1 Raptor enough?

[CNT]

Question, would one seperate WD Raptor (D drive) be enough for video capturing? Or I would still need do a RAID 0 for capturing?

I could buy one more 250G ATA and make a 500G RAID 0 for D drive. I have two SATA-to-ATA adaptors. Would that be a better way to go? I haven't decided on what capture device, most likely looking into firewire.

I did a search and couldn't find a topic...

I am in process of building a new PC. It's going to be AM2 X2 CPU and 1x2G XMS2 RAM. This MB is all SATA. So, I am forced to buy one 74G Raptor for C drive. I already have one WD 250G ATA (for storage).

Chuck

[edDV]

Question, would one seperate WD Raptor (D drive) be enough for video capturing? Or I would still need do a RAID 0 for capturing?

I could buy one more 250G ATA and make a 500G RAID 0 for D drive. I have two SATA-to-ATA adaptors. Would that be a better way to go? I haven't decided on what capture device, most likely looking into firewire.

I did a search and couldn't find a topic...

I am in process of building a new PC. It's going to be AM2 X2 CPU and 1x2G XMS2 RAM. This MB is all SATA. So, I am forced to buy one 74G Raptor for C drive. I already have one WD 250G ATA (for storage).

Chuck

If I understand you have a drive for windows and the Raptor is the second drive? The single Raptor is more than fast enough to capture uncompressed using the huffyuv lossless codec (CPU compresses/decompresses on the fly at ~30-40MB/s). A standard ATA 100 drive is also fast enough. An ATA 66 is fast enough for DV or HDV.

The single Raptor is barely fast enough for uncompressed SDI (~270Mb/s continuous* =35MB/s). Realworld the Raptor could handle it for a partition on the fast end of the drive. For full capacity and reliability you would need 2-3 drives in RAID 0. Realtime processes require 2-4 SDI streams so to play with the big boys you would need a 3-6 drive RAID.

*270 Mb/s (4:2:2 4:3 SDI), 360 Mb/s (4:2:2 Widescreen SDI), 1485 Mb/s (HD 4:2:2)
177 Mb/s (composite PAL SDI) and 143 Mb/s (composite NTSC SDI)

[CNT]

Adobe Premiere Elements 2.0

I can not find what format the Premiere captures? What speed? What compression? I hope it creates AVI in DV format. Does it accepts standard and widescreen together (Pinnacle doesn't).

I am interested in the PYRO A/V Link, which includes the Premiere Elements 2.0. It's only $150, so worth it. One thing concerns me is does this have 29.97fps, because some only can do 30fps and not 29.97fps.

Chuck

[edDV]

Adobe Premiere Elements 2.0

I can not find what format the Premiere captures? What speed? What compression? I hope it creates AVI in DV format. Does it accepts standard and widescreen together (Pinnacle doesn't).

I am interested in the PYRO A/V Link, which includes the Premiere Elements 2.0. It's only $150, so worth it. One thing concerns me is does this have 29.97fps, because some only can do 30fps and not 29.97fps.

Chuck

Yes if you go that route, capture is easy and the load on the drive is small ~4MB/s.

Adobe Premiere Elements 2 defaults as a DV format editor but other types of files can be captured separately and imported. It can also be converted into a MPeg2 editor with a third party Plug-In.

[CNT]

Adobe Premiere Elements 2.0

Yes if you go that route, capture is easy and the load on the drive is small ~4MB/s.

Is that good? I am only concern about best picture video, not size. I mean best for the budget, best bang for buck. I am still using Sony Hi8 analog camcorder.

At one time, the best for analog video were MJPEG, but I don't see those around anymore?

Chuck

[edDV]

Adobe Premiere Elements 2.0

Yes if you go that route, capture is easy and the load on the drive is small ~4MB/s.

Is that good? I am only concern about best picture video, not size. I mean best for the budget, best bang for buck. I am still using Sony Hi8 analog camcorder.

At one time, the best for analog video were MJPEG, but I don't see those around anymore?

Chuck

DV format has replaced MJPeg. It has higher quality DCT frame compression allowing better luminance quality and lower bitrates. Chroma is quarter sampled to lower bitrate further. DV format is an amazing bargain since quality camcorders are cheap and normal PC's can be used for editing.

Next step up is HDV (MPeg2 based) which uses the same bitrate but requires a much faster computer for editing and encoding.

Up from there you are into major budgets.

[edDV]

DV remains the easiest to edit and will be around for awhile.

The next major leap will be AVCHD that will require much faster computing to edit. By then, most camcorders will be recording to solid state flash media. There will be few moving parts other than the lens.

[CNT]

Back to the question... I will consider having one full 74G Raptor for C (SATA #1). $170 is overpriced for a casual user like me, but it's one time thing (plus has 5 years warrenty). I sure hope it will make the Windows noticeable faster than if went with regular ATA.

So, for the budget, would it be recommended to buy one more 250G and use RAID 0 than one Raptor ($250 for one mere 150G Raptor).

two ATA 80G HDDs for D ($88)
or
one more ATA 250G and make a 500G for D ($71)

74G C, 160G D, 250G E
or
74G C, 500G D

I will have to real think about the options... as of now, I have one 250G ATA. The reason I want to use RAID 0 is to video capture, since regular HDD isn't the best write with fast capture (I haven't tried regular and plan to start using firewire, I start off RAID 0 right away). Unless you can show me otherwise.

