Suggestions for optimizing hardware/software for Premiere CS5?

Y

yophoto91

Active member
Hi all,

For a while now I've been using Premiere CS3 to edit HDV footage, but never gave much thought to optimizing my hardware and software to make the workflow as best as it can be. I actually have some fairly decent hardware and am looking for suggestions to maximize its potential by either making simple changes within the software or making minor upgrades in the hardware. For the record, I'm planning on purchasing the Adobe CS 5 Suite with my student discount once it ships in a few weeks. Also, another important factor to consider is that in about a month I will need to be able to edit a 7 minute short film which will be shot on a RED ONE camera (4K or even 5k) and I have absolutely no experience with RED footage and what is required in terms of hardware/software, so I can use some recommendations. From what I've read, the new CS5 should make it easier to edit RED footage. For the record, I doubt I'll be working with RED footage on a regular basis after I finish this particular project next month, and instead will be investing in either a Canon 5D Mark II or the 7D which should be adequate for my needs for quite some time.

As of now, I'm trying to wrap my head around scratch disks as I've never really messed around with them in the past...I've simply been editing all my HDV projects on a single drive (500 GB). I recently picked up a second hard drive (1TB) and am considering picking up a third drive to set up a RAID 0 if you guys think it will make a noticeable performance difference for my workflow. I'm currently running Windows XP 64 bit, but will be switching over to Windows 7 64 bit once I pick up the CS 5 Suite.

My current system hardware:

-CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Core (Q9450) 2.66GHz

-Graphics: EVGA GeForce 9600 GT 1GB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

-RAM: 4GB of DDR2 800/PC2-6400. I just ordered an additional 4GB so I will now have 8GB total.

-Motherboard: ASUS P5Q Intel P45 Core 2 Quad/Core 2 Extreme/Core 2
Duo/Dual-Core Celeron Socket 775 1600 MHz PC2-9600 (DDR2-1200) ATX

-Hard Drives: I have a 500GB Seagate 7200 RPM 32MB SATA and a 1TB Western Digital Caviar Black 7200 RPM 32MB SATA 3.0Gb/s.

Your time and advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you and take care,

Mark
 
In simple terms, your scratch discs are to premiere, like what a workbench would be to a carpenter. It is in-part where most of the rendering for your project takes place. The better your workspace, the faster your workflow goes.

If you are working completely off your OS Drive, you should see a noticable improvement by using an Internal Raid0 or External Raid 0 drive setup. It is rather Taboo to use your OS drive for projects and scratch disc space. It probably wont hurt anything, but you certainly arent helping anything. Not to mention, if your OS goes down, so does your project.


For Array hookups, E-Sata may be the most cost effective if you buy a Case, and a pair of drives, and put it together yourself. It isnt rocket science. You can buy an E-Sata PCI card to slip into one of the slots in your PC. (I sincerely suggest if you are not familiar with this, get someone to help, there are things Like I/O addresses that should be taken into consideration, you want one that is free for best results)
USB2.0 will limit you to it's own bandwidth, no matter how fast the drives are. However, using (for instance) an off the shelf My Book 2gb in a raid 0 Config, through USB, will offer wonders you have not experienced yet. If you are doing RED, then you really should look into an E-Sata Raid Solution or even an internal one for your desktop. No bones about that.

Bump up your memory as high as your system will go. From the specs of your CPU, Im guessing your Mother board will take at least 8 gigs. Buy it, youll never regret it. Personally, I would strongly suggest buying it all at the same time so it is matched. You don't need headaches from Mis-Matched memory.

Get a Good Video card, entry level for CS5 would be the Nvidia GTX285. You wont regret the 300 bucks. If you are getting CS5, I would not waste money on anything less. You wont reap many benefits except bells and whistles.


Lastly, for your OS, (this is a personal suggestion) I might recommend getting one of the 10,000 RPM Sata Drives. I think they are the Velosa Raptor or something. I use them for all my OS's. That drive will carry your forward into another machine like the Video Card so it will not be a waste, and, I saw noticable improvements in all my operations. Sometimes as much as 15 or 20 percent. I did have one setup JUST to use as premiere Scratch disc/Windows Page File Disc. And boy did it do wonders. They are pricey. However, they are also rated as Enterprise level drives, meaning, it should not die on you like all the other cheapies out there. It has a rather heavy "Duty Rating". Its also cool to look at, it is a 2.5 inch drive in a 3.5 inch heat sync.

Windows 7 is a Microsoft Dream. The folowing does not make me a GURU, just a well versed end user: Ive been using and building all my systems since Dos 2.0. Hard drives were 1200 dollars for 20 megabytes and weighed more than a VW bug. Windows was a just a twinkle in Billy's Eyes and the word MultiTasking was only something housewives generally did better than men. Win 7, It is the most forgiving MS OS to date IMHO. Upgrade if you have not already.


