Editing faster than realtime

[PerroneFord]

Ok,

I realize this may be beyond the scope of most of the editors here, but I toss it out on the off chance that some of you may have acceleration gear.

I need to accelerate my editing and finishing. My workflow looks like this:

1. Capture live source to MiniDV.
2. Dump MiniDV to Premier/Vegas via firewire from dedicated VTR
3. Edit and splice tapes (usually very few edits)
4. Produce Single Movie DVDs with only basis titles and chaptering.
5. Produce WMV?MPEG-2 video from original AVI source.

My problem is that for every 1 hour of video recorded my times look like this

Step 1, real-time
Step 2, real-time
Step 3, usually 5-15 minutes per 1 hour source video
Step 4, 4:1 generally depending on source.
Step 5. 6:1 depending on source.

Measures I am taking:

1. Going tapeless. I am replacing miniDV with harddrive recording. This will reduce step 2.

What I need is a clean way to improve steps 4 and 5. I know there are some MPEG-2 hardware assist boards out there, but nearly ALL my material goes to WMV with the occasional DVD created. In those rare instances I need the MPEG-2, I usually run the creation of it overnight. Are there similar accelerators for WMV?

I am running this on a fairly modern dual-processor machine with WinXP and 4GB of RAM. Don't be afraid to toss professional solutions at me. Cost is a factor, but won't stop me getting what I need.

Thanks in advance.

-P

 

[ScubaBob92651]

1. Capture live source to MiniDV.
2. Dump MiniDV to Premier/Vegas via firewire from dedicated VTR
3. Edit and splice tapes (usually very few edits)
4. Produce Single Movie DVDs with only basis titles and chaptering.
5. Produce WMV?MPEG-2 video from original AVI source.

My problem is that for every 1 hour of video recorded my times look like this

Step 1, real-time
Step 2, real-time
Step 3, usually 5-15 minutes per 1 hour source video
Step 4, 4:1 generally depending on source.
Step 5. 6:1 depending on source.

Holy crap, 5-15 minutes for editing? I'm usually like 20-30 hours per 1 hour of source video. I usually welcome the mpeg2 encode times so I can finally get a good night's sleep

For WMV, I know there are some good tips out there for improving your encode time, I will try to find the links and post them here. I edit HDV on Dual-XEON machine, but I was really able to decrease my WMV encode times with these tips. Let's see (from memory fwiw):
1) When encoding, close the video and audio preview panes - these really waste cycles that can better be spent crunching avi
2) Tools > Options > Performance. Change the "When encoding a file" to something other then the last (Better Quality) notch. This makes a huge difference, even just one tick on the bar.

Hope that helps - though you maybe already doing these things.

 

[ScubaBob92651]

MS has a link for hardware encoding solutions for WMV here

 

[ScubaBob92651]

Here's the WME Info I was referring to. The topic is related to encoding HD video captured OTA or from cable, but the Windows Media Encoder concepts may be helpful.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=227837

 

[double80s]

Check out products by Canopus, they offer a few solutions: http://www.canopus.com/products/mpegencoding.php

Will

 

[ScubaBob92651]

Good news: Came across something today that may solve your encoding timing woes.

Bad News: It's still in Beta!

ATI's Avivo XCode encoding tool

 

[PerroneFord]

Thanks for the tips. I'll try some of this stuff. As for the Canopus, I have a DVStorm SE board, but it was incompatible with my current hardware so I pulled it.

Have either of you (or anyone else) tried using more than one machine for rendering? I am thinking of harnessing 3-4 machines as a rendering farm if I can, but for these long projects, render time is nearly nothing.

Oh, my edit time for this stuff is so short because it's conference video. Only trimming up the front and end of the video, and sticking 3-4 1 hour segments back to back. No real cuts or transitions.

Some of the short stuff has MUCH more extensive editing.

 

[ChrisA]

As much as I hate to recommend it you couild switch to a mini-DVD camera. You loose recording time, you loose quality but there would be literally zero transfer/download time. Just pop the DVD out and place it in the computer. Being DVD the video is already mpeg2 encoded.

You say this is for a conference? Not underwater? One other way to make the work go fastr is not to record to tape. Connect the camera to a computer and record to the computer's hard drive. A little Apple Powerbook would be ideal for this

 

[bluesbro1982]

Thanks for the tips. I'll try some of this stuff. As for the Canopus, I have a DVStorm SE board, but it was incompatible with my current hardware so I pulled it.

Have either of you (or anyone else) tried using more than one machine for rendering? I am thinking of harnessing 3-4 machines as a rendering farm if I can, but for these long projects, render time is nearly nothing.

Oh, my edit time for this stuff is so short because it's conference video. Only trimming up the front and end of the video, and sticking 3-4 1 hour segments back to back. No real cuts or transitions.

Some of the short stuff has MUCH more extensive editing.

I've clustered about 3-4 xserve RAID's using compressor 2 and qmaster from apple. It is quite fast, but i know there are other PC based solutions out there... never had occasion to try. I'm mostly a mac shop, but one of the other guys around the area has one of the Panasonic Hardware based encoders - the ones with an actual network IP address and all, he seems to like it a lot.

As far as capturing tape at faster than realtime, you are looking at some pro telecine equipment and decks as far as i can tell. The only guys I know that do that are the development houses doing telecines for DVD autoring of old film stuff...

To be fair, I haven't done a helluva lot of research into the area. I'm a jack-of-all trades kind of guy, doing education, music, graphic arts, and video for a number of groups.

 

[PerroneFord]

Well, my budget got fried this year anyway. While I can get away with some pro gear, telecine equipment isn't gonna fly! I think the best thing for me to do is to look at going direct to hard drive when I buy the HDV camera next year. That will hopefully cut down on capture and transfer times. I'll revisit hardware assist boards at that point.