Speeding Up Editing.

[vodmare]

Hi guys,

I'm not sure where this would fit, so I am posting here. I have been in contact with a few guys here on the board and they have really helped me out in getting to the editing stage correctly. I am using a laptop, win7, dual core 2.4 ghz, 4g ram, intel enhanced video of some kind (sounds generic) and the HDD is only 5400 rpm.

I am editing .vob's directly off of a DVD rip, full resolution. I use Premiere cs4 (I hear that cs5 is much better, but I have to use this for now) Editing works, but more often than not, it really bogs down. Gets a little stuck trying to step back several frames, or wont update a window because it's conforming some audio, and hangs for quite a bit sometimes, says its not responding, but it does catch back up. But unfortunately it makes editing a bit cumbersome.

My question is this: I have a 300g sata seagate drive that runs at 1.5/3g. I was going to get an external case for it and hook it up to the eSata port on my laptop. My thoughts are that this will greatly increase the access time for everything. However, do think that the aforementioned shortcomings are far too great for a faster HDD to fix?

Thanks.

-vodmare.

[guns1inger]

Your problem is editing mpeg-2 video in an editor that doesn't edit mpeg-2 video natively. Getting a faster HDD won't help.

You could convert to a lossless format first, edit in that, then convert back (you are going to end up re-encoding anyway), or you could use an mpeg-2 aware editor.

[vodmare]

I have the Main Concept Plugin. It reads the files just fine for import. Plus, I was under the impression that cs4 and 5 did operate with mpeg2/vobs fine.....

The guys that have been helping me, we went through this whole round about over the converting out with a lossless codec of some kind and then coming back in the end. And in the end, the quality would take a hit, plus the file sizes would be so huge that it would be cause for problems while editing as well. Plus, keeping it native mpeg2 theres no re compression, save you effect something. In the end, I decided to go with editing the .vobs directly. With the plugin, I can do frame level editing with cs4.

But your saying regardless of all of that, that a faster HDD connection wont help at all?

-vodmare.

[guns1inger]

The other thing I would suggest is not to edit VOB files. VOB files are designed for playback with a DVD structure, and nothing else. Use VOB2MPG to get the video and audio into an MPG container and try editing that instead.

[edDV]

I have the Main Concept Plugin. It reads the files just fine for import. Plus, I was under the impression that cs4 and 5 did operate with mpeg2/vobs fine.....

The guys that have been helping me, we went through this whole round about over the converting out with a lossless codec of some kind and then coming back in the end. And in the end, the quality would take a hit, plus the file sizes would be so huge that it would be cause for problems while editing as well. Plus, keeping it native mpeg2 theres no re compression, save you effect something. In the end, I decided to go with editing the .vobs directly. With the plugin, I can do frame level editing with cs4.

But your saying regardless of all of that, that a faster HDD connection wont help at all?

-vodmare.

The only fundamental solution is replace the motherboard and CPU with at least a fast Core2Duo but better a Core2Quad. For HD, an i5/i7 quad. Your PC is simply underpowered for CS4 (under the minimum recommended hardware). Your software is reasonably up to date. For MPeg2 your disks are oK but you want a separate drive from the OS for editing and scratch.

If you are just doing SD DVD, a modern motherboard display chipset will be fine. For HD you will probably need a PCIe HD capable card.

[lacywest]

I have the Main Concept Plugin. It reads the files just fine for import. Plus, I was under the impression that cs4 and 5 did operate with mpeg2/vobs fine.....

The guys that have been helping me, we went through this whole round about over the converting out with a lossless codec of some kind and then coming back in the end. And in the end, the quality would take a hit, plus the file sizes would be so huge that it would be cause for problems while editing as well. Plus, keeping it native mpeg2 theres no re compression, save you effect something. In the end, I decided to go with editing the .vobs directly. With the plugin, I can do frame level editing with cs4.

But your saying regardless of all of that, that a faster HDD connection wont help at all?

-vodmare.

The only fundamental solution is replace the motherboard and CPU with at least a fast Core2Duo but better a Core2Quad. For HD, an i5/i7 quad. Your PC is simply underpowered for CS4 (under the minimum recommended hardware). Your software is reasonably up to date. For MPeg2 your disks are oK but you want a separate drive from the OS for editing and scratch.

If you are just doing SD DVD, a modern motherboard display chipset will be fine. For HD you will probably need a PCIe HD capable card.

Well ... might be a problem ... he is using a Laptop ... kind of hard to replace the MB in that.

So ... you need to rethink this ... but I agree with the basic idea ... and that is to do the editing with a Desktop PC with all the bells and whistles ...

[greymalkin]

OK I'm going to ask the question..what kind of editing are you doing? If you're just cutting bits out/re-arranging you've picked an incredibly bloated peice of software for that.

Premiere is a beast and there are other more lightweight options if you can tell us specificially what editing tasks you need to perform.

[vodmare]

Hey guys,

Thanks for all of your responses.....sounds like I might need to go back to my desktop. I picked up this laptop because I wanted something portable, and thought that I might be able to edit on it. And I guess that I can to some degree. However, I am venturing into the field of high processing power.

Thank you for all of your responses.

-vodmare.

[greymalkin]

Don't ditch the laptop just yet..if it really is advanced editing you need to do I would try neo 2.5 (aka neo 2 "booster). It's much more lightweight than premiere, can edit mpeg2 natively..and theres a free 30 day trial download. The full product is only $200.