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Videomaker Forums » Topic: To Build or not to Build.... http://videomaker.com/community/forums/ Videomaker Forums » Topic: To Build or not to Build.... en Mon, 23 Nov 2009 20:06:40 +0000 composite1 on "To Build or not to Build...." http://videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/to-build-or-not-to-build/page/6#post-49507 Mon, 27 Jul 2009 17:50:07 +0000 composite1 49507@http://videomaker.com/community/forums/ Norman, I'm on the fence on the AMD vs Intel debate. I happen to have had good results with both brands. Now that more programs are developed with AMD in mind, the main things I'm looking at are; speed, price, stability and flexibility. Right now, Intel has the advantage in the flexibility dept. while AMD has the advantage in pricing. Both produce very stable chips but Intel seems to be winning the 'core wars'. I currently am using an Intel Quad in my latest system and don't necessarily have any plans to build anything with an AMD in it. However, that could change. Concerning your fine argument for HDD backup vs Tape; numbers wise, it is much cheaper when you put it the way you did. But, you also have to figure real-world components into the equation like; power, medium stability and reviewing capabilities. Power issues are mighty important. With no power, you can't view the footage from a harddrive particularly with the bigboy's you mentioned. With tape, if need be I can take a battery powered camera and a tape, plug it into a battery powered laptop and still keep working. As an aside, you can do the same thing if you have your materials archived on solid-state media (but those are more expensive than tape.) Medium stability is a major factor as well. Long as the tape was in good condition initally, you use a VTR with clean undamaged heads and store it properly, digital tape will last a very long time. Harddrives are also very good for archiving but you are completely at the mercy of the hdd's mechanics and file system. At any given time you connect your drive to power and to your system it could fail catastrophically. It's a regular occurrance no matter what platform you work with ergo the 'many redundancies' used to back up volatile digital footage. Unless a tape broke, I've never seen one 'crap out' like the many harddrives I've had to recover or lay to rest. Lastly, you have to factor in what you're viewing it on. If you need a quick look at some archival footage, you can keep a small rechargable player or camera in your archiving area. Whereas with HDD's you are committed to connecting them to a computer or laptop for external drives. The cost of the computer / laptop has to be factored into your overall costs of useage along with it's power usage and time accumulated in it's use (start-up, shutdown, etc.) Don't get me wrong, I like and utillize HDD storage, but still will store footage on tape as well until the solidstate technology reaches the economical / storage capacity of current HDD's before I make a 100% switch over. Oh, and I am unaware of anyone who's built a Xeon system. NormanWillis on "To Build or not to Build...." http://videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/to-build-or-not-to-build/page/6#post-49423 Fri, 24 Jul 2009 03:33:12 +0000 NormanWillis 49423@http://videomaker.com/community/forums/ Hi Comp. >>Backing up is my main beef with a fully tapeless workflow. You have to put all of that footage onto a drive and drives are fragile. I think the key here is redundancy. You can get a 1TB external USB Seagate Free Agent for $129.00 right now through Tiger Direct, and prices keep dropping. So that's $129.00/1000 GB = $0.129 cents per gigabyte of storage in hdd's, versus $7.00/13GB =$0.54 per GB with HDV tape, or something like, I dunno, 400 times cheaper? So even if you have three external hdd copies of everything (just for redundancy's sake), you are still at least 100 times better off, in the long run. But I do have a couple of questions for you. Earlier you said that Sony Vegas was optimized for AMD. How big of a factor is that, considering the fact that Intel processors currently outrun/outperform the AMD ones? And does anyone ever home-build a Xeon? Norman composite1 on "To Build or not to Build...." http://videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/to-build-or-not-to-build/page/6#post-49317 Mon, 20 Jul 2009 23:09:14 +0000 composite1 49317@http://videomaker.com/community/forums/ Norman, Yeah the Apple/Jobs thing is a real factor. Seeing how the bean counters over there are already rolling with 'iLife' and 'iThis' and 'iWannapuke'. It may well be innovative software, but it will be interesting to see what happens when Jobs ultimately steps down or passes on. Not to mention they're coming out with 'Snow Leopard' and they make some ballsy claims about it's max system requirements. How they are going to back all of that up while still using the FAT32 file system will also be interesting. Yeah, Avid has their own weirdness going on as well typically, because the bean counters are looking at 'what sells' not 'why it sells'. They seem to be under the auspices that their primary market is big-time Hollywood. But, like they implied in those discussions all that's starting to change. The Sony/Adobe combo is a pretty good fit. Encore is alot like Cinescore, but I believe the latter is a lot