I tried a Mac for video editing...

[EEVblog]

I don't understand Dave, it seems like you're trying to produce a motion picture not an Internet video cast? Is it the video camera format that's being a problem or is this an issue for anyone wanting to produce 1080p content? (Me coming from a place of little experience in the this area)

I've explained it dozens of times, and it's hard to understand unless you are in my exact same position with my exact same requirements.
But yes, it will likely be same issue for anyone that produces 1080p content (and gives a shit about the quality) on an almost daily basis. Some will be in a better position with regards to internet upload speed, and that plays a big part.

[EEVblog]

no wonder at all, mac is and will always be massively overpriced "boutique" pretty-shiny stuff that always will underperform for stuff that matters.

Unfortunately there are lot of people out there who keep screaming at me, try a Mac and Final Cut Pro and you problems will vanish. So I did, and they didn't 

Dave, for a fraction of the cost of the mac pro ALONE you can build a dedicated encoding rig using an AMD FX-8350 -top of theline amd cpu right now- (i know the i7-3770K IS faster at encoding but a significantly steeper price and the FX is right there in performance for video encoding).

Yes, I'm temped to do this.

but.. check the fx-8350 standing, simply cannot be beat bang per buck (because it costs like a i5 and offers i7 performance)

Thanks, very useful table.
Yes, I'd be inclined to spend less and be happy with slightly less performance, and I can spend more on the Nvidia card too, because I'd want to accelerate both Sony rendering speed, and Handbrake. I'll likely just upgrade again in a year or two anyway, so it silly to pay absolute primo price.

[Ed.Kloonk]

This is why I suggest setting yourself up a Lee-Nooks solution, command-line encoder usb-stick portable setup.

It's kinda hard to edit video on a timeline with the command line.

True but you should ( I think) be dumping to a largish, fast video format once your edits are done. From there you could have a script find the completed, edited blog(s), encode it to what ever youtube wants (I don't know) automatic upload and email a success (or fail) on completion.

Maybe just me but the extra step is better than waiting for the editing program to encode with heavy compression. Wouldn't you rather dump it quickly to another machine and perhaps start to edit another blog?

Only trying to help. I'm sure there's a solution in this somewhere. If I'm barking up the wrong tree however...

 

[westfw]

The Mac Pros are certainly getting long-in-the-tooth.

But I need to install a PCI accelerator card

PCI Express, hopefully.  The Mac Pros don't have any ordinary PCI slots.
Do you know if the version of FCP you were using supported multiple core encoding?  It's certainly a bottleneck on an 8-core box if your SW doesn't use them.

I really liked the old version of iMovie, that came with the Macs.  But the new version... rather a lot less.  Sigh.

[akcoder]

I don't understand Dave, it seems like you're trying to produce a motion picture not an Internet video cast? Is it the video camera format that's being a problem or is this an issue for anyone wanting to produce 1080p content? (Me coming from a place of little experience in the this area)

I've explained it dozens of times, and it's hard to understand unless you are in my exact same position with my exact same requirements.
But yes, it will likely be same issue for anyone that produces 1080p content (and gives a shit about the quality) on an almost daily basis. Some will be in a better position with regards to internet upload speed, and that plays a big part.

Quality is a big part of why your blog is so successful. The video quality is there, and the content quality is there. Its hard to watch someones youtube video when its all shaky, and the volume has to be cranked up. Those issues aren't there with your stuff!

Although, I would suggest you wear your lapel mic again, in your last few videos the audio volume noticeably drops out when you move away from what I presume is your shotgun mic?

-dan

[EEVblog]

True but you should ( I think) be dumping to a largish, fast video format once your edits are done. From there you could have a script find the completed, edited blog(s), encode it to what ever youtube wants (I don't know) automatic upload and email a success (or fail) on completion.

That's exactly what I do. I output from Sony using Sony AVC at the exact same bitrate and details as my input files, so it does minimal processing. That is the fastest encoder that Sony supports (I've tried them all), except for this mythical FrameServer that I can't get working.
It's still real time encoding, so a 1hr video takes an hour to output from Sony.
I have yet to find the magic bullet here.

