Slow Rendering Time and VS 12 Quad core use

[mgnielub]

I was wondering what a "probable" time would be for burning a 4.7 Gb disc for AVCHD (30-40 minutes)? I realize that it depends on many variables. My specs are listed but I have a quad 9450, 2.66Ghz. 4Gb ddr3, 300 Gb, 10k, core HDD, 750 Gb 7k Secondary HDD, OS is Vista 64 bit Ultimate. At present I am trying to get through one AVCHD burn and at 4hrs - Total project is at 6%, Detailed progress is at 19%. When I upgraded to the X2 I was elated about the use of all four cores. The first several burns of 5-10 minute sample clips seemed to take very little time. Is there a way to check that program is, indeed, using all four cores ? Even burning an SD disc takes 6-7 hours. I know there are so-o-o many questions that will be asked so I am trying to cover them. I bought this system almost exclusively for this type of video "work". I was wondering if having the VS program on the core drive and video clips on second drive would matter ? Editing HD has not been a problem (as opposed to so many on this forum). It just seems the burn takes an extremely long time. The project itself does not have many transitions or titles but does use quite a few filters on about half the project. I've been to the resource page and CPU only at about 40-50 % and memory usage well down at a about 1.9- 2g. I have not tried re-installing X2. I'm sure there's a link to that ? If I do that will I have to re-link all of the thumbs when I import them ?(hoping to use same saved vsp file ?) Thanks again for all this forum does.

Mike N

[Ken Berry]

On thing you didn't cover was whether you first convert your project to AVCHD, or whether you edit then jump straight to the burning module? I get the impression, though, it might be the latter -- which is what I do anyway when burning a hybrid AVCHD disc. I have your Quad's baby brother (a 6600) and the processing of AVCHD is slow. On mine it takes about 4 times real time, so for a 30 minute project, it would take in all about 2 hours, or a little more, for the burn. So by the sounds of it, there is something strange going on with your set up. The main difference I can see, apart from CPU, is that I use Vista Ultimate but 32 bit. I have not idea whether that would make any difference to AVCHD disc burns, but doubt it.

I guess you could try first converting the project to AVCHD, then closing the project. Open the burning module, insert the new AVCHD video clip, make sure do not convert compliant mpeg files is ticked in the middle of the three icons in the bottom left of the burning screen.

Failing that, you could try reinstalling. You should not need to re-link anything if all the clips in a project remain in the same place. You simply open a project file and it already knows where the clips are. However, if you are taking about the thumbnails in the library window next to the preview screen, yes you would have to reload them if you wanted to or needed them for some particular purpose. Otherwise, no.

[Black Lab]

It would also be interesting to see what effect, if any, removing the video filters would have on the rendering time. It could at least give you a general baseline for the rendering time.

[2Dogs]

My specs are listed but I have a quad 9450, 2.66Ghz. 4Gb ddr3, 300 Gb, 10k, core HDD, 750 Gb 7k Secondary HDD, OS is Vista 64 bit Ultimate.

That's an impressive sounding system! The additional memory bandwidth of DDR3 has no significant effect on your rendering speed though - in fact the significant factor is your cpu, which is about 10% faster than the Q6600.

At present I am trying to get through one AVCHD burn and at 4hrs - Total project is at 6%, Detailed progress is at 19%.

How long is your project duration?

When I upgraded to the X2 I was elated about the use of all four cores. The first several burns of 5-10 minute sample clips seemed to take very little time.

When you say "burns" - do you mean rendering clips to video files, or do you actually mean burning the clips to a DVD? In either case, it's possible that VS was able to make use of smart render, so you would expect the time to be not very long.

Is there a way to check that program is, indeed, using all four cores ?

You can run Task Manager in the Performance tab to show the cpu usage of the four cores.

Even burning an SD disc takes 6-7 hours. I know there are so-o-o many questions that will be asked so I am trying to cover them.

Again, how long is the project? What are the properties of the clips on the timeline? (e.g. AVCHD captured from Sony/Canon etc camcorder.) It would be useful to know the make and model of your camcorder, especially since you say that you can successfully edit your AVCHD clips.

I bought this system almost exclusively for this type of video "work". I was wondering if having the VS program on the core drive and video clips on second drive would matter ?

In some situations, it can help. For example, if you smart render DV avi clips and maybe also AVCHD clips, you should see an appreciable increase in smart rendering speed if the source material is on one physical hard drive and is written to another physical hard drive. Doing that means your pc is using two read heads instead of one.

Editing HD has not been a problem (as opposed to so many on this forum).

You are very fortunate then! What model camcorder do you have?

It just seems the burn takes an extremely long time. The project itself does not have many transitions or titles but does use quite a few filters on about half the project.

Using filters can make all the difference in the world, and slow even the very fastest system to a crawl. Filters for about half of your project is a lot. Perhaps you even use more than one filter on any given clip - which will further reduce the render speed.

I've been to the resource page and CPU only at about 40-50 % and memory usage well down at a about 1.9- 2g.

Not sure what you mean by the resource page - sounds like it could be Task Manager. Bear in mind that you might see a different cpu usage when using filters, though. VS has never been a program that used 100% of all available cores. I use a thrid party program that seems to be able to do just that - but it can only render video, it's not a video editor.

I have not tried re-installing X2. I'm sure there's a link to that ? If I do that will I have to re-link all of the thumbs when I import them ?(hoping to use same saved vsp file ?) Thanks again for all this forum does.

I wouldn't think about re-installing VS just yet. Nothing you describe suggest a faulty installation.

Instead, I think it would be worth you doing some simple test renders on your AVCHD source material to check your speed. Just take a sample clip and render it to an AVCHD file, keeping the same properties, but NOT using smart render. That should give you an idea of the "raw" re-encoding speed of your setup.

You could render the clip to a file twice. First, to the same hard drive that the clip is stored on, and secondly, to another hard drive - what you call your "core" drive" which likely shows as the C: drive.

I would not expect to see a significant difference taken in the two cases above, since the process is largely governed by the encoding time.

(if you want to check out the effect of using filters, you might even repeat the test with one or more filters added)

Next, do the same test but this time making sure the clip is smart rendered. It should take much less time, and this time I would expect to see the time taken when writing to the core drive to be less - since it's essentially just a file copying operation.

If you do those tests, we can compare your results to those of other users with similar setups and then get a better idea of whether something is up with your system. You'll need to give us the source clip properties and the output properties in order for us to make that comparison.

As it stands, it's entirely possible that the slow speeds/long timescales you are seeing are simply the result of your filter usage. An easy test of that theory would be to make a copy of your project and delete all the filters - then try a test render to file or disc burn from that.

Beware - video editing is a great thief of time!