easier to use. I much prefer ACID for the freedom to create with premade loops or your own. Takes a bit of tweaking to make it line up but I think it's much better. Encore has not impressed me. Glad to hear V9 has been stable for you. Backing up is my main beef with a fully tapeless workflow. You have to put all of that footage onto a drive and drives are fragile. Maybe when the solid-state harddrives become prevalent, larger in capacity and much cheaper they will be a stable option. I find that any savings in time not digitizing is lost in how many redundancies of backup sources needed. Even the vaunted Blue-Ray technology is already obsolete as you can't store any real amount of stock footage on a BR disc. 40GB max for a dual-sided BRD is still going to come out to quite a large and expensive pile when archiving a 500GB+ Drive full of uncompressed HD footage. NormanWillis on "To Build or not to Build...." http://videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/to-build-or-not-to-build/page/6#post-49280 Sun, 19 Jul 2009 07:30:02 +0000 NormanWillis 49280@http://videomaker.com/community/forums/ That MacVideo that said ProApps was going down along with Steve Jobs' health really made me think twice about going Apple, or Avid. I had no idea that Avid is going down, and that bit the guy said in the end about Adobe quietly but steadily improving CS4 and 5 really made me think hard. I am looking forward to getting into Creative Suite, but right now I am just trying to learn all of the ins and outs of Vegas. The software does so much. I will probably build my next machine, and although I will probably build a machine that could run Avid (with "Intel everything", as John Rofrano is recommending) I don't see much reason to spend big bucks on their software. What makes more sense is just to learn Vegas, and then pick up CS-whatever after that. So far Vegas Pro 9 has been really stable. It is on a fresh install of Vista 64 Ultimate (b/c I need the language support), and not one crash so far. Way better than I expected. I did get an external USB drive for 'drive wipes' like you suggested somewhere; and if the machine ever gets unstable, then a clean install is only a couple of hours away. So it looks like I also will be heading for the Vegas/CSX combo.... composite1 on "To Build or not to Build...." http://videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/to-build-or-not-to-build/page/6#post-49253 Fri, 17 Jul 2009 20:12:32 +0000 composite1 49253@http://videomaker.com/community/forums/ Norman, You voted your mind at the time. It's been a long thread and a great deal of info and research on your own later. Pre-built systems obviously have their uses or they wouldn't be as prevalent. If you think about it, though there are tens of thousands of in-house built units out there the number wouldn't scratch the paint on the number of pre-built's that get made each year. As I mentioned at the begining of this thread, building your own is not for the casual user or the technically disinclined. You must have a strong background in computer usage and understand the basics of how they work. Once you get past the concept of the unit being 'sacrosanct', you'll be able to 'crack open' the case and find the computer is just a machine that can be altered. With practice, you'll get to the point where you'll see a pre-built and either know you could build a better one or be ready research you could. Yeah, Avid has been at this since the beginning. That Apple has been able to gain on them is because of their initial association and their similar tightness on the technology. Avid really stepped away from them when they went cross-platform. If apple ever unpinched their sphincters and allowed some of their software to go crossplatform, they would probably dominate for a while. Lately, I've changed my mind about going back to Avid. I've been working with the Adobe Suite for the last year and it's really a pro setup. I'm still a hardcore Vegas Suite user (haven't gotten 9 yet) and find that there are things Premiere can do and Vegas can do so I use them both. The combination of the two suites allows me to do some serious finishing work and with certain compatible hardware options, I can do similar work at far less expense than putting together a Media Composer setup. Now that money all around is much tighter, that is a serious consideration. NormanWillis on "To Build or not to Build...." http://videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/to-build-or-not-to-build/page/6#post-49217 Thu, 16 Jul 2009 17:48:00 +0000 NormanWillis 49217@http://videomaker.com/community/forums/ Yeah, well at least I finally understand why Avid specs their machines out like they do. I wish I knew how to go back and change my vote from 'modified Dell' to 'home-built'! Norman composite1 on "To Build or not to Build...." http://videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/to-build-or-not-to-build/page/6#post-49216 Thu, 16 Jul 2009 16:36:21 +0000 composite1 49216@http://videomaker.com/community/forums/ Norman, Nice article. I too 'graze' at the Cow from time to time. Yeah, there are a lot of myths as to what causes instability with windows products. The biggest cause is as you mentioned coming from parts that don't play nice together due to driver issues. The great advantage of building your own can also be the biggest disadvantage. Being