A quick question about compression

[micklos]

Generally, I work with uncompressed video. I decompress it at the beginning, then compress it depending on what I'm doing with it. Usually youtube.
But recently, I started making some Gaming demos. The video at 1080p and 60fps is more than I can edit (in pinnacle studio) without horrible slow performance, so I rendered all my raw footage out as an .mp4 video, using the same settings I use in Youtube. Then I edited THAT video and rendered it out again using the same settings. But...is this compressing it twice or not? I can see it being either way, depending on how I think about it. The quality isn't great, so I think rendering it twice using the same settings IS compressing it twice.
Is there maybe some way to keep the uncompressed video, but use a smaller version of it as a proxy for editing and then have the software use the original uncompressed footage to create the final render? I know Pinnacle doesn't have all the features of more professional software, but it's the only NLE I've ever used where the interface makes any sense at all.

[newpball]

Generally, I work with uncompressed video.

That is totally unnecessary.

Pinnacle studio

Would not recommend this tool.

I rendered all my raw footage out as an .mp4 video, using the same settings I use in Youtube. Then I edited THAT video and rendered it out again using the same settings. But...is this compressing it twice or not?

That is totally unnecessary.

You tried two extremes, there are many more options than just uncompressed or Youtube quality.

But the main issue performance wise is can your computer handle it.
What hardware do you use? CPU, memory, OS and what kind of drives.

[LMotlow]

You don't say what you used for capture. But, yes, you're re-encoding. h264 1080p compressed can be cut without loss using something like VideoReDo or dedicated smart-rendering editors (TMPGenc Smart Renderer is another paid app). I'm not up on UTube requirements for 1080p, but you can edit and re-encode just the cut portion instead of the whole thing. I'm not familiar with free apps for this, but I understand there are few smart-rendering free apps around for this. Others can advise on freebies.

nepball has a valuable point: Pinnacle is pretty lame for what you're doing. It has anemic re-encoding to boot. For the same price or less you can do better.

[micklos]

The reason for the uncompressed video is the software I'm using to record the game demos. A game can be quite long, but i can render out a demo in real time or better if it's uncompressed. There's an option to render it in .264 .mp4 specifically for youtube, but there's no way o edit the footage in the demo software. I haven't tried all of the output options. There are one or two lossless formats I've yet to try. Generally my computer has no trouble with uncompressed 1080p footage, so I guess the problem is the sheer file-size. My operating system is on an SSD, but my software is on a normal 7200rpm drive, and I use a separate one to read and write video from.
The other reason I usually work uncompressed is, as was pointed out, pinnacle doesn't offer many options in the way of output formats, so I compress using procoder or Autodesk Cleaner.
I could use other software (And I DO for colour correction and such. I only use Pinnacle for cutting because I can do it so much faster than with other apps) but I'd prefer to do the cutting in Pinnacle and the color correction in After effects.
I'm just sure I remember there being an option to edit using a low quality proxy of a high quality file.
For capture I used Wolfcam. It's specifically for recording Quake live. It doesn't record as you play, rather, it plays an existing demo (They aren't saved as video) and converts it to a video file, so it has no effect on system performance in-game. If it came with even basic editing tools, that would be perfect.
Anyway, thanks for the input. I think I'll try sticking with Pinnacle, but using a lossless compression for the raw footage, then render as uncompressed for colour correction in AE (since I don't think pinnacle has any lossless output options), then render out lossless from AE and convert using procoder for Youtube. The main problem is just that first video from the demo software.
Obviously, I'd like to avoid learning a new editing software if possible, so anything that allows pinnacle to work without stuttering would be the ideal solution for now. I have Avid media composer, but haven't found the time to learn it, yet

[newpball]

Then capture uncompressed and convert it to a compressed format you can edit.

[micklos]

Then capture uncompressed and convert it to a compressed format you can edit.

Well, that's what I did. I guess I just need to use a better quality for editing, but I'm still compressing twice aren't I? Well, three times if you include the re-encoding I'm sure Youtube does. I doubt the video playing in the Youtube player is the actual video you uploaded.

[newpball]

Then capture uncompressed and convert it to a compressed format you can edit.

Well, that's what I did. I guess I just need to use a better quality for editing, but I'm still compressing twice aren't I?

You could compress lossless or use a pro level compression.

Question is what hardware do you have. Doing 1080p 60fps is heavy stuff and your hardware may be too old or to limited to handle it.

[Cornucopia]

Hard to tell from your narrative, but thrice is usually a minimum for most professionals' workflows:
1st - In camera save (or recorder if doing game demos)
2nd - Prior to editing (to digital intermediate = uncompressed/lossless/nearl-lossless)
3rd - Prior to final distribution/playback target spec.
Another would likely occur when rendering out the edited/composited master (unless uncompressed/lossless, then it doesn't count).

You could combine 1 & 2 by recording uncompressed, but that takes a bite out of your PC responsiveness (particularly if you are doing DEMO PLAY + RECORD on the same PC), unless you have a very fast (RAID?, SSD?) subsystem.

Also hard to tell if what you refer to as uncompressed REALLY IS, without reference to samples or MediaInfo reports.

Scott