Minimum Processor power required for editing

Dave Van Ronk

I use a Dazzle video card and windows movie maker to convert VHS to DVD. However I notice the picture flow is quite jittery and stilted.

I use my 5 year old sony viao laptop which has a celeron processor, so my reckoning is that my processor is pushed to the max, causing the flickery picture.

Specs:
* Intel Pentium M Processor 740 (1.73 GHz)
* 2MB L2 Cache

Processor, Memory, and Motherboard

* Hardware Platform: PC
* Processor: 1.73 GHz Intel Pentium M
* System Bus Speed: 533
* Number of Processors: 1
* RAM: 1.2 GB

Has anyone experienced the same issue ?

..And what would be the minimum processor power suited to editing?

Cheers for any advice,

Dave Van Ronk

Here is an example of what i mean...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dvzvhrS3Dg

Splinters

Its not an easy question to answer as theres a lot of variables. If you were editing HD footage or Red RAW footage you'd need a considerably higher system spec then if you were piecing together SD footage from a family holiday. It also depends on which package you use to edit as each will have its own requirements.

From what you have mentioned it does sound as if your processor is the weakest link in your setup. If you were to upgrade to a machine with a core2 duo or quad processor you'd see a significant performance increase. That's probably the minimum you would get away with to do what you need. However if you ever found a need to edit HD footage or get into more advanced editing you may need to upgrade again. Any of the newer i3, i5 or i7 processors would more then cover what you're currently doing plus you wouldnt have a need to upgrade for years....it really just depends on what you're prepared to spend.

Dave Van Ronk

Splinters wrote: »

Its not an easy question to answer as theres a lot of variables. If you were editing HD footage or Red RAW footage you'd need a considerably higher system spec then if you were piecing together SD footage from a family holiday. It also depends on which package you use to edit as each will have its own requirements.

From what you have mentioned it does sound as if your processor is the weakest link in your setup. If you were to upgrade to a machine with a core2 duo or quad processor you'd see a significant performance increase. That's probably the minimum you would get away with to do what you need. However if you ever found a need to edit HD footage or get into more advanced editing you may need to upgrade again. Any of the newer i3, i5 or i7 processors would more then cover what you're currently doing plus you wouldnt have a need to upgrade for years....it really just depends on what you're prepared to spend.

Cheers for the reply,

Im not editing HD or Red RAW footage, just basic VHS to AVI files with Windows movie maker, but yes, im becoming very aware of the need to upgrade my processor.
Im currently weighing up the pros and cons of an €1000+ Apple MacBook vs a €400+ dual core windows laptop...Ive never gone Apple yet, but my friends tell me its THE machine for video editing, fully kitted with Final cut. On the other hand, I could get me a decent dual core and HD camcorder for the cost of the Macbook...Decisions decisions!

SouperComputer

Something is not right. That laptop should be able to do it. It will take a while to process\render the video but it can do it. I edited/rendered a DVD on an AMD K6-2 300 Mhz on Windows98 and 96MB of RAM. It litterally took two days to render from what I remember, but the results were fine.

On the PC\Mac debate, it depends on what software you are more comfortable with really. I like both. Of course remember you can run Windows natively on Apple computers now.

Is the playback of the source file jittery? Also Windows movie maker bites. Try the open source http://lightworksbeta.com/ or even get a 30day free trial of Sony Vegas or whatnot to get your work done.

Dave Van Ronk

SouperComputer wrote: »

Something is not right. That laptop should be able to do it. It will take a while to process\render the video but it can do it. I edited/rendered a DVD on an AMD K6-2 300 Mhz on Windows98 and 96MB of RAM. It litterally took two days to render from what I remember, but the results were fine.

On the PC\Mac debate, it depends on what software you are more comfortable with really. I like both. Of course remember you can run Windows natively on Apple computers now.

Is the playback of the source file jittery?

Hi, yes the playback is also jittery... When you rendered the DVD, was that from a VHS source?
The actual conversion from AVI to dvd is fine.. Where the processor really strains is where I'm recording input from the VHS to the harddisc. My cpu usage is maxed to the hilt, using the Dazzle card with windows movie maker.

Perhaps I might downscale my input picture resolution on WMM, but longterm i'm thinking to upgrade.. 6 years+ is decent innings for a laptop!

So you would consider no great advantage of chosing a MACbook to an equally priced windows machine for AV editing,
although the Apple machines already come pre-loaded with some snazzy editing software no?

SouperComputer

Dave Van Ronk wrote: »

Hi, yes the playback is also jittery... When you rendered the DVD, was that from a VHS source?
The actual conversion from AVI to dvd is fine.. Where the processor really strains is where I'm recording input from the VHS to the harddisc. My cpu usage is maxed to the hilt, using the Dazzle card with windows movie maker.

Perhaps I might downscale my input picture resolution on WMM, but longterm i'm thinking to upgrade.. 6 years+ is decent innings for a laptop!

So you would consider no great advantage of chosing a MACbook to an equally priced windows machine for AV editing,
although the Apple machines already come pre-loaded with some snazzy editing software no?

