Help with Optimal config for video? Only have DAW experience, new to video

[YZ125]

I have an Audio optimized system but recently I have been doing some personal editing of GoPro footage.
I have been on Win7 32 bit , intel ssd OS drive , 1Tb raptor for all active audio project files, DC3700 for vsti libraries, WD Black 2Tb for storage.
For audio/Vsti work in Reaper the system is fine, it's all I have ever needed, but video rendering is slow, 3x realtime and the waiting is not fun.

Can anyone give some guidance on what the optimal configuration of my system and hardware would be for editing video (GoPro/vegas) ?

I use an Orico Hdd selector so I can install an independant ssd just for 64 bit windows and vegas. (I'm thinking keep my audio system separate for now)
(The data drives are not switched, they are always on when I power on and accessible by whatever drive I select prior to power on.)

I have read that I should use a scratch disc for doing video, I can add another ssd for a scratch disc if this will help, should I do this ?

I have 3x2Gb mushkin blackline running in triple channel on my P6T-se . I recently picked up a 3x4Gb set of the same mushkin blackline ram, I plan to install it in place of the 3x2Gb sticks.
I think I may lose triple channel if I tried to run the both the 3x2Gb sticks and the 3x4Gb sticks all together. I don't know if (for video) it's better to have 3x4Gb for a total of 12Gb in faster triple channel or just run it all for a total of 18Gb but possibly lose triple channel.

I've read that I should transcode the raw gopro footage to an intermediary format, then bring it into vegas. These files would presumably be much larger ?
Can anyone give their advice on doing this ? In audio, I track and edit in uncompressed 44.1/24 , I wouldn't try to edit in mp3 format, so this seems analogous.

From what i've read, gpu rendering in vegas is hit or miss ??? so I figure i'll just stick with my cheap Ati 4350 and just do "cpu only" rendering. yes/no ???

While my P6T i7quad is fully adequate for my audio work, I realize it's a bit slow for video so I would like to at least optimize what i'm doing with what I have...
probably in a year I will upgrade to x99/5820/ddr4 which isn't too costly and probably even better in 9-12 months .

Any in a helpful mood, your advice is greatly appreciated and i'd like to say thanks in advance !

[Cornucopia]

I'm sure others will get into some specifics, but for now I'm going to just give you a few generalities to consider.

Let's say you're doing 32 channels of LPCM 44/24. That's ~=32Mbps. You might do more or less than that, but that's probably a fair assessment.

A single stream of COMPRESSED AVC in MP4 (such as seen in GoPro original cam files) is ~25Mbps.
If you upconvert to digital intermediate files for editing, that same single stream is now ~150Mbps (common average for DNxHD, ProRes & GoPro's Cineform). If you are A/B editing or multicam editing, you will have at least double to quadruple that. So we're now talking about 300-600Mbps (aka ~37-75MB/sec), when running balls-to-the-wall. Lossless, Uncompressed/Linear, and RAW formats and Stereo3D or 4k are even larger hogs.

That is a HUGE difference in throughput.

Then there is complexity and CPU usage. Your CPU doesn't run out of steam working with LPCM audio, but it will start maxing out with compressed video streams (particularly AVC or HEVC, and particularly if you run more than 1 at a time). You can trade some of this complexity out with the increased throughput/bandwidth requirement if you do upconvert to DI formats, but that is a form of "robbing Peter to pay Paul".

You can ease your burden somewhat if you get a much better video card, which offloads the compressed bitstream decoding - and occasionally encoding - as long as the GPU and the decoding and editing/playing software is designed to take advantage of that GPU architecture. (Note that currently, GPUs may be optimized for AVC, MPEG4part2, MPEG2, and now maybe HEVC decoding, but AFAIK they haven't been optimized for any DI or lossless codecs). Almost invariably, if you want GPU assist, you WILL need to greatly upgrade your vid card.

In addition to those requirements, you have your current video editing software options, almost all of which expect 64bit. I'm a little surprised that you are still using 32bit for your DAW setup, but I guess your needs haven't expanded that far yet. They WILL once HD video is mixed in.

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More RAM is always better. It's hard to say if 12GB will be enough for you or not. Wasn't that long ago that there were HD video systems using 4GB RAM max, so there should be some leeway with your system. Why don't you try seeing how it is with 6GB, then if it is particularly clunky swap in the 12GB and then give 18GB a try and see if there is More, Less, or the Same responsiveness. (So many factors going on there, it's difficult to tell without actual experimentation). I know for some configs (incl. stereo/4k/compositing), you'd want to go to 32GB or more.

