What to upgrade, RAM or HDD?

[KarMa]

PP = premiere pro. ie. what he is using. Premiere writes cache files (audio peaks, metadata, conforming data) - this is why a 2nd HDD for media is almost mandatory. Mechanical HDD's (and early gen SSDs) have very difficult time with multiple access reading and writing simultaneously . For AE , it'is even more important to have another fast storage, because of RAM previews - it caches all intermediate states, not just the current ram preview (old ram previews as well)

Yes, lagarith is supported in PP, but it's too slow . The only "usable" mathematically lossless codecs for editing purposes (low latency) are ut video and magic yuv. For near-lossless, cineform would probably be the "best". Even UHD/4K is usable on a laptop like his with cineform.

This is for youtube.

@KarMa It's all right. No one is taking anything personally. By 720p I meant that I would like to edit at least at 720p without any lag, I didn't mean to say that it was what I edit all the time. I wonder if avc1 codec is any better? And yes, you may not know what I really do, but that's only because it's not necessary. Like you said, I am not going to go through all the trouble of converting, it would take way too much time with this laptop.

Download MediaInfo, and put your MP4s in it. Should give you lots of info about it.

AVC1 is just one of the fourcc labels for H.264 I think. Don't believe it means much.

[Blbr]

@KarMa Yeah, that's what I thought, it is avc1.

[poisondeathray]

PP = premiere pro. ie. what he is using. Premiere writes cache files (audio peaks, metadata, conforming data) - this is why a 2nd HDD for media is almost mandatory. Mechanical HDD's (and early gen SSDs) have very difficult time with multiple access reading and writing simultaneously . For AE , it'is even more important to have another fast storage, because of RAM previews - it caches all intermediate states, not just the current ram preview (old ram previews as well)

Yes, lagarith is supported in PP, but it's too slow . The only "usable" mathematically lossless codecs for editing purposes (low latency) are ut video and magic yuv. For near-lossless, cineform would probably be the "best". Even UHD/4K is usable on a laptop like his with cineform.

This is for youtube.

Yes, and he's using premiere. I'm just explaining the facts and why those suggestions were made earlier regarding media choices. Premiere and AE don't work like vdub or videoredo.

You're the one who brought up FFV1 and lagarith. I'm just clarifying that there are better editing choices for lossless codecs if he was going to go that route

All he wants is "snappier" editing. Memory is an issue for him and storage is an issue for him

[KarMa]

Can you give me this part from Mediainfo (View ---> Text)

example

Video
ID : 2
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : Baseline@L4
Format settings, CABAC : No
Format settings, ReFrames : 1 frame
Muxing mode : Container profile=High@3.1
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 18s 600ms
Source duration : 18s 567ms
Bit rate : 3 138 Kbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Variable
Frame rate : 30.000 fps
Minimum frame rate : 29.412 fps
Maximum frame rate : 30.303 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.050
Stream size : 6.95 MiB (99%)
Source stream size : 6.96 MiB (100%)
Writing library : x264 core 146 r2538 121396c
Encoding settings : cabac=0 / ref=1 / deblock=0:0:0 / analyse=0:0 / me=dia / subme=0 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=0 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=0 / 8x8dct=0 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=0 / threads=9 / lookahead_threads=1 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=100 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=0 / weightp=0 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=0 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=0 / rc=crf / mbtree=0 / crf=20.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / vbv_maxrate=10000 / vbv_bufsize=10000 / crf_max=0.0 / nal_hrd=none / filler=0 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=0

Pretty much tells me nothing about what you are doing but I can still look at the video complexity. This is a recording I made with Open Broadcaster Software, x264. This is just an example and I don't advocate these settings.

[KarMa]

[QUOTE=poisondeathray;2416651][QUOTE=KarMa;2416648]

PP = premiere pro. ie. what he is using. Premiere writes cache files (audio peaks, metadata, conforming data) - this is why a 2nd HDD for media is almost mandatory. Mechanical HDD's (and early gen SSDs) have very difficult time with multiple access reading and writing simultaneously . For AE , it'is even more important to have another fast storage, because of RAM previews - it caches all intermediate states, not just the current ram preview (old ram previews as well)

If we only knew how complex these projects were. I'm assuming it's less, you are assuming it's bigger. How do you feel about cattle prices?

Yes, and he's using premiere. I'm just explaining the facts and why those suggestions were made earlier regarding media choices. Premiere and AE don't work like vdub or videoredo.

I would suggest avisynth but that's a bit of a hurdle.

You're the one who brought up FFV1 and lagarith.

It was a big file I had to show what a fragmented 5400rpm drive could do with a 18GB file. If he is dealing with lossy x264 to begin with then drive speed is even less of a concern.

I may have missed my stop but I'm getting off this Blue's Clues train.