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garnet:
I have a 1000 mghz amd cpu and 512 meg of ram. I am planning to do video editing. As rendering the movie file takes so much work and time for the cpu, how would i control my processes and have just enough power left to do some word editing or internet browsing?
Could i set all processes to low and have those related to the rendering set to high and still have a stable system?
What settings would be appropriate?

Carol Haynes:
You will probably need to set the rendering to the lowest setting possible while you want to use the computer for anything else and then bump up its priority when you can leave it unattended.

Depending on how the software is written you may find setting the rendering software higher than normal makes your system almost completely unresponsive to keyboard or mouse.

I have a variety of video rendering programs and they all behave differently. Some allow you to set priority within the application (eg. TSUNAMI DVD Authoring software allows you to specify a priority if the application window has focus and if it is in the background - you can therefore automatically switch from, say, Idle to High Priority with a single mouse click on or off the window - though if it is in High Priority it can take a couple of minutes to respond to the click! As a result I have TSUMAMI ignored in ProcessTamer as it handles itself well). Other applications assume they are working on their own and hog all processor time it can get and you will find that for hours on end the system won't respond to anything (except the reset button).

In process tamer I would suggest you use Force Low on the program. Then when you want it to resume normal operation (ie. you don't want to use the computer) right click on the PT icon and disable it - that will restore the Normal level. If you want to use the computer re-enable PT and the app will be foreced low again.

garnet:
Thanks Carol
I am a little ways yet from being setup yet. I see that i will have research as i go. Any other tips on setting up a computer for video editing
I see that you have had fun in my expansive country. I live on Vancouver Island on the west coast.....Garnet.

Carol Haynes:
Thanks Carol
-garnet (October 24, 2005, 10:20 AM)
--- End quote ---

You're welcome  :D

I am a little ways yet from being setup yet. I see that i will have research as i go. Any other tips on setting up a computer for video editing
--- End quote ---

I am not the best person to advise because I don't follow my own advice ... but ...

Generally for audio and Video editing the perceived wisdom is to have a separate installation altogether (preferably a dedicated computer).

If that isn't possible, then a separate Windows installation is a good way to have clean system to work on. By that I mean have a dual boot system.

With Windows 2000/XP this is dead easy as multipboot support is there 'out of the box'. Just create a second partition using a suitable partitioning tool (such as partition Magic) alongside your existing windows installtion, and run Windows installation. when given the oppotunity during the install elect to choose the location of the installation and point at your new partition. Go through the whol process and next time you start up you will have a menu of which version of windows to boot up into.

Second part of this is to remove as much crud from standard windows as you can get away with (look for windows optimization tips on the web - particularly which services and processes can be safely disabled) and use the fastest drivers you can find, esp. for graphics and audio.

This negates you first post as you now have a dedicated platform for audio and video production but it will work a lot more efficiently.

For Video/Audio work it is also worth tweaking your system further ... move your page file to a separate hard disc, and if your applications need a scratch working folder if at all possible put that on a third hard disc. It is good if you can have a dedicated scratch disc that can be regularly formated. Ensure that compression and indexing are switched off on all drives too.


If all this is too much you can compromise by installing on your normal working Windows installation but things will run slower and you may suffer glitches - especially when previewing edits. Best thing here is to try and keep your scratch work area off the windows partition on a separate disc (preferably dedicated). If you can't afford dedicated disc then ensure you get a good defragmenter (such as Perfect Disc) and defragment your discs regularly, esp. before you start doing Audio/Vidoe work. Also be conscientious about clearing rubbish off your hard disc - it is amazing how quickly even large hard discs fill up with crap when you are dealing with large AV files).

I see that you have had fun in my expansive country. I live on Vancouver Island on the west coast.....Garnet.

--- End quote ---

Yes, my parents live in Ontaro and I have had a few good trips including some excellent canoe trips. Ontario is canoe heaven as far as I am concerned. I am no longer bothered about doing too much white water, but I really enjoy being able to get out in the wilderness for a few days with just a paddle and a tent for company ... (not to mention the bears!)

I'd really love to get over to BC and the Rockies, and one of these years I want to get to the ski areas (particularly Fernie).

However, the place I would really like to visit is the Mount Elias Range, up near the Alaskan border - but I have to accept I am probably getting too long in the teeth to be able to cope in such a wild and inhospitable environment these days. The thought of waiting days on end for good enough weather for a light aircraft to get in, and then waiting even longer to get out is probably more for the young! I can still dream though ...

mouser:
i'm not an expert in such things, but there are a few hardware things that you should consider:
1) make sure you have plenty of ram (1gb)
2) get yourself a nice hard disk for video; sata or scsi hd, separate from the operating system hard drive.
3) fast modern cpu.

keep in mind i dont have any experience in video editing, these are just some things that seem likely to me to yield the biggest payoff in terms of bang for the buck.

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