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Because of the throughput changes, you will need to see if single fast drives will work for you, or in a JBOD round-robin configuration, or whether you need actual RAID. This will depend on what your material is going to be, what your workflow is, whether DI formats are used, how many simultaneous Read or Write streams will be going on, Short form vs. Medium vs. Feature vs. Very long form, etc.
If your needs are modest and you continue with compressed streams or with SD material, single drives/JBOD might be enough for you. If you use DI, or especially if you use lossless/uncompressed, you will need a RAID system (often Raid0, though I recommend Raid10 if you can afford it).

You'll likely need to have your media drives formatted as NTFS, as you would otherwise be bumping up against the 4GB wall too often with video (in audio that only occurs occasionally).

And of course, SIZE might be an issue. Since video streams are 25x-100x larger than most audio streams, the capacity requirements would be correspondingly larger (assuming your program length needs for video would be similar to your current audio program lengths). I've got ~7-8TB now, and I'm running out of room.


Food for thought anyway.

Scott
(I've been doing DAW work for as long as the word DAW has been in usage, so that should mean something)

[YZ125]

just give you a few generalities to consider.

Let's say you're doing 32 channels of LPCM 44/24. That's ~=32Mbps. You might do more or less than that, but that's probably a fair assessment.

A single stream of COMPRESSED AVC in MP4 (such as seen in GoPro original cam files) is ~25Mbps.
If you upconvert to digital intermediate files for editing, that same single stream is now ~150Mbps

If you are A/B editing or multicam editing, you will have at least double to quadruple that.

Almost invariably, if you want GPU assist, you WILL need to greatly upgrade your vid card.

In addition to those requirements, you have your current video editing software options, almost all of which expect 64bit.
I'm a little surprised that you are still using 32bit for your DAW setup, but I guess your needs haven't expanded that far yet. They WILL once HD video is mixed in.

***************************


Because of the throughput changes, you will need to see if single fast drives will work for you,.

You'll likely need to have your media drives formatted as NTFS, as you would otherwise be bumping up against the 4GB wall too often with video (in audio that only occurs occasionally).

Food for thought anyway.

Scott
(I've been doing DAW work for as long as the word DAW has been in usage, so that should mean something)

I do live takes with no more than 12-14 mics, so 12 streams coming in, then after overdubs maybe i'm up to 20 , plus a track or 2 of Vsti .
I've had no need for 64 bit as I can currently run as many tracks, Vsti's and vst as I want, and most importantly at low latency overdubs (64 samples/1.2ms) and very stable.
I know win7 x86 is old, but it just works and has no effect on the creative process and the music is either good or not good, independent of latest pc .

I'm well aware of the exponentially higher file size with video which is why i'm asking how I should be using the drives I currently have , or adding another ssd or 2 .
I'd like to know how I should be using them in the software so that i'm using my system optimally.

Yes, editing the GoPro footage is the reason for going x64 . As for the actual GoPro footage, it is usually a 2 hour endurance race which the GoPro
breaks into usually 4 files . I record either 720 or 1080 . I'll take those 4 files and drag them on the timeline one after the other, side by side. Then i'll clip out the
boring stuff and slide whats left next to each other. I usually have just a few titles, a few stills and sometimes a few cheesy transitions coming to a 5-20min finished video.
I'll have a music track and I'll do a little subtractive eq on both music track and the video sound. I usually run a high pass filter to cut any rumble out of the video sound
and some mild compression/leveling on the master out sound . That is the most I do . I don't do multicam .

I'm also open to suggestions of switching NLE's . Vegas is just the one i've used a while and it's pretty intuitive for a noob. I think the one I have is vegas11 and I think
it may be the last x86 version, not sure . I always read that premeire is better, uses gpu better, ect , but every time i've tried it, it just wasnt very intuitive and I go back to
simple vegas. Pinnacle I tried a few yrs back wasn't too bad, i think the trial ran out or something...cant remem .

As for Gpu assist, I mentioned in my OP that I can't find any definitive answer on vegas/gpu accel so until I find specific information otherwise, i'll just do cpu only rendering.
Why should I upgrade the card if vegas wont do gpu rendering ? If this is the wrong way of looking at it, i'm open to suggestions.

Yes, my drives are formatted NTSF . I use the formatting/partitioning tool withing the Acronis boot disk if I need to format or partition a disc .

Scott, I really appreciate the general overview you gave. Can you give me any specific suggestions on the specific questions I posed in the OP ?
Thanks a bunch , I appreciate you taking the time to share your knowledge !

[jagabo]

I would start with the system you have and the software you intend to use. Then see where the weaknesses are and address them.

