Need to Build System for Processing High Definition Video

crazyasian · Post by **crazyasian** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 5:26 am

Just got a new Canon HV20 for Christmas and my 5 year old computer was unable to import the video (through Firewire-PCI Card) without freezing and pixelating video. I'm looking at building a new system (MB, CPU, and RAM) for uder $350 that can do the job. The system will be mainly used for HD video and photos (Photoshop) but no games. I've done some research and came up with a few ideas. One thing I need is the MB to have built-in Firewire. Please help me decide.

MB (all prices are from Newwegg)
MSI P35D3 Platinum-----$86 open box
ASUS P5E-VM-------------$95 open box
Infinity P965-S------------$66 open box
ASUS P5K-V G33---------$86 open box
ASUS P5K-V P35----------$89 open box
ASUS P5K Premium WiFi--$130 open box

what is the difference between the G33 and P35 anyway? is one better then the other?

CPU - E6550-----$160

RAM ($70)
4GB DDR2 PC2-6400 DUAL CHANNEL KIT/ (2X2GB) / OCZ / VISTA UPGRADE EDITION

ame · Post by **ame** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 7:35 am

Hi,

G33 is P35 with on board intel video chip.
I would go for a G33 as it will save you the cost of a video card.
a fire wire card only cost about 20$ so that should not be a factor in your decision. try output types (DVI/VGA/HDMI)....
I believe 2GB of ram might be enough but with the low cost... maybe 4GB would be good.

eit412 · Post by **eit412** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 8:59 am

I would agree that you may not need built in firewire on the mother board. Especially since you already have a pci firewire card. The faster processor and larger ram should make the firewire card work just fine. you may want to look at the gigabyte GA-G31M-S2L. It has less features than most of the boards you are looking at, but it may fill your needs nicely with the processor and ram you have chosen.

crazyasian · Post by **crazyasian** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 7:02 pm

currently I'm running a Biostar M7NCD Pro with Athlon XP 2600+ (1.91 GHz) and 1.5 GB RAM with MSI NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200 (AGP 4X - 64MB). I switched out to a newer AGP 8X-256MB video card but didn't solve the problem. That led me to believe it was either the processing speed or the PCI slot. I figured the problem was in the transferring of video through the PCI Slot (132 MB/s). Is 132MB/s fast enough for transferring HD video? If it's not the PCI slot then it must be the processing speed. I can't really upgrade to a faster Athlon chip with this motherboard. therefore, a new system is definitely needed.

PCI 132 MB/s
PCI Express 1x 250 [500]* MB/s
PCI Express 2x 500 [1000]* MB/s
PCI Express 4x 1000 [2000]* MB/s
PCI Express 8x 2000 [4000]* MB/s
PCI Express 16x 4000 [8000]* MB/s

Burette · Post by **Burette** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 8:04 pm

Why don't you get at look at Lawrence Lee TF7025 or my TF7050 review

viewtopic.php?t=41682

These are excellent boards with no FireWire but you have the PCI card.

There is also a Abit AMN2_HD

My TF7050 costed 75 CDN$
The 2GB Ram 50 CDN$
The 2 fans for 20$
Two Fanmate for 5$
The Ninja 35$
And the Corsair VX450 80$
Athlon X2 4000+ for 80$

This would be within your budget

Burette

Nice Marmot · Post by **Nice Marmot** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 9:26 am

This doesn't make sense to me. Importing the video just means copying from the camera to the computer, right? Unless it's trying to play the HD video real time over the firewire, the processor shouldn't matter, this sounds like an IO problem. Have you tried another firewire card?

eit412 · Post by **eit412** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 9:27 am

The pci card shold have enough bandwidth to import your high def videos. The HDV bitrate is 3.1MB/s and the firewire bit rate is 400Mb/s = 50MB/s. The imported file on your computer may not actually be pixilated, it may be that your CPU and GPU cannot play the high def video. Try saving the file to a flash drive or cd and playing it on a friend's computer that is faster than yours to see if the problem is in the importing or the playing of the file.

If you decid to get new components then you may want to look at the gigibyte GA-73PVM-S2H. It has more features than the board I suggested before (HDMI, firewire, optical SPDIF, etc.).

fwki · Post by **fwki** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 11:13 am

I went through this exact issue years ago on except for SD video. The problem turned out to be the hard drive subsystem. You need to use a high-performance hard disk subsystem to enable real-time high-definition video capture without dropping frames. I ended up using a Promise PCI RAID card with two striped drives. I am not saying you need RAID, but you do need a good HDD controller and disk. If I remember, the target HDD data exchange rate for SD video was 60 MBytes/s. Hi Def will be much higher. There are freeware/shareware HDD utilities that measure data exchange rate, so I recommend testing your system and posting the results.

Nice Marmot · Post by **Nice Marmot** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 11:25 am

But this is a consumer camcorder, recording to HD miniDV cassettes, not a professional stand-alone camera that requires a computer to capture the video stream. The bitrate of the video has nothing to do with copying the recorded file to the PC. As far as the PC's concerned, it's just copying a big file from an external firewire harddrive. If the PC is freezing during the copy, it's most likely a bad firewire card. If after the file is copied, the computer freezes or the picture is blocky while playing the video, then it's probably a CPU/GPU issue.

fwki · Post by **fwki** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 11:30 am

I was using a first gen Sony consumer miniDV camcorder. My UltraIDE drive coudn't keep up. Pinnacle Systems recommended SCSI or striped RAID for capture to the PC. I added the Promise card and it worked.

smilingcrow · Post by **smilingcrow** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 1:02 pm

As others have stated, if you are transferring footage from a camcorder to a PC using Firewire the fact that itâ€™s HD video is not an issue, the issue is the bit-rate which isnâ€™t that high for consumer HD video; up to 25 Mbit/sec I believe. I have SD cards that can handle 20Mbytes/sec write rates so this will be no problem for a hard drive from 10 years ago let alone a modern one.

fwki · Post by **fwki** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 2:19 pm

Looking through my old notes, this is what I learned when addressing the same problem. Firewire transfer is a real time transfer so your HDD subsystem has to keep up when transfering the 13GB of data for one hour of SD video. Most drives from Ultra ATA up to modern drives can keep up. However, competing programs and a fragmented drive can cause HDD problems.

So some no/low costs steps are:
1)Defragment 2)ensure competing programs aren't writing to the HDD by limiting start up programs in msconfig.sys. 3) If possible keep Windoze and its paging file on separate HDD 4) If you have a separate HDD for capture, use the secondary HDD controller.

Try the no cost options first before you start purchasing new hardware. Good luck!