Beyond that, I would put the rest of your pennies away for a faster machine one day. I use a similar setup to what you have, and all I am doing is bumping up My video Card.
Lastly, get CS5. It is worth every stinking penny.

Hopefully, others more intelligent than I will chime in here. I'm just suggesting what I would do if I were wearing your shoes, and wanted the best bang for the buck.
 
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David,

I appreciate the advice. Considering I’ll likely only be editing RED ONE footage (short films under 10 minutes) a handful of times in my life, do you think I can get by without a RAID 0 Config if most of what I’ll be editing will be HD-DSLR footage (ex. Canon 5D MK II or 7D) or do you think the RAID 0 will make a noticeable difference in HD-DSLR editing as well?

Also I’m trying to figure out how best to configure my hard drives and whether or not I need a total of 3 or 4 drives. Would it be better in terms of performance to have 4 separate hard drives on my computer...Drive #1 dedicated to my operating system and programs...Drive #2 dedicated to scratch disks...Drive #3 dedicated to my actual video/audio files...and Drive #4 (can be internal or external) for backing up all my video related projects? Basically, I'm unsure as to whether or not I need a separate drive for just my video/audio files or if I can use put them in the same drive that I dedicate for scratch disks without sacrificing overall speed. How much space do I really need allocated for the scratch disks?

As far as configuring RAID 0 correctly…luckily my brother is a computer GURU so that won’t be an issue. And yes, I’d definitely go with a SATA/eSATA system as opposed to USB 2.0.

Thanks again for any additional information. Your time is greatly appreciated.

Take care,

Mark
 
There are allot of ways to answer this. However, I'm coming from the standpoint of Budget, not a perfect world.

For the red footage, I can only tell you that you will probably need speed, Raid 0 works. I have not worked with the Red Flow, outside of making some 4k animated backgrounds. But the raid 0 is almost a must.

For working with most other compressed formats, like the Canon stuff, you can get away with a dedicated single drive for each as you described and get decent to great performance. You are on the right track here.

One thing I see newb's do often in the tapeless world, is treating hard drives like gold or a 1 time purchase, so they put tons of thought into making a decision for the off-line storage drive. (backup) Usually they buy a GIANT drive. This is a really really bad mindset to get into. People will buy 1 giant drive and put all kinds of projects on it, over time. Remember, drives WILL die, it is not IF, it is WHEN. Do not put all that data from different projects, into one basket. SUPER Bad Idea. Drives should be like Tape Stock. Buy the size you need for 1 project and when you finish your on-line edit. Offload it, shelve the drive, and buy another. Just like tape stock. They aren't that expensive anymore. Put your thought and efforts into your system drives/performance. (and dont buy those darn Western Digital Green Drives for internal drives, the constant spin down to save you energy will drive you bananas)

For me, I buy RAW internal Sata Drives and an external USB Sata Socket-Style hookup. The drive slips right in to a socket on your desktop, and is instantly available. I dont worry about enclosed drives ETC ETC. That becomes a storage problem with all the different wall warts, shapes and sizes of enclosures. This is Cheap and extremely cost effective. Many of the USB Sata Receptacles will take both 2.5 inch Laptop drives, as well as the 3.5 drives. Some will even take multiples simultaneously.


With all this being said, you CAN use USB 2.0 for editing. I do it all the time. Just not for RED. It will not give you the same performance as an Internal Raid, but it is Do-Able. I edit mostly P2 HD footage along side uncompressed HD Graphics/outputted uncompressed After Effects Comps. It DOES work. Just use another internal drive for your scratch discs.

Dont forget your Power supply. If you buy a radical video Card, and a bunch of drives, you are going to need a superior Power supply from a company witha track record of durability. Do not cheeseball this. You will pay dearly one day if you do. I know it is a mundane, boring thing to buy, but understand. Like the Video card and Hard Drive, You can always move it into your next system so it will not be a waste. Have your Bro look at the needs of the Video Card. The specs will tell you how big of a Power supply to buy. On the safe side, a 750watter min should be expected. This is the engine for the engine in your sys. Go too low and you could perhaps do litteral damage to your system components. And these new video cards EAT electricity for snacks.



For what it is worth. Here is my layout for each of my Editing bays here.

10,000rpm OS Drive, 300gb

10,000rpm or standard 7200 rpm drive for scratch discs and PageFiles. At least 300gb

2 sets of Raid 0 drives (2-2tbx2) mirrored to each other. Called Raid 0,1. In other words, I have a striped pair, that backs itself up to another identical striped pair, for redundancy.

Then, I offload all finished projects onto a RAW sata Drive, shelve them, and flush the system. My Data/project is constantly backed up with the Raid 0-1 config so It is as worry free as I can afford.

This setup, with a good power supply, runs about a grand. Im am never caught with my pants down. Lastly, I also have a cheap, cloned OS drive ALWAYS at the handy. If my OS goes down, I can be back up and running ASAP. This is in-part, why I keep my OS drives small. 49 bucks at micro center buys me a 160 gig OEM Sata Drive for a Backup OS drive.