[Cornucopia]

Good suggestion!

Scott

[YZ125]

Just pulled out the i7-920 and installed the 980X . Did not install the extra ram yet. Still running just the 3x2Gb @1600 and still on win x86 . I'll try the 3x4Gb and x64 windows on my next day off.
I had a small test project set up in vegas that I rendered with the i7-920 earlier today . The video is 1:32 and it took the i7-920 6min 57sec to render it.
With the 980X (no OC) and no other hardware or bios changes, the video took 3min 50sec to render . I also tried rendering to a drive other than where the project files are and the difference was negligible.
That drive is a DC3700 where Vsti libraries are stored. I'll have to see how it goes when I get the extra ram and x64 windows installed . Hopefully I can get it down a little more.
I could also try newer trial versions of vegas (or other) and see if they render faster...opinions ? . been using vegas 11 but i'm open to suggestions . Still not sure about setting up a scratch disc.
I don't expect the moon from a couple year old system, i'd just like to have the system and software (vegas for now) configured to make the most of what I have .
If anyone could give some specific advice i'd really appreciate it. Thanks much !

[jagabo]

64 bit software doesn't run much faster than 32 bit software, less than 10 percent difference in most cases. The main issue is how much memory can be used by the program. Not many programs need more memory than is accessible with 32 bits (~2 to ~3 GB) -- at least when working with 1080p or lower resolution. h.264 rendering in particular does not require huge amounts of memory. Some NLE will pre-render transitions and keep them around in memory for faster playback, random seeking, etc. That type of thing will be faster with lots of memory.

The difference in rendering speed between your i7-920 and 980x sounds about right, around 2x. You can get a bigger increase with a Quick Sync enabled h.264 encoder and CPU. Quality will probably be similar to Vegas's MainConcept encoder.

Encoder settings can make a big difference in speed. For example, there is a 100 fold difference between x264's ultrafast and placebo presets. The difference in visual quality between those extremes is maybe 3 fold with the biggest differences in the faster part of the spectrum. Ie, going slower than the medium preset gives very little increase in quality but very large increases in rendering time.

Only when working with uncompressed or lightly compressed video does drive speed become an issue.

[jagabo]

Here are some numbers. I encoded a 60 second, 24 fps, 1920x1080 AVC source with Handbrake using x264 with the medium and veryfast presets, and with the Quick Sync encoder on my i5 2500K (no audio).

x264 medium: 124 seconds
x264 veryfast: 38 seconds
qsv balanced: 20

I think Vegas' h.264 encoder is roughly the same speed as x264 at the medium preset. The newer Intel CPUs' Quick Sync encoders are even faster. Obviously, the new i7 CPUs will be faster with CPu encoding. I don't know how fast Vegas' Quick Sync implementation is.

[YZ125]

64 bit software doesn't run much faster than 32 bit software, less than 10 percent difference in most cases. The main issue is how much memory can be used by the program. Not many programs need more memory than is accessible with 32 bits (~2 to ~3 GB) -- at least when working with 1080p or lower resolution. h.264 rendering in particular does not require huge amounts of memory. Some NLE will pre-render transitions and keep them around in memory for faster playback, random seeking, etc. That type of thing will be faster with lots of memory.

The difference in rendering speed between your i7-920 and 980x sounds about right, around 2x. You can get a bigger increase with a Quick Sync enabled h.264 encoder and CPU. Quality will probably be similar to Vegas's MainConcept encoder.

Encoder settings can make a big difference in speed. For example, there is a 100 fold difference between x264's ultrafast and placebo presets. The difference in visual quality between those extremes is maybe 3 fold with the biggest differences in the faster part of the spectrum. Ie, going slower than the medium preset gives very little increase in quality but very large increases in rendering time.

Only when working with uncompressed or lightly compressed video does drive speed become an issue.

Thanks man. I appreciate your help and will keep all this in mind come upgrade time. Sounds like i'm probably close to being "topped out" with my x58 system. Cutting my render time almost in half will make it easier to put up with til upgrade time. What are your thoughts on vegas 11 that i'm using ? I'm not doing this professionally but I do enjoy it as a hobby, you think vegas 13 or other NLE would be any better/faster than what i'm using ? Btw, here is the vid I did the test with. It's a shortened version project of me and some buddies riding this spring. The GoPro is on me, chest mount.
The 1080 original has really good clarity but youtube makes it look horrendous, even if you choose 720 or 1080 ...haha
And yes, it's "cheesy" on purpose. http://youtu.be/aoIL9TZrJQk