Dave.

[firewalker]

Now... Use GNU/Linux. Trololololol!

Alexander.

[peter.mitchell]

I don't understand Dave, it seems like you're trying to produce a motion picture not an Internet video cast? Is it the video camera format that's being a problem or is this an issue for anyone wanting to produce 1080p content? (Me coming from a place of little experience in the this area)

I've explained it dozens of times, and it's hard to understand unless you are in my exact same position with my exact same requirements.
But yes, it will likely be same issue for anyone that produces 1080p content (and gives a shit about the quality) on an almost daily basis. Some will be in a better position with regards to internet upload speed, and that plays a big part.

Quality is a big part of why your blog is so successful. The video quality is there, and the content quality is there. Its hard to watch someones youtube video when its all shaky, and the volume has to be cranked up. Those issues aren't there with your stuff!

Although, I would suggest you wear your lapel mic again, in your last few videos the audio volume noticeably drops out when you move away from what I presume is your shotgun mic?

-dan

The other part is being a true blue top notch aussie bloke (even though he doesn't drink beer)

[EEVblog]

Although, I would suggest you wear your lapel mic again, in your last few videos the audio volume noticeably drops out when you move away from what I presume is your shotgun mic?

No, the internal mic on my HF G10. It's just more convenient, and has the same or better general audio level consistency than my lapel mic (try turning your head with a lapel mic), but yes, if I do move away from the camera it varies a lot of course.

[kripton2035]

Dave, I strongly suggest you to go to an apple video specialist near you, and please not an apple store...
they only play with itunes and sometimes imovie there ...

http://consultants.apple.com/au/mlocator

[EEVblog]

Dave, I strongly suggest you to go to an apple video specialist near you, and please not an apple store...
they only play with itunes and sometimes imovie there ...

Sorry, but I'm pretty sure Apple is not going to be worthwhile investment, so will not pursue it any more, it's just "the vibe"
It's not just Apple I need, I'd also need the Matrox board etc

[mikeselectricstuff]

I never understood why this encoding is so slow on computers .... come on, the simplest camera that can shoot AVCHD costs well under 300$ and encodes in real time after all....

The simple camera has a dedicated hardware accelerator. Doing highly specialised things like video encoding on a general purpose PC is not an efficient use of silicon, so even the fastest "Turbo Nutter" PC will struggle to keep up with an encoder based on custom silicon

[Ed.Kloonk]

True but you should ( I think) be dumping to a largish, fast video format once your edits are done. From there you could have a script find the completed, edited blog(s), encode it to what ever youtube wants (I don't know) automatic upload and email a success (or fail) on completion.

That's exactly what I do. I output from Sony using Sony AVC at the exact same bitrate and details as my input files, so it does minimal processing. That is the fastest encoder that Sony supports (I've tried them all), except for this mythical FrameServer that I can't get working.
It's still real time encoding, so a 1hr video takes an hour to output from Sony.
I have yet to find the magic bullet here.

Dave.

Ah. Gotcha. Yeah I played with avi_synth and the bogus frameserver ten years ago. As soon as you want to upgrade the OS underneath, all hell breaks out.

Hmm. It's a toughie. Wish I had said magic bullet.
 

[firewalker]

I never understood why this encoding is so slow on computers .... come on, the simplest camera that can shoot AVCHD costs well under 300$ and encodes in real time after all....

The simple camera has a dedicated hardware accelerator. Doing highly specialised things like video encoding on a general purpose PC is not an efficient use of silicon, so even the fastest "Turbo Nutter" PC will struggle to keep up with an encoder based on custom silicon

Even the GPU's support in mainly for hardware decoding.

Is there any dedicated cards for encoding?

Alexander.

[Eliminateur]

Like several people say, the video quality in the blog IS there so the settings you're using and workflow IS sound, and it's easily noticeable in 1080p when you can make all the little detail be it small letters in the PDFs, serigraphy, traces, DSO screens, etc.

