Best Memory to Use For Video Editing/Encoding

[Bob Dole]

Hi,

I use the following encoding process:
1. Decrypt/Rip using DVD Decrypter
2. Strip using DVDShrink/DVDRemakePro
3. Encode using DVDRB
4. Burn using IMGTool.

Operating system is Windows XP, CPU is P4 2.4GHz (from memory). It's been a long time since I priced computers so I'm a bit out of the loop now.

This usually results in anywhere from 4 to 5 transfers between hard drives. I hear that they can wear out through excessive use, and would like to prevent this. Is there another option to speed up this process/decrease the likelihood of damaging any useful data?

For example, could I use RAID and some more hard drives to speed this up, seeing how I already have two hard drives, a dvd burner and a dvd reader?

Or could I get a few 4 (or 8)Gb flash drives to do the same thing? Is the speed better than hard drives? Could they be connected using RAID-O? How about plain ol RAM? Is that an option?

I have to wonder that there must be a better solution, considering that you only really need 16Gb worth of faster memory (few DVDs over 8Gb, after you copy you can delete from the other drive for the next step).

That way you could relatively quickly strip a few DVDs at a time and then set them all up to encode over a day or so from one hard drive to the other.

Thanks in advance.

BD

[Sirber]

Look for RAM which are in sinc with your CPU FSB.

[Bob Dole]

I don't think I understand that... :confused:You mean to say that you can 16 Gb of RAM to do this?

I'm thinking that in order to minimize the time needed to do this sort of thing it would be best to build a dedicated machine. I'm thinking that since hard drive speeds are around 60Mb/s or so (from what I read), would it be possible to have four small drives set up as two RAID-0 drives? Have some of them running out of the PCI slots and then hook the DVD burner and the DVD player as well?

That way you would have two drives reading and two writing at any one time. Although the cost of this would be expensive. Hmmmm.

And you could utilize any other computers to do encoding with rbfarm.

What I'm really asking here is if you would build a dedicated machine for this task, how would you do it?

[neuron2]

@Bob Dole

Please read and follow the forum rules, specifically, rule 12, "do not ask what's best". Thank you.
:readrule:

[Doom9]

unless you have a server, you'll never fit 16 GB into your PC.

Flash memory is still considerably slower than harddisks so that's no solution either. Modern harddisks should easily withstand whatever you throw at them for a few years.. since you have two HDs, just make sure that the source of an operation is always on one, and the destination on the other HD.. that'sll speed things up I/O wise.

And I/O is really not the bottleneck in video encoding.. it's raw CPU power.

[Bob Dole]

@Bob Dole

Please read and follow the forum rules, specifically, rule 12, "do not ask what's best". Thank you.
:readrule:

Whoops, sorry about that.

Thanks for the help. Now I realize it would be better to just stripe two sets of identical hard drives together if I wanted to increase IO to copy from one to the other.

Yes, CPU is the killer with encoding. But at least you can leave it overnight, it doesn't consume your own time like waiting 5-10 minutes for files to copy from one hard drive to the other.

[Soulhunter]

Maybe have a look @ this iRAM modules... (http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/News/Details.aspx?NewsId=14213)


Bye

[Jack'n'xbox]

unless you have a server, you'll never fit 16 GB into your PC.

Flash memory is still considerably slower than harddisks so that's no solution either. Modern harddisks should easily withstand whatever you throw at them for a few years.. since you have two HDs, just make sure that the source of an operation is always on one, and the destination on the other HD.. that'sll speed things up I/O wise.

And I/O is really not the bottleneck in video encoding.. it's raw CPU power.
Hi
So I sould dvdd to one, then that would be the source for dvd-rb? should I then do the same for the worker and output?

i.e, dvdd to C: then D:worker and C: output?

[Doc409]

If you want to render the video files faster, you will need a faster CPU...provided you already have around 512 MB of RAM. This is easy to see if you launch XP's Task Manager: Ctrl>>Alt>>Del, then tab to Performance. You will see your CPU and RAM usage real-time...and the CPU maxed at 100%.

[Bob Dole]

If you want to render the video files faster, you will need a faster CPU...provided you already have around 512 MB of RAM. This is easy to see if you launch XP's Task Manager: Ctrl>>Alt>>Del, then tab to Performance. You will see your CPU and RAM usage real-time...and the CPU maxed at 100%.
I've got 512 MB of Ram, and the CPU is a P4 2.4GHz, so it hovers around 20%. Obviously CPU isn't the bottleneck.

JackNBox: Yes, it is much quicker to be reading from one hard drive and writing to another. Probably better on your HDD too.

Soulhunter: Those look pretty interesting. Although for the price of one of those and the RAM to plug into it... I think I'd be better off just getting a bunch of small, fast SATA drives.

[Doom9]

So I sould dvdd to one, then that would be the source for dvd-rb? should I then do the same for the worker and output?The source of one operation should always be different from the target.

So you can rip to whichever HD you want, but after that switch drives for each operation. E.G. have rip the files to the first HD, then create a DGIndex project with demux to the second HD, encode the DGIndex project to the first HD, mux the encoded movie to the second HD, create an ISO image to the first HD, and burn it from there.

obviously, the time savings in this are not in the hours but minutes, but if you have multiple HDs, following the "source and target on different harddisks" is a cheap way to shave off a couple of minutes.

[Zyphon]

Maybe have a look @ this iRAM modules... (http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/News/Details.aspx?NewsId=14213)


Bye

Wow! That looks awesome would definately come in handy for encoding. :goodpost:

Sorry for the off-topic guys.

[Doc409]

I've got 512 MB of Ram, and the CPU is a P4 2.4GHz, so it hovers around 20%. Obviously CPU isn't the bottleneck.

If you are only seeing 20% CPU when encoding, you likely have a "problem" somewhere else. A 20% is way too slow...as it should be 100%. My first thought is that your P-IV is overheating, because P4's are designed to slow down in an overheat situation. Do you have a good thermal paste junction between the CPU and the heatsink/fan assy?

[Angelus]

I dont think P4's throttle down if they get too hot. I've always thought that if they get too hot, it would force a restart of the computer to prevent damage to the cpu. There are many freeware programs that you can download to see what the temp is. In regards to the original question, the ideal would be to get pc-3200 ram (granted you have a 800 mhz FSB) and get memory with low latency such as 2.

[Doc409]

Here's a link to a thermal throttling test run with the P4 Prescott and Northwood cores to see if they really throttle in an overheat situation...as their specs claim they do: http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/p4-throttling/ . It has some nice graphs. Basically, they show that performance deteriorates as temp goes up, and once the temp gets critical, a shutdown does occur. It is not unusual to "run hot" on a continuous basis with something like poor case cooling...especially in the summertime.

The thing is, encoding is a very demanding, CPU intensive task, and encoders like to use push the CPU at 100%...and 512MB of memory is enough to make this happen. If the CPU is going to overheat, it will do it with encoding. There are other factors that could account for the substandard 20% performance, but they don't matter if the CPU is running hot. This should be the first checkpoint.

[Bob Dole]

Doc,

That's not with encoding. It's with using something like DVDRemake Pro to copy video from one HDD to the other, etc. With encoding it gets way up there.

Zyphon, yes, that does look interesting, doesn't it? I should have given him some more props for that one.