Yes it was a VHS tape. However I captured it as raw AVI, uncompressed with a "framegrabber" PCI card. Basically a really old TV card (Hauppage WinTv somethingorother, NOT a PVR card). I wonder if windows movie maker is trying to compress the source on the fly to WMV? That wouldn't surprise me. The Dazzle should be passing an MPEG2 stream to the PC and should be handling the compression onboard I would think. What model of card is it? Generally the CPU should not be getting a workout when you are capturing. Did the dazzle come with capture software? If not you could use virtualdub to capture too. Or just try one of the afomentioned video editing software(s). Dont bother putting down the res (unless its above 567p), just get it to capture it properly.

MacBooks come with iMovie (and maybe iDVD). iMovie cool for the price (free) for sure. It's very easy to use and you can get good results without issue. You can use iDVD to make snazzy looking DVD menus with minimum fuss. For sure iMovie pi$$es all over Windows Movie Maker, I dont think anyone would argue that!

If you look at raw spec, euro for euro a generic "Windows" laptop will almost always be ahead of an Apple for the same price. With the apple you are paying more for the OS, the aestetics (sp), the sex appeal, the support (while not amazing, better that what you will get with a typical cheapo laptop), the ability to run final cut etc and better build quality depending on what you are comparing. You even get support for the extra apps such as iMovie for the first 90s AFAIK not to mention the great online tutorial vids they have on apple.com to get you started. These things matter to some people and to others they dont. Horses for courses as they say. I prefer Apple laptops over most "generic" stuff for these reasons. But I'm not one for fanboism to say one is "better" than the other. Another thing to consider is that virus\malware issues are still pretty rare with OSX at this time, get one or two of those on a Windows laptop and you are on par with a Mac anyway cost wise unless you fix it yourself.

If you are on the fence, a used/refurb MacBook will help you save some beans while being able to use both OS X and Windows without too much faffing about. The Mac "might" be slower than the "PC" when rendering (all depends on the deal you get in the end), but it will still be light years ahead of what you have.

Both are good platforms but for sure in my experience "generally" you can get nicer results, more quickly and with less hassle with the Mac on OS X than on a Windows. At the end of the day, the Mac will depreiciate more slowly than its respective "PC" so if you decide OS X\iMovie\Final Cut isnt for you, sell it

Dave Van Ronk

Keenan Thankful Umbrella wrote: »

I would like to think the processor would only slow things down, not make them jittery. It is a lot slower than I would use though.

It looks like when you play an NTSC dvd on a PAL dvd player, and the dvd player sees the NTSC has more frames per second than the PAL and it plays it kind of jittery.

So I would guess its at the encoding/capture end. Not too sure how you would fix it.

As for getting something new I am sick saying on the forum to custom build this is of course if you were going desktop, so many video folk are afraid to custom build and over clock, you get a monster for half the price that would kick the stuffing out of any off the shelf model.

Cheers but I ain't goin' Desktop yet...I'm much too mobile.

There is though, perhaps a business model for you to kickstart... Monster A/V editing machines at half the regular price. Personally speaking, the thoughts of trying to install & configure operating systems to a collection of assembled PC parts would have me running to the hills, but I ain't tried it yet so maybe in good time.

Dave Van Ronk

SouperComputer wrote: »

Yes it was a VHS tape. However I captured it as raw AVI, uncompressed with a "framegrabber" PCI card. Basically a really old TV card (Hauppage WinTv somethingorother, NOT a PVR card). I wonder if windows movie maker is trying to compress the source on the fly to WMV? That wouldn't surprise me. The Dazzle should be passing an MPEG2 stream to the PC and should be handling the compression onboard I would think. What model of card is it? Generally the CPU should not be getting a workout when you are capturing. Did the dazzle come with capture software? If not you could use virtualdub to capture too. Or just try one of the afomentioned video editing software(s). Dont bother putting down the res (unless its above 567p), just get it to capture it properly.

MacBooks come with iMovie (and maybe iDVD). iMovie cool for the price (free) for sure. It's very easy to use and you can get good results without issue. You can use iDVD to make snazzy looking DVD menus with minimum fuss. For sure iMovie pi$$es all over Windows Movie Maker, I dont think anyone would argue that!

If you look at raw spec, euro for euro a generic "Windows" laptop will almost always be ahead of an Apple for the same price. With the apple you are paying more for the OS, the aestetics (sp), the sex appeal, the support (while not amazing, better that what you will get with a typical cheapo laptop), the ability to run final cut etc and better build quality depending on what you are comparing. You even get support for the extra apps such as iMovie for the first 90s AFAIK not to mention the great online tutorial vids they have on apple.com to get you started. These things matter to some people and to others they dont. Horses for courses as they say. I prefer Apple laptops over most "generic" stuff for these reasons. But I'm not one for fanboism to say one is "better" than the other. Another thing to consider is that virus\malware issues are still pretty rare with OSX at this time, get one or two of those on a Windows laptop and you are on par with a Mac anyway cost wise unless you fix it yourself.

