laptop but nothing else running in the background when I use it for O/L. I have, however popped into AE to fix a file or two while editing in Premiere Pro.

I will say that Edius is still my favorite "down & dirty" NLE because it handles everything you through at it (and I render out my final thru ProCoder to DVDit for Blu-ray). Best part of the Adobe product, for me, is that there are just so many more options.
Click to expand...

Thanks Dreg. Any info that people can give me will be helpful, including processor speed, hard drive size and speed, and what else they have running on their systems.

If anybody out there has an old laptop laying around, say, something like a P4, 2 to 3Ghz that they are able to test it on "by itself", that would be really cool.

And even better if you have a laptop running something like the Intel® Core™ 2 Duo LV L7400 processor with a couple gigs of ram and a minimum of a 5200rpm hard drive(if not a 7200 or SSD)..... This is the basic system I would ideally like to use. The question is, will it run it?...

What I am doing is hopefully finding someone with a laptop close to these specs or less (not more), that can actually tell me everything is working perfectly so I know my system will work. I don't want to purchase a system that isn't going to work, especially for as much as I will be spending on this thing.

Thanks for all of your help!
 
Kit Hannah said:
I'm trying to find a computer "slow enough". Both my Quad Core Desktop and Dual Core Laptop are a bit fast and they will handle Onlocation just fine. I have this crazy idea, so I'm tryin to see what the slowest processor that I can get away with is.

Thanks
Kit
Click to expand...

My mistake, I thought you were trying to see if the program would run on your older/slower computer (but your computers are obviously plenty fast enough), didn't realize it was for testing. I have a Macbook Pro, so my info won't help you any. Good luck though, cheers :beer:
 
Thanks Kevin. I do appreciate the feedback! I would love to design something around an Apple, but unfortunately, their OS isn't available to put on other systems for commercial uses, so producing something would not be very beneficial. They definitely have innovative products that serve their intended uses, but unfortunately that wouldn't work for me.
Thanks!
Kit
 
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