able to 'mix and match' parts can save you time and money up front. But, if you don't do proper research on the system requirements and driver compatibilities, you'll end up 'paying' those savings back by having to replace parts and or time spent on reconfiguring. Mr. Rofrano is on point about in-house built systems. I personally do not recommend them for the casual user. For the professional editor, freelancer or production house I strongly recommend them provided they have the technical resources and personnel to maintain their systems which by the way they would need anyway. Yes, the closer you stay to recommended system requirements/compatibility the better. That goes for AMD chips and mobo's as well. So far my latest build has been quite stable. The only oddities have been; CS3 glitches involving the licensing and Vista's protection protocols (fixed), minor weirdness with the 'Gadgets' panel on the desktop after startup (fix by hitting refresh) and the very rare startup stall (fix by restarting system.) I'm just sorry we currently don't have room for that 'super system' I spec'ed out! And you're welcome. NormanWillis on "To Build or not to Build...." http://videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/to-build-or-not-to-build/page/6#post-49187 Wed, 15 Jul 2009 22:16:48 +0000 NormanWillis 49187@http://videomaker.com/community/forums/ Hi Comp. I thought you would appreciate this. I have been on Creative Cow a lot (grazing). John Rofrano of VASST is telling me that he and all of the people he knows use in-house built PC's. He says that because MS and Intel work so closely together, that so long as one sticks to an Intel processor, an Intel motherboard, and uses RAM and components that Intel recommends, one essentially has the equivalent of a 'closed system' Mac, for a lot less money; and with more possibilities. <a href="http://www.johnrofrano.com/pcequipment.htm">http://www.johnrofrano.com/pcequipment.htm</a> Apparently it is not Windows that is unstable, but deviations from the MS/Intel standard combinations that causes instability. I just thought I should pass that along. I appreciate all of your help in this thread. Norman composite1 on "To Build or not to Build...." http://videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/to-build-or-not-to-build/page/6#post-47660 Mon, 08 Jun 2009 22:50:51 +0000 composite1 47660@http://videomaker.com/community/forums/ Norman, No worries. I am also trying to stay ahead of 'an avalance' as I've got several pending in-house editing projects staring at me waiting to get done. Still trying to recover from the last 2 weeks worth of shooting. Fun, but tiring. You can see our latest commercial at: <a href="http://www.dreadedenterprises.com">http://www.dreadedenterprises.com/Screen</a> in the sample videos section. Did all the post work on the new system and it works just fine. Now, I'm sort of wanting to build that beast I sent you the specs on. That will have to wait. When I get a moment, I'll look up those specs on the Matrox boxes. I'm still locked down on a Multibridge for this current system, however the AJA Xena line is looking interesting for the 'beast' maybe. I was looking to roll with Media Composer down the line, but the Adobe/Sony workflow we've got going is starting to gel. Maybe when they bust out with CS5 I'll be looking to build that new rig.... NormanWillis on "To Build or not to Build...." http://videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/to-build-or-not-to-build/page/6#post-47645 Mon, 08 Jun 2009 16:45:51 +0000 NormanWillis 47645@http://videomaker.com/community/forums/ Hi Comp. How are you doing? I got blasted by a 'good avalance' of stuff, and am presently still buried, will have to catch up as I can. I will try to read the render farming article later, as I believe that is a way I would like to go. Thank you very much for sending me the article. If there is anything else good on render farming I should read, please let me know. By the way, about the Matrox RT.X2, I was talking to a guy with Cineform, and he was saying that I would have much better success with Cineform Prospect HD and one of the new Matrox MX.O2 boxes with the MAX technology chip. He said the quality of the Cineform codec is far superior to that of the RT.X2, and the MX.02 with MAX would give me the ability to encode H.264 faster than real time. Since most of our views will be on the web, I thought I should ask you about that. Thank you, Norman composite1 on "To Build or not to Build...." http://videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/to-build-or-not-to-build/page/6#post-47470 Tue, 02 Jun 2009 23:47:56 +0000 composite1 47470@http://videomaker.com/community/forums/ "You are taking away one of my reasons to 'stay PC.'" Norman, Not at all. As I have always said, there are advantages to either platform. Both can do the same things you just have to find the software and gear to facilitate what you plan to do. I was quite fluent with mac's when I changed over to PC. At the time I would be at work on the mac and go home and do my own projects on a PC. After awhile, I began to prefer the PC for the numerous reasons I've already mentioned. Mac is a stable platform (depending on what you call stable) and so is Windows for the same reasons. The biggest differences between the two are primarily the file system (FAT 32 mac, NTFS win.) I much prefer the NTFS file system as it allows for really big video files (aprox. 