H-264 / i7 / CS-4

ROCKMORE

ROCKMORE

Veteran
I had problems editing my H-264 1080p 25fps footage like everybody else, but yesterday when I made a general contrast correction to all the shots turning the line from yellow to red then rendering it green, it plays and edits normal. Ripping fast actually.
This morning I woke up and thought maybe I was dreaming, but opened and set up a another project and works like it's DV footage.
Has anyone else had the same experience? I've only heard bad news and massive file conversions so far in the last year.
My PC- i7 isn't even the fastest one and my main board so far only has 3 gigs of memory. My budget was a little tight when I built it in January so I had to make a few concessions that day. I'll be upgrading it to 9 gigs of ram this week.
 
ROCKMORE said:
I had problems editing my H-264 1080p 25fps footage like everybody else, but yesterday when I made a general contrast correction to all the shots turning the line from yellow to red then rendering it green, it plays and edits normal. Ripping fast actually.
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Well...yea. You did a preview render, encoded the h.264 into a lower bitrate codec for viewing so of course its going to be fast.
 
Huy Vu said:
Well...yea. You did a preview render, encoded the h.264 into a lower bitrate codec for viewing so of course its going to be fast.
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Well if it works so well, why is everyone transcoding all there footage to different files like DNX-HD in order to edit. Maybe I'm missing something, but at this point I don't see what the problem is other than a processor the can't handle the data?
 
ROCKMORE said:
Well if it works so well, why is everyone transcoding all there footage to different files like DNX-HD in order to edit. Maybe I'm missing something, but at this point I don't see what the problem is other than a processor the can't handle the data?
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1) The preview render files are much lower res, if you view it at 100% resolution then the difference is noticeable.
2) Make any further edit or cut and you'll have to do the preview render all over again.
3) It takes time to do a preview render.

So the purpose of doing a preview render is just that, to give you a low res preview of what's on the timeline.
 
Huy Vu said:
1) The preview render files are much lower res, if you view it at 100% resolution then the difference is noticeable.
2) Make any further edit or cut and you'll have to do the preview render all over again.
--

So the purpose of doing a preview render is just that, to give you a low res preview of what's on the timeline.
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I understand that. I've been editing NLE for 10 years. What I don't understand is why nobody seems to have been able to edit native H-264 files in Adobe CS4 smoothly with an i7. I've been following this on this forum for a year and the best advice I've gotten is to convert to the files using Pro-res or DNX-HD. I just don't get it. I'm having no trouble editing the native H-264 files. Is it just me or is everybody else able to work with the files as smooth as silk suddenly.

1) The preview render files are much lower res, if you view it at 100% resolution then the difference is noticeable.

I only export the final edit to uncompressed QT as I would with EX-3 files.

I also think it's strange that you are the only person who has even responded to this post, being such a problematic issue. Are you able to edit native H-264 files with no problems as well?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not cranky, just surprised with the no response. When I posted for advice about converting files I got a hundred responses offering comments and advise.
 
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I'm not quite sure what point you're trying to make then. The whole deal with going to an intermediate codec is that you have to do LESS render preview, which saves you time. Yea, with any codec, even RED 4k, you can always do render preview and get it to play in real time, but every time you do it you're just sitting around waiting for the computer to render the frames. And it's not even "smooth" in the sense that if you make one minor changes to that clip then you have to render it all over again. Better computer, better software (i.e Premiere Pro CS5 w/ Mercury) means you're able to have multiple streams of video simultaneously, with color correction and other effects applied without having to do preview render, ultimately saving you a ton of time.
 
Huy Vu said:
I'm not quite sure what point you're trying to make then. The whole deal with going to an intermediate codec is that you have to do LESS render preview, which saves you time.
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I guess the point I'm trying to make is it not very difficult to work with the native H-264 files. Before from what I read and experienced it seemed they were unmanagable.
I also found that transcoding to codecs like DNX-HD did huge gamma shifts and were inferior to the original camera files. The correction in CS4 was +8 brightness +10 contrast and +5 chroma to even get close to the original and it was a completely different image. They also grew to 1.6 Gb per min.
The only conversion that was an exact clone was Uncompressed QT files that grew from 1 Gb for 3 minutes of footage to 6 to 12 Gb per minute depending on if it was full uncompressed, 10bit or 8bit. The transfer time and space was huge. Full uncompressed files also require preview rendering.
So with all the other added transcoding time, space, and possible degraded image quality, I think it's easier to just use the original H-264 footage.
Thanks for the response.
 
