Re: Hard Drive configuration ? for Video Capture

On Aug 6, 6:37 pm, "Richard Crowley" <rcrow...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"John"  wrote ...

First I found out what was wrong.  The bigger the file, longer
recording time, the longer it took before the Save As dialog box was
appearing. So I thought it was not working. If I hit ESC or stop and
waited long enough it eventually worked.

Isn't it nice that it doesn't even tell you "please wait while I
save this file" or something?  At least they could say "preparing
for download" or something.  (It is an inside joke, see the thread
about "Simple video editing software"  :-)

Ya, it might be a newbe thing but I always liked programs that showed
at least a process bar or something. At least then you were fairly
sure that the PC or program hadn't locked up.

... The research
I did when I purchased this computer said that if I wanted to do HD I
needed a really fastHardDrive.

Maybe, but IMHO, RAID is more trouble than it's worth unless you
have a *really good reason* to use it.  I would only switch to RAID
after I proved that I couldn't do the job with conventional drives.

True, right now I am only doing NTSC
quality converting from an analog VHS-C camera. RAID 0 will give me
more speed almost twice as fast as non RAID. That is why I am using
RAID. RAID is usually used for fault tolerence so if onedrivegoes
out the others keep running and you don't lose any data. RAID 0 is
setup for speed only no fault tolerance.

Right. I suspect that many people who are running RAID (which
Dell set up for them) think they have some sort of fault-tollerance
which they don't have.

What I did not know is that I
can use a non-RAIDdrivein conjunction with a RAID setup.

When it comes down to it, the OS just sees the RAID array as
a single logical disc. It doesn't know or care what other physical
or logical drives are doing.

So, I am
going to get a newHardDrive500Gb (because the price is only $79US)
and configure my computer for the OS on the non-RAIDdriveand
dedicate the RAID drives to Video only by putting all my program files
and photos on my non RAIDdrive.

Yes that is the logical approach, IMHO.

I use external USB drives for project backups.

Yes, external drives make convenient backups. But don't be
fooled into thinking that they are *archive* storage media.
See the discussion of this in the "Need some advice" thread.

Oh, I thought I could use a HD for perminent backup storage and make a
master DVD as well. If you don't use a HD for your backup of project
files what do you use?

I started out using a Sony notebook and Premiere Pro 2.0 plus
an externaldrive.  I had a big learning curve at that time. tt worked
surprisingly well for the setup. Not great but good enough at that
time. Even with a Dual core 3Ghz Xeon CPU I still have times where the
timeline will not play unless I prerender it do to the special efects
I am using. If you have any suggestion on tweeks to help this issue
let me know. My graphics is the FX Quatro 3500. Way over kill I know.

AFAIK, unless the video card is specifically used by the video
software for some kind of processing (hardware accelleration,
etc.) then it makes no difference whether you spend  $500 on
a video card, or use the one built into the motherboard.

The main problem I was and am having is that in the final DVD I get
glitches. It is the type of glitches like if there are finger prints
on the disc. I still don't know exactly why this is happening.

Do you get glitches when you play the "virtual DVD" from
a the files on aharddrive? (vs. playing a field-burned optical
disc on a DVD player).

I may have done that once and no I had no problems. Except that I
recently captured something and as I said I did see the glitches when
I played the video back at real time in the timeline of Premiere.

That symptom sounds more like burining flaky disks than
anything wrong with the editing and encoding process.

I first
thought my computer was two slow while creating the DVD/encoding the
files.  CPU and or HD speed. My computer is definently way fast enough
so this should not be a problem.

But years ago it was taking all night to encode MPEG video
into the format you write to a DVD, etc. The speed of the
rendering process has NO affect on the quality of the product.
It only affects how long it takes to get there.

Even the speed of the HDs?

But that is why I thought I needed to
have this fast of a computer. What do you guys think.I would greatly
appreciate it if I could figure out the answer.  I am thinking now
that it is just in the manufacturing of the discs. This is my best
guess. Some times I can get a copy to come out perfect or almost
perfect and other times not.  This is really frustrating to me.

Yes, that is my first guess. That you are making flaky disks.
There could be any number of causes of this.

I am using TDK DVDs

TDK is a marketing label. They make *some* of their own discs,
but they buy others from various manufacturers, (not all of them
with the best reputation) and slap the "TDK" name on them.

I use *exclusively* Taiyo-Yuden blank discs (both video and
audio).  They have the best reputation of any disk maker, and
they make their own discs, they never OEM them from others.
OEMed brands (like "TDK") are a gamble. You never know
from one purchase to the next exactly what you are getting.

So, about how many Discs have you made with the T-Ys and have you had
any of the glitches I have? Also, how do fingerprints, dust, scratches
affect the discs? I mean does this effect the discs any more than
store bought/pressed DVDs? As I said the TDKs seem to me to be pretty
sensitive to this stuff? This is my non scientific study.

Because T-Y has such a good reputation, there are also people
out there counterfeiting T-Y disks. So be sure to buy them from
a reputable vendor.  I buy mine exclusively fromwww.supermediastore.com They have some info (and photos)
online to show how to distinguish between genuine T-Y discs
and counterfeits.

with the inkjet lable on them.

If you mean that you are writing directly to the surface of the
DVDR disc, then that is good.  If you mean that you are using
inkjet-printed stick-on labels, then that is bad, and possibly
the cause of your symptoms.  It is virtually impossible to get
a stick-on lable so well centered that it will survive DVD
rotational speeds.

I have an Epson 960 Photo printer that prints directly on the Disc.
I tried using a lable just once. I found it way to hard to line up
properly.
The DISCs on the Epson come out really professional.

I do not get any write error during the process.

That is nice, but unless that means that your (unidentified)
software is actually reading the disk back and verifying all
the data, then it doesn't mean much.

I tried verifying the disks for awhile but I never got any errors so I
think it is a waist of time. I just run the disc in my DVD player to
verify that bit is OK. Even after a good verify process I still got
the glitches described.

Then I thought this may be do to the capture process because I was
captuing some data and playing it back in the timeline and I did see
the same glitches as described above.

If you have made even ONE disk that plays back properly, then
you have confirmed that the capture and editing and encoding
and disk authoring processes are working properly.

One other thing how would you configure the scratch disk setting?
Would you configure the scratch disc to use the OSdrive?

NO!  The scratchdriveneeds to be a separatedrive. You
don't want ANY of your media (audio, video) files competing
with the operating system.
What exactly do you mean? My PC can use a maximum of 3 HDs. So if I
use one for the OS and the other 2 for RAID which drive has the
scratch disk?

Since I am reinstalling the OS I am thinking of getting Win 64bit. The
main reason is that I have 4GB RAM and the 32bit Win will only use
3GB. From time to time in Premiere Pro I get out of Memory errors and
I am only doing Standard Def NTSC video. I do like to run Premiere and
Photoshop CS3 Extended at the same time.

Confirm that your hardware and applications can take
advantage of Win64.  Else you're wasting your money and
time (at best).

Yes, none of the programs are 64Bit. And it looks like adobe is not
going to make a 64bit version of premiere pro any time soon. I would
be using win64 strickly so the software can access the full 4GB of
RAM. I have not looked into whether Premiere can actually read more
than 3GB RAM being a 32bit App.
.

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