SLOW video editing/rendering...What gives?!?!

[Momentos]

Greetings,

My eyes are sore from reading as much as I could on this subject, and still haven't come to a solution. I'm actually more confused now than when I started!

Here's my simple question... I need to upgrade something on my desktop to be able to keep it (wife's orders), but need to be able to edit HD video. Usually weddings and such, with a total of about 2 hours worth of video every weekend.

Here is what I currently have:

HP Quad Core Q8200 @ 2.33GHz
Windows Vista
Memory: 8GB
Editing Software: Adobe Premiere Pro CS3

I know you guys might need more information. Please tell me where to look for it to help with the answer. This is a computer I bought brand new about 1.5 years ago right off the shelf, so it may not be optimized for HD video editing and rendering. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanx!
Ruben

[deadrats]

when you say slow, how slow and as silly as this question is going to sound, how HD. if you're talking about 30mb/s 1080p, then yes a q8200 is going to be slow, if you're talking about 4mb/s 720p then that's a different story. also the software you're using CS3 is kind of old, you should download the latest build and see if that improves your pc's performance:

http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/tdrc/index.cfm?product=premiere_pro

if that's an off the shelf pc you bought, from someone like HP or Dell then your upgrade options are going to be limited.

[aedipuss]

there are several things that most likely need upgrading. cs3 is probably not up to current HD video editing. cs6 is current. if you update the software(as long as your vista is 64 bit, as most new editors require it) then you might be able to add a graphics card capable of gpu assisting. also you most likely need more hard drives. at least one for the operating system, one for source files, and one for render to files.

[Momentos]

Thank you for the prompt reply, deadrats. Slow as in when I'm editing, I click on something and it takes about 5 to 10 seconds to react. Just started doing this recently. Then, to render a simple music video of 4 minutes in length, I have to leave it rendering overnight and into the next day. The video is from a Sony camera and is 1080i at 29.97fps. Looks great but a pain in the neck to convert and edit. I'm having to convert the m2Ts files to .mov or .mpeg4 to do anything with it. I can't afford to upgrade the PPro as of yet, but this version CS3 has been working perfectly for me until now.

But you're on the right track. What should I upgrade first to help? I've read CPU, and RAM, and motherboards, and graphics cards., etc. Thus my confusion. Thanx for the reply!

[Momentos]

Very nice reply, aedipuss. Should my current PC tower have the ability to accept more hard drives? And if so, how would I go about installing them and assigning these individual tasks to each one? I'm a fan of newegg.com, so I can start shopping there, as long as I know where to start

[deadrats]

Thank you for the prompt reply, deadrats. Slow as in when I'm editing, I click on something and it takes about 5 to 10 seconds to react. Just started doing this recently. Then, to render a simple music video of 4 minutes in length, I have to leave it rendering overnight and into the next day. The video is from a Sony camera and is 1080i at 29.97fps. Looks great but a pain in the neck to convert and edit. I'm having to convert the m2Ts files to .mov or .mpeg4 to do anything with it. I can't afford to upgrade the PPro as of yet, but this version CS3 has been working perfectly for me until now.

But you're on the right track. What should I upgrade first to help? I've read CPU, and RAM, and motherboards, and graphics cards., etc. Thus my confusion. Thanx for the reply!

usually when someone says "I click on something and it takes about 5 to 10 seconds to react" that screams "ram" to me, have you checked your ram usage before, during and after editing/rendering? which version of vista and is it 32bit or 64bit? you say it started doing to recently, has anything in your configuration changed?

do have have some background services that suck up a lot of ram and/or cpu processing time? do you have an antivirus running in the background, specifically avg?

1080i 29.97fps from a sony camera should not be a pain to edit, i'm assuming it's mpeg-2 right? if so that's about the easiest source i have seen to edit, it decodes super fast and it's not processor intense at all. when you say that you convert the m2ts to mov or mpeg4 do you mean you actually re-encode the footage and then edit or do you mean you simply remux?

i understand not being able to afford any other software but when your trying to figure out what's wrong you have to start eliminating all the possibilities, you need to try a different piece of software and see if the problem persists. if it does, then you know it's something else, if the problem goes away you know there's something messed up with your editing software.

are you having any other problems with the pc, browsing, downloading, gaming, booting, shutting down, anything?

[Momentos]

I do believe this is a 64bit system. Where do I find the RAM listing? And yes, it started acting slow about a month ago. Nothing else is slow, web browsing is the only other thing I do on this. Photoshop runs well as always. Background services are minimal. I've even activated the TASKS and PROCESSES to evaluate what is running and what I can shut off.

I appreciate your knowledge, man!

[deadrats]

Should my current PC tower have the ability to accept more hard drives? And if so, how would I go about installing them and assigning these individual tasks to each one? I'm a fan of newegg.com, so I can start shopping there, as long as I know where to start

if your motherboard has any spare sata ports then you should easily be able to add in more hard drives, if you don't know what a sata port looks like google the term then open the case to look for a matching port on the motherboard. while your at it you need to make sure that the power supply has the correct plug for a modern sata drive.

if the above is a go, then i would recommend a couple of 128gb ssd's, from a capacity standpoint they are left wanting but from a performance standpoint they will be awesome.

[aedipuss]

tasks running and memory usage can be tracked by starting the task manager. control/alt/del or right click task bar - start task manager. next check how much free space is on the hard drive you have. is it getting low? or possibly have you not defrag'd the drive?

to see if you can add hard drives open up the case and see if there are open drive bays, power connectors, and sata/ide headers open on the motherboard.

[aedipuss]

computer specs can usually be found by right clicking my computer/properties.

[deadrats]

I do believe this is a 64bit system. Where do I find the RAM listing? And yes, it started acting slow about a month ago. Nothing else is slow, web browsing is the only other thing I do on this. Photoshop runs well as always. Background services are minimal. I've even activated the TASKS and PROCESSES to evaluate what is running and what I can shut off.

right click on the task bar and choose "start task manager", under "performance" you'll see a bunch of listing for ram and cpu usage and under "processes" you'll see an individual breakdown of everything running on your system with cpu and ram usage.

a month ago and everything else runs fine, just that app started running slow, hmmm. could there be something wrong with the camera. perhaps the files and/or container are corrupt or perhaps you installed/uninstalled some codec that is interfering with the ability to decode the footage. you haven't messed with any setting in the app, changed something, nothing?

[budwzr]

Sorry fellers, but this archetypal advice doesn't ever pan out in my experience. The OP needs a whole new system.

You can't beat a dead horse back to life. The way to handle the wife is to shoot a bunch of footage of her family, then tell her the bad news.

[Momentos]

I disagree, budwzr, These guys are onto something. I will try doing these simple things first, then report back with the findings. It'll take me a while to purchase and install, so please be patient with me. Thank you so very much for pointing me in the right direction, deadrats and aedipuss!

[budwzr]

OK, but I warned you!

Changing the tires and battery on an old car won't make it run like new, guar-ahn-teed.

I fell for that kind of advice before too. Now I have an external SATA HD that I can use for a beer coaster. I don't see any performance increase whatsoever, or at least I have no way to measure said increase. Probably need a micrometer that can measure milliseconds.

No disrespect to my compadres, just trying to keep it real.