Chuck

[KBeee]

It will not make Windows noticably faster.
If you measure, you might be able to record a difference, but in the real world you'd be hard pressed to notice it. Your boot time might go from 67 seconds to 66 or 65 seconds - you think you'd notice that?
I'm guessing you are talking about transfering video from a Mini DV camera to your computer via Firewire.
Unless you're getting dropped frames when you transfer, then almost any modern HDD will be fast enough - non-RAIDED.
If you DO get a lot of dropped frames, it'd be more likely to be your HD setup than the write capability of your hard disk.
Also remember that a raid 0 setup doubles your chances of catastrophic data loss in the event of a HD failure.

[INFRATOM]

Raptor is a fast HD it is good for C drive to run your OS faster. Secondry HD you can use a big HD for capture. Optimizing CPU-RAM-HD makes a difference otherwise you don't see much difference. Best "bang for the buck" is misleading and would cost you time and waste of material in long run. In computer world "Best is not enough" is what to goal for. There are certain good combinations that would would last you longer if you don't compromise on quality.
Forexample ASUS MB P4 DELUXE 3Ghz CPU 1gig RAM and raptor makes a fast computer until 64 bit catches up. On a single standalone computer a fast raptor makes more sense than raid both performace and price wise, best bang for the buck applies here! Good Luck

[greymalkin]

I'm not sure where you heard that you have to use a raptor or raid0 in order to capture properly. I have a regular IDE 200gb that I capture uncompressed .avi to all the time with no issues. If you are dropping frames then theres something else wrong. The only thing I would be sure to do is:

a) make sure you have a seperate physical capture drive
b) put it on a channel all by itself (IDE master w/ no slave)

[edDV]

Raptors are usually purchased to speed video games which need to load massive textures during game play. Gamers also reboot or reload their games often so fast drives help recycle times a bit.

Raptors are rarely needed for any consumer video activity. Normally RAID is not needed because a simple ATA 66 or better hard drive is fast enough for DV, HDV or MPeg. ATA 100-133 is fast enough for those using Huffyuv for uncompressed capture off tuner cards.

In the late 1990's, MJPEG required 7-9MB/s (56-72Mb/s sustained) for acceptable quality. That required a 2xSCSI RAID0 in the day. But DV gets equal or better performance at ~4MB/s (32Mb/s) and a single SATA/PATA ATA100 drive can handle that with ease so the need for RAID has gone away.

The pro end of the video market does most everything with multi-stream uncompressed SMPTE-259M SD or SMPTE-292M HD (aka SDI) from central video servers. That is where RAID is required but these are specialized RAID systems usually using SCSI fibrechannel not SATA technology. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Digital_Interface

For your needs either drive can be used for video capture. If you are a gamer, you might get a small push using the Raptor as drive C:. Usually video amatuers value disk capacity over raw speed. Once a drive is fast enough, being faster has no value.

[CNT]

So, maybe I should stick with regular PATA. I could do a little different this time. Before, I had three 80G (plus another 250G). Now, I could do something like one 80G (for C) and 500G in RAID 0 (for D). Good enough, huh?

The thing is I feel using whole 80G just for one drive letter C is a waste. I was told that any partition on the same HDD along using C degrades the speed. You know, lot people don't pass 40G in drive C (I don't know about gamers... I only install SS2).

I should look at this way... I am buying AM2 X2 CPU and have 2x1G XMS. Planning on 7600GT. So, the bottleneck would be the HDDs?

Chuck

[edDV]

So, maybe I should stick with regular PATA. I could do a little different this time. Before, I had three 80G (plus another 250G). Now, I could do something like one 80G (for C) and 500G in RAID 0 (for D). Good enough, huh?

Why do you think you need RAID 0 at all? There is no advantage plus all data is at risk if one drive goes. Stick to separate drives. You can easily expand PATA or SATA ports.

The thing is I feel using whole 80G just for one drive letter C is a waste. I was told that any partition on the same HDD along using C degrades the speed. You know, lot people don't pass 40G in drive C (I don't know about gamers... I only install SS2).

No comment. A "rich man's" or gamer's problem.

I should look at this way... I am buying AM2 X2 CPU and have 2x1G XMS. Planning on 7600GT. So, the bottleneck would be the HDDs?

CPU - yes go for it or more

2GB RAM? - 1GB is probably enough

7600GT - overkill for video apps.

HDD - C: could be considered a bottleneck for OS and application access. For DV and MPeg video, a PATA drive is fast enough for D:. You may see some difference when copying files.

Bottom line. Buy only what you need today for everything except the motherboard and CPU. You never have enough CPU for video. Everything else is not a bottleneck.

[CNT]

I can not find what format the Premiere captures? What speed? What compression? I hope it creates AVI in DV format. Does it accepts standard and widescreen together (Pinnacle doesn't).

I am interested in the PYRO A/V Link, which includes the Premiere Elements 2.0. It's only $150, so worth it. One thing concerns me is does this have 29.97fps, because some only can do 30fps and not 29.97fps.

Does PYRO A/V Link capture @ 29.97fps? Does it also export at 29.97fps?

Chuck