If you are on the fence, a used/refurb MacBook will help you save some beans while being able to use both OS X and Windows without too much faffing about. The Mac "might" be slower than the "PC" when rendering (all depends on the deal you get in the end), but it will still be light years ahead of what you have.

Both are good platforms but for sure in my experience "generally" you can get nicer results, more quickly and with less hassle with the Mac on OS X than on a Windows. At the end of the day, the Mac will depreiciate more slowly than its respective "PC" so if you decide OS X\iMovie\Final Cut isnt for you, sell it

Ive attached a screengrab of the Dazzle settings via WMM

DublinWriter

Keenan Thankful Umbrella wrote: »

I would like to think the processor would only slow things down, not make them jittery. It is a lot slower than I would use though.

The jitter is caused by frames being dropped on capture from the original source.

This can be down to your HD not being fast enough to write the captured video stream. I wouldn't attribute the jitter to a slow CPU as data is basically being shunted from the PCI-card to the hard-disk, if you were doing real-time effects processing then CPU speed would be an issue.

Your best bet might be to get a cheapish VHS to DVD deck (Toshiba do one), then work with the DVD as your primary source, as it will have automatically been converted to MPEG2.

SouperComputer

Dave Van Ronk wrote: »

Cheers but I ain't goin' Desktop yet...I'm much too mobile.

There is though, perhaps a business model for you to kickstart... Monster A/V editing machines at half the regular price. Personally speaking, the thoughts of trying to install & configure operating systems to a collection of assembled PC parts would have me running to the hills, but I ain't tried it yet so maybe in good time.

Yeah, getting a little off topic, but I've been there, done that and used the TShirt as an oil rag. Put simply there aren't enough serious video editors out there willing to pay the money for what it costs to build and SUPPORT a custom built quality PC. Plenty of cowboys out there that will price parts, smack a hundred euro on top and sell it with or without an legit OS alright but they dont last long because its not a sustainable business model.
To be honest, these days it makes more sense to buy PC from a big box brand and pay someone to pad mod the CPU, best of both worlds.

At this stage, I wouldnt bother going into too much detail on settings. WMM is a load of arse. Its not even clear what codec the Dazzle is giving to the computer, or what codec its being stored on the HD in. The HD should be up to the job of even uncompressed video and the fact that you say your CPU is pinned at max is telling. Are you sure you have a PAL version of the Dazzle Whats under the "Video Settings" button on the Configure Video Capture device menu, is that what's in the properties dialog.

Just download lightworks or a trial of Sony Vegas and see if there is any difference.


/edit. Just read up a little on the DVC100. Looks like it records to MPEG2 and does the encoding onboard. All your PC needs to do is save the file. I think WMM might be trying to encode it to WMV on the fly, that would explain frame drops.

Dave Van Ronk

SouperComputer wrote: »

I wonder if windows movie maker is trying to compress the source on the fly to WMV? That wouldn't surprise me. The Dazzle should be passing an MPEG2 stream to the PC and should be handling the compression onboard I would think.

Yes indeed just checked WMM does save it as windows media video, so that must have been where my CPU was getting weighed under.

Ive tried it using the pinnacle trial version and on the good setting the processor is only about 65% in use, with much smoother transition.

The Pinnacle saves the file as .vob, so can burn straight to dvd, although i may look for other formats for editing.

Cheers for the help y'all,

SouperComputer

60% is still kinda high guess, but if its working smoothly who cares. If was making a WMV from it then It would need to decode/play the MPEG2 footage as its being captured and then encode it to WMV all at the same time. No surprise there's dropouts going on.

Depending on how important the quality of this project is to you, it might be worth while buying a pro VHS deck and some sort of SVideo to DV capture device. Either an old digital8 camcorder (With SVideo In) or something like a Canopus AVC100. You can sell all the gear when you are done capturing but it will make the most of the footage you have.

Failing that, if the Dazzle supports it try and capture in a DV stream, or at least the highest MPEG2 bitrate that it supports. DV is around 26Mb/s bittrate you are looking at about 20GB/hr of footage. A lot of space, but its the best overall format if you are considering any kind of editing or postprocessing.

Dave Van Ronk

SouperComputer wrote: »

60% is still kinda high guess, but if its working smoothly who cares. If was making a WMV from it then It would need to decode/play the MPEG2 footage as its being captured and then encode it to WMV all at the same time. No surprise there's dropouts going on.

Depending on how important the quality of this project is to you, it might be worth while buying a pro VHS deck and some sort of SVideo to DV capture device. Either an old digital8 camcorder (With SVideo In) or something like a Canopus AVC100. You can sell all the gear when you are done capturing but it will make the most of the footage you have.

Failing that, if the Dazzle supports it try and capture in a DV stream, or at least the highest MPEG2 bitrate that it supports. DV is around 26Mb/s bittrate you are looking at about 20GB/hr of footage. A lot of space, but its the best overall format if you are considering any kind of editing or postprocessing.

Cheers, I'm going to try out a DV stream in adobe premier for the capture, WMM shall never darken my processors door again!