Sorry to write a novel. Feel free to call me if I can be of any assistance. PM me for a number or go to my company site.

Dave
 
One last thing to keep in mind as you buy drives.

With Premiere, you can trim-out your final project for storage. Premeire has lots of options for trimming, but basically, you can have premiere make a NEW version of the project that ONLY contains the EXACT clips it needs to bring up what is in the time line. When you trim it, you can specify how much overage, (premiere calls them handles, but they mean Frames) of each clip in the timeline, you think you need. This shrinks your over-all project by leaps an bounds. DO NOT do this type of trim until you are completely finished. There are other types of trims you can do to make it portable.

This way, you can keep your edit, and then copy JUST the raw footage onto one drive for long term storage, and everything will be in one, nice, neat little bundle. Simply copy-ing your project is unnecessary and can soak up more space than is really needed on your storage drive. Choose your external storage drive sizes based on this concept. For your single drive setup here, You can always trim your project out and keep that trimmed version on your external storage drive until you are finished. I trim often with large projects. You cannot re-trim a trimmed project with much success, so you dont want to work off of them. But for storage, or mid-project backups, it is great to do. Just delete the last trim when you make a new one. They are much smaller than your original project.


If you know how long your project will be, and how much space your native footage soaks up per minute of raw video, then you can pretty much calculate the trimmed project by 1.5 x the Per Minute of video.

In other words. If Im shooting P2, it is approx 1gb per min of HD Video. If my project is 10 minutes. Then at 1.5 x my timeline in storage space, I can almost bank on the fact I will need 15GB of storage to trim that out for permanent off line storage, Plus, space for all the Raw footage and project components like graphics or music. That whole mess may only need a 49 dollar 160gb drive (because that is about as small as they come these days) for long term storage depending on how much raw footage I shot. DONE!!
 
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Sorry to hijack this thread but this applies to me too as I am going to need a new desktop for an upgrade from CS3 Master Edition to CS5 Master Edition having used a Dell M90 for years.

I would save myself around 1,000 by building the spec machine I have in mind as opposed to buying it from Dell.

You say Nvidia GTX285 is all you need and by your next comment I take it you mean the Quadros are overkill?
I read somewhere though that the "..Quadro FX 4800 moves up to 10 times faster when running workstation applications than the GeForce GTX 280."

These are the main Parts I am looking at
Motherboard
Asus P7F7-E WS SUPERCOMP S1156 I3450 SND+GLN+1394+U3 SATA 6GB/S DDR3 IN

English Genuine Windows® 7 Ultimate (64Bit OS) Recovery DVD included

One Intel® Xeon® X5660(2.80GHz,6.4GT/s,12MB,6C)-Memory runs at 1333MHz

Standard Base Mini-Tower (Vertical orientation)(Westmere)

1.5TB (7200RPM) SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive with NCQ and 16MB DataBurst Cache™
16GB DDR3 1333MHz ECC-RDIMM (4x4GB) Requires 64 Bit OS
1.5TB (7200RPM) SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive with NCQ and 16MB DataBurst Cache™

16XDVD+/-RW Drive and 6X Blu-Ray Disc Rewritable With Roxio

1.5GB Nvidia Quadro FX4800 - 2 DP, 1 DVI (1 DP-DVI,1 DVI-VGA adapter)Graphics Card

Creative SoundBlaster™ X-fi Titanium Sound card

C2 All SATA Hard Drives, NON-RAID for 2 Hard Drive

Obviously I need the extras like power supply etc but I think I will source the parts and get a guy I know to put it together.
I loved the conviencience of buying in a box but the price and times we are in dictates otherwise.

The cost of the processor, Windows 7, Seagate HDs, RAM and Nvidia Card alone come to something like 2.5K so I'd be nuts not to go this route.
I just need a really High End Machine now Adobe have CS5 out.
 
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Unless you plan on getting a second X5660 at some point, I'd suggest getting a different processor. The Xeon X5660 is identical to the i7 920 except the X5660 has to QPI links allowing a dual cpu configuration.

Also, I'm in the UK, and would be able to build a computer for you and you'll have full piece of mind that it will work out of the box.
 
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Hi EIREHotSpur

What do u mean by "C2 All SATA Hard Drives, NON-RAID for 2 Hard Drive"

I thought of configuring C:\ 1 TB SATA HDD
second Hard drive on RAID 0 (2 x 1TB HDDs)
Total HDDs will be 3..Is it possible to connect like that??
I am not familiar with RAID systems.

How about connecting like this:
C:\ I TB SATA HDD
and RAID 5 system (connected with 4 HDD drives)

Hope u will give me a good explanation to all this..I mean better solution to run CS5 smoothly..on a PC.. Thx vm
Pushpa
 
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