ROCKMORE said:
I guess the point I'm trying to make is it not very difficult to work with the native H-264 files.
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It's really important to define "worked with" here. My old computer, a quad core Q6600 2.4 GHz with 8 GB of RAM on CS4 can easily run one stream of h.264 AVCHD with basic cuts, but the moment even the simplest effects is added like scaling then the speed drops dramatically. Forget about multiple streams on top of each other. So yes, for simple editing it's not hard to work with h.264, but for longer projects it's something to consider.
 
My old computer, a quad core Q6600 2.4 GHz with 8 GB of RAM

A question...did the old computer start life with 3 gig of ram running 32 bit XP?

And if so, did you see big changes when you went to 8 gig and 64 bit?
 
Al MacLeod said:
My old computer, a quad core Q6600 2.4 GHz with 8 GB of RAM

A question...did the old computer start life with 3 gig of ram running 32 bit XP?

And if so, did you see big changes when you went to 8 gig and 64 bit?
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It actually did. I was on XP 32 bit with 4 GB for about a year, then decided to give Vista 64 bit a shot. There was definitely an improvement with regards to rendering time, not much that I can recall in preview.
 
I'm toying with the idea of doing 8 gig, win7 and CS5 on my q6600.

Was it worth the upgrade for you or was it just an incremental improvement?

I don't want to throw money at an older machine just to find out I should have started from scratch.
 
Huy Vu said:
It's really important to define "worked with" here. My old computer, a quad core Q6600 2.4 GHz with 8 GB of RAM on CS4 can easily run one stream of h.264 AVCHD with basic cuts, but the moment even the simplest effects is added like scaling then the speed drops dramatically. Forget about multiple streams on top of each other. So yes, for simple editing it's not hard to work with h.264, but for longer projects it's something to consider.
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All the shots I tested were scaled 110 to 150% and they all edited smoothly with dissolves. Rendering the timeline is very fast as well. I'll test speed changes, but having 50 and 60fps I don't usually have the need.
I'm running H-264 Mov. files, not AVCHD.
 
Al MacLeod said:
I'm toying with the idea of doing 8 gig, win7 and CS5 on my q6600.

Was it worth the upgrade for you or was it just an incremental improvement?

I don't want to throw money at an older machine just to find out I should have started from scratch.
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It's better to just start from scratch and build a dedicated editing computer if you haven't already. No internet connection, no other programs installed except what is absolutely necessary and you'll get much less headache. My old comp has actually been patched over for year with newer components, and eventually it starts exhibiting so much bug that I had to get a new system. People are always complaining that this or that program is buggy, but generally most people are on a single computer that they use for everything and eventually some programs just aren't going to play nice with others and you start getting weird behavior.
 
Actually, the power supplies for the pcs like yours are getting so big that it's like running a hair dryer watt wise!
 
Huy Vu said:
It's better to just start from scratch and build a dedicated editing computer if you haven't already. No internet connection, no other programs installed except what is absolutely necessary and you'll get much less headache.
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100% agreed.
Use your 1st computer for internet and everything else.
Build your new PC just for work.
Use the Deep Freeze program, keep all data off your system drive and your system will start fresh every start like it was new.
My PC starts in about 30 sec ready to work.
I set up a second clone system drive that is on standby if I ever have a failure in the middle of a job.
So far in 6 months, smooth as silk.

PC/ Windows XP Pro 64bit
ASUS P6TD Motherboard
Intel i7 920
Corsair 3X 1Gb DDR3 (My MB takes up to 24Gb / I'm adding 6Gb more this week for a total of 9Gb ram)
ASUS EAH 4870 DK 1GB
ADOBE PREMIER CS4
Canon H-264 Mov. 1080 25 fps

Edits Canon native H-264 Mov. original camera files smooth.
 
ROCKMORE said:
/snip
...
Build your new PC just for work.
Use the Deep Freeze program, keep all data off your system drive and your system will start fresh every start like it was new.
My PC starts in about 30 sec ready to work.
...
snip/
Click to expand...

Use what!??!

Wiping/Formatting the hard drive would be better. Do things properly :D:cheesy:
 
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