source and destination HDDs

[supplier]

Please give me your oppinion on this situation. I have very fast boot drive (two u320 15k.3 in RAID0)and two video data storage ata/100 ans ata/133. My primary task is to transfer old (and new) family tapes into DVD. I literally have to convert dozens (close to 100) of one hour tapes. Last weekend I experimented for the first time and it took me : 1hr to capture, 40 minutes to trim and create a simple menu with the chapters and links using Studio 8, close to 4hrs to render to DVD (using the same Studio 8 on Xeon 2 GHz /1GB ram Dell workstation) and for the test purpose I used DVD+RW with data verification (about another hour) --- totally 6.5 hrs for the beginning. I guess with the experience I can cut this time to under 5.5 hours for the one tape.

Please suggest how I can cut on time for this process. Will it help if I will use faster drive as a source for the rendering process (or maybe as a destination or both)?
Is Premiere 6.5 can do rendering faster then Studio 8 or the time more depends on the hardware rather than software? I use Nero 6 to burn data on to DVD (but in the future I’ll let Studio to burn it directly to disk).

Thanks for any advice.

[echooff]

Others may disagree, but IMHO the only thing that can significantly speed up your process is faster hardware. I upgraded my system last week from a P4 2.4 to a P4 2.8 with dual hyperthreading with matching memory modules. My encode times went from 3 to 5 hours to 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Big difference. Btw that was using tmpgenc. In my experience Pinnacle is a slow encoder.

[brashquido]

I agree, I used to have a Pinnacle DC10+ and it took forever to render, maybe .2 real-time. I'm now using a Canopus EZDV with an AVDC50 for analog input and my reneder times are in real-time or faster using the Canopus software, and getting close to real-time in Premiere. If I had my run again I'd blobably stretch the budget out that bit further and get the Canopus Raptor for real-time or faster rendering/encoding in Premiere.

Seriously, with a semi decent hardware & software editing solution you will be able to knock around 3 hours of those project times of yours.

[ppera2]

Combination of AVISynth + CCE is very fast. On much slower than mentioned systems it can work with speed close to 2x.
Mainconcept Mpeg encoder is also very fast.

[echooff]

Mainconcept Mpeg encoder is also very fast

I agree. I experimented with thier new version 1.4 and it is very fast. I have done a half dozen or so encodes with it and Like its speed, but all the encodes have been coverting my svcd's to dvd.

@brashquido

I'm now using a Canopus EZDV with an AVDC50 for analog input

I have read quite a bit about the ADVC100 but nothing about either the AVCD50 or EZDV. Are you happy with them and did they come bundled? Any other info you would be willing to share about them is appreciated.

[brashquido]

The ADVC50 is very similar to the ADVC100 with the major differences being the AVDC50 slots into a 5.25 bay in your PC, and has Anolog inputs only.

I think the most cost effective solution with the gear you've got and if you're wanting to capture and output from/to an anolog device is to get something like the AVDC100 and a decent OHCI firewire card (if you haven't got firewire already). The day of pure proprietry cards in the hobbist to enthusiast markets such as those created by Matrox, Canopus and Pinnacle are numbered.

I really like my EZDV card, and there are a few benefits that the Raptor 2 card has that would be nice, but nothing that would justify the price difference for the average home user IMHO. Back a few years when your PC was powered by sub 500Mhz CPU's with low data bandwidths, and ATA-33 HDD's were the fastet IDE drives around, a specialised hardware solution such as a dedicated video editing card and SCSI HDD's really made a difference. Not the case these days, as with a decent system (which you seem to have) and software you can achieve real-time encoding/rendering.