Dave, BTW, i was browsing Sony's page about HW accel and it seems that only Vegas PRO has openCL encode acceleration, might that be the magic bullet you're missing?: http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/vegaspro/gpuacceleration
There'sd also a guide for Vegas pro 11 on how to enable gpu render: http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/GPU_power_in_Vegas_Pro_11
i don't have vegas installed at hand so no idea if the non pro version has the same dialog...

[ivan747]

I do a lot of avi to mp4 compression on my desktop.  I have an overclocked amd hexicore at 4.2 ghz though.  I will never buy an apple computer because the hardware is always two generations late.  Who in their right mind will buy machined aluminium and dated electronics when they are in the market for a compur er?

The same reason people buy Tektronix over Rigol.

And guys, stop comparing the Mac Pro, that thing is like 3 year old technology that should be updated or discontinued.

A more fair comparison would be against an iMac or a MacBook Pro.

[ivan747]

Dave, Handbrake is also available for Mac (and it works quite well). It can convert .mts files for FInal Cut import. Other than Sony Vegas, everything else needs conversion before importing.

I wouldn't think Apple employees would be allowed to tell you that but I know a guy who's some sort of official support provider (20 years in the business) and I am sure he would tell you this.

[peter.mitchell]

Dave, if you use sony vegas pro 12, and the card I sent you and one of the formats in they previously linked benchmarks you could be looking at 2x to 3x the rendering speed.

[EEVblog]

Dave, BTW, i was browsing Sony's page about HW accel and it seems that only Vegas PRO has openCL encode acceleration, might that be the magic bullet you're missing?

Movie Studio has it too. It's actually slower than Intel QSV, at least on my i7 2630QM DV7 notebook with Radeon HD6770M GPU

[EEVblog]

Dave, Handbrake is also available for Mac (and it works quite well). It can convert .mts files for FInal Cut import. Other than Sony Vegas, everything else needs conversion before importing.

Converting files before import is not an option. That's just an extra step that takes time.

[ddavidebor]

Dave, you should upload the raw video! You'll get 10 people trying to convert it, and next you can choose the better conversion time.

[Eliminateur]

Dave, BTW, i was browsing Sony's page about HW accel and it seems that only Vegas PRO has openCL encode acceleration, might that be the magic bullet you're missing?

Movie Studio has it too. It's actually slower than Intel QSV, at least on my i7 2630QM DV7 notebook with Radeon HD6770M GPU

Does Movie studio supports QSV encoding?, wasn't aware of it

[dimlow]

Dave, ditch the notebook, get a high end pc, yes your notebook may have an"i7" but its a notebook, not a performance pc, big difference there. Forgot Apple, they are just overpriced bull crap for people that like shiny things. Stick a good encoder card in the PC and you will be sailing along. Stop playing with the toys if you want to play with the big boys. Video encoding takes time, ram, hard drive speed and space and lots of processing power.  Laptops just can cut it.

[EEVblog]

Dave, you should upload the raw video! You'll get 10 people trying to convert it, and next you can choose the better conversion time.

Ok, for those interested, here is a 2 min 22sec original .MTS files form my camera that I load direct into Sony MS.
http://www.eevblog.com/files/EEVblogTestRender2Min22.MTS
It is shot at a constant 12Mbps, 1440x1080, 25fps.

It takes 1:43 to render that clip using the Sony AVC encoder at constant 12Mbps, 1440x1080, 25fps (same as input file) 48K/192K/32bit audio with High profile.
(203MB file)
That is the fastest encoder I can use in Sony.
For example , the MainConcept one takes 4:33 for the exact same clip at a fixed 12Mbps (212MB file)
and Video For Windows Sony YUV takes 3:03 (with a file size of 14GB!)

It takes 2:01 to transcode that Sony AVC file into my H.264 MP4 I upload to Youtube. Using a constant quality factor of 22
Here is the final file:
http://www.eevblog.com/files/EEVblogTestRender2min22-SonyAVC-1440x1080.mp4
Is it 111MB compared to the 203MB fixed bitrate one from Sony. So you can see why I do extra encoding with Handbrake to get the file size down for the upload to Youtube.

[Eliminateur]

Are you using one of the premade profiles of handbrake for internet video or you cooked a custom special profile?