1 150 year clip in DV if you had a drive that could hold it!) FAT 32 is ancient tech. It works mind you, but NTFS is more modern and more efficient to use in my opinion. The other glaring difference is the fact that you can still build your own PC legally. Truthfully, the only reason I would have a mac in my shop is for visiting editors or clients that couldn't edit their way out of a wet paper bag without FCP. Not that I don't like them or FCP, but I can do most and some things with Premiere, Vegas and Avid that FCP can't. Blue-ray anyone? Yes you can 'mix and match'. However, most of my IT bud's hate it. According to them mac is not as efficient on a network as windows particularly when they are on the same one. They say it does work and I've seen it done, they just hate having to work on it. Now, I hear tell that mac networks run just fine alone. You'd have to ask several IT specialists to get a real picture. No, you don't have to purchase several licenses for software on a renderfarm. Read the article renderfarming and it will give you a much better explanation than I can. Also, keep an eye out for this month's Studio Monthly for an article about a producer who transitioned to making videogame trailers. He was quite specific about why when he built his editing suite he knew 'it couldn't be a Mac-based workflow'. It's a good example of how depending on what work you're doing will truly decide what platform is best for it. NormanWillis on "To Build or not to Build...." http://videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/to-build-or-not-to-build/page/6#post-47458 Tue, 02 Jun 2009 18:45:46 +0000 NormanWillis 47458@http://videomaker.com/community/forums/ Hey Comp, How does software work on a render farm? Does one need to purchase separate licenses, if it would make one have more than one instance of the program running at one time? Thank you, Norman NormanWillis on "To Build or not to Build...." http://videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/to-build-or-not-to-build/page/6#post-47455 Tue, 02 Jun 2009 17:53:33 +0000 NormanWillis 47455@http://videomaker.com/community/forums/ >>You can get Blender for free. Good to know. Thanks! >>A unit like the Z800 would be where your hardcore compositing, color correction and perhaps high-end audio would all be combined into your production cut. With 192GB of RAM and 8 cores you could also do a final render out to HD or 2k+. Running the same project through a renderfarm would free up the unit to work on other projects. With a monster like the Z800 or the 'Comp1', do you suppose one could simultaneously render and edit? Or is the rendering going to chew up all of the HDD throughput, such that you really need a separate machine for rendering? >>Nope, Lightwave runs on PC and mac. You are taking away one of my reasons to 'stay PC.' Is it possible to mix PC's and Macs in the same network? Or is it best all one way, or the other? Thank you, Norman composite1 on "To Build or not to Build...." http://videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/to-build-or-not-to-build/page/6#post-47447 Tue, 02 Jun 2009 14:50:48 +0000 composite1 47447@http://videomaker.com/community/forums/ "This thing looks twice as powerful as the Z800." Norman, A 16 core rig is hardcore. However, this unit is a renderfarm management unit. The management unit is the first computer in the render chain. I didn't see a price on it. My guess is it's pricey. A unit like the Z800 would be where your hardcore compositing, color correction and perhaps high-end audio would all be combined into your production cut. With 192GB of RAM and 8 cores you could also do a final render out to HD or 2k+. Running the same project through a renderfarm would free up the unit to work on other projects. 192GB = 1.92TB. I'm curious about mac's claim that OSX Snow leopard will handle 16TB. That's a pretty ballsy claim, but pretty far reaching seeing how current mobo architecture is only now reaching the 1.92TB RAM mark. One thing about it, you wouldn't see your average 'macie' rollin' into the apple store to pick up a unit with 16TB in it without having to sign a 'blood contract'. Nope, Lightwave runs on PC and mac. You can get Blender for free. NormanWillis on "To Build or not to Build...." http://videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/to-build-or-not-to-build/page/6#post-47440 Tue, 02 Jun 2009 07:49:23 +0000 NormanWillis 47440@http://videomaker.com/community/forums/ And wait: isn't 196GB of RAM 0.196TB? NormanWillis on "To Build or not to Build...." http://videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/to-build-or-not-to-build/page/6#post-47432 Tue, 02 Jun 2009 02:20:38 +0000 NormanWillis 47432@http://videomaker.com/community/forums/ Hi Comp. Check this out. This thing looks twice as powerful as the Z800. <a href="http://www.boxxtech.com/Downloads/Products/renderBOXX/r10300_SpecSheet.pdf">http://www.boxxtech.com/Downloads/Products/renderBOXX/r10300_SpecSheet.pdf</a> It has four Nehalem-class Xeon processors! (Also, I guess LightWave runs on a Mac). Norman NormanWillis on "To Build or not to Build...." http://videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/to-build-or-not-to-build/page/5#post-47425 Mon, 01 Jun 2009 20:18:18 +0000 NormanWillis 47425@http://videomaker.com/community/forums/ But I guess if I go with LightWave Core, then I can forget about Apple, because LightWave is a PC-platform application.... NormanWillis on "To Build or not to Build...." http://videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/to-build-or-not-to-build/page/5#post-47423 Mon, 01 Jun 2009 19:36:26 +0000 NormanWillis 47423@http://videomaker.com/community/forums/ >>Anyway, here's the seminal article on building your own render farm and a side article to show you what one outfit did with theirs. <a href="http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,1847365,00.asp"><a href="http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,1847365,00.asp" rel="nofollow">http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,1847365,00.asp</a></a> OK, so I read the article (I read the other one before). So their comparison machines are relatively ancient. >> <a href="OpenImageWindow('/image_popup/0,,iid=111659&aID=151915&sID=25680,00.asp', '640', '587');"><img src="http://common.ziffdavisinternet.com/util_get_image/11/0,1425,i=111659,00.jpg" alt="A 3D Video Scene" /></a> <a href="OpenImageWindow('/image_popup/0,,iid=111659&aID=151915&sID=25680,00.asp', '640', '587');">click on image for full view</a> A local render on one of the school's 2-GHz Dell workstations, which are equipped with nVidia Quadro4 XGL cards and 512MB of RAM, draws out the 800-frame piece in 52 hours. Using a one-worker farm, our time shoots up to 104 hours-unsurprising, considering the age of the machine. But after adding six more workers to the farm, the same render clocks in at just over 13 hours, more than three times as fast as in pre-farm days. And unless you are going to wall mount, as in the other article, >><a href="http://hackaday.com/2008/09/30/6-pcs-in-one-clear-case/"><a href="http://hackaday.com/2008/09/30/6-pcs-in-one-clear-case/" rel="nofollow">http://hackaday.com/2008/09/30/6-pcs-in-one-clear-case/</a></a> then we also have to consider that the seven-machine render farm he is proposing has a relatively large 'footprint'; and I imagine it sucks down a fair amount of juice, too. So do you have a scientific wild-eyed guess as to how long it would take either a Z800 loaded with RAM or the Comp-Monster1 you are proposing to build to render this kind of thing, in comparison? And how much juice does a wall-mount six-machine render farm suck down, as compared to a single-footprint Z800? Thank you, Norman NormanWillis on "To Build or not to Build...." http://videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/to-build-or-not-to-build/page/5#post-47421 Mon, 01 Jun 2009 18:25:14 +0000 NormanWillis 47421@http://videomaker.com/community/forums/ Hi Comp. >>Having a RAM memory cache bigger than most harddrives would free a CPU up considerably. Good point. >>Then again, it's all relative to what you are doing. Eventually, these will become more commonplace as 2 and 4k video become more mainstream. Currently, if you are doing really complex motion graphics, visual fx and 3D rendering, you would be able to tell the diff in how much faster your render times would be using such high-end RAM bundles. Not to mention that currently, neither win or mac can support 192GB yet (Win7 192GB, Snow Leopard 16TB?) Another good point. As everything drifts towards 2 and 4K, one is going to want more and more RAM. I don't know really know for sure that this was a RAM issue, but when I was going through the Boris RED trainup DVD, I put together one 30-second effect with Boris RED; and then when I went to render my machine ran for something like 3 hours before I shut it down. I was really confused by that, because all I did was recreate a project that Chris Vadnais did in the Boris RED training DVD, and his laptop took something like twenty seconds to render before it played, so I figured mine would not take much more than that. The DVD was made in 2004, so I think Chris Vadnais was probably working with an XP laptop with I am guessing maybe 2GB of RAM, and I had a Vista 32 box with 4GB RAM and 4GB ReadyBoost RAM (which in my experience is maybe 80-90% as fast). I turned the paging file off, and then tried it again, and still it took forever, and no finished product. Then I wrote the Boris team on Creative Cow and got two attempts at support from them before they stopped answering my emails. That was all at the time when my Dell Precision 380 was down for the count, and Dell was busy figuring out that they had to send me a Precision T3400 to replace it, so I figured that when it came in I would get it all set up on 64 bit and then try it again (and I am almost there). Except that RED is supposed to be a 32-bit app. It is supposed to run under Vista 64 (they say), but John Rofrano (VASST, on Creative Cow) said he installed CS4 on his 64 bit and his RED no longer worked. He said he thinks it has something to do with the codecs that CS4 installs. Boris is supposed to be working on a 64 bit version of RED (and the more I think about it, the more I want BLUE, actually), but what that experiment in patience did for me was to pique my mind to the very real possibility that I might want to render stuff some day that would take a really long time...and I had best seek ways to offload it off of my primary machine, unless I wanted to kiss it goodbye for the week. I do have an XP laptop with a video card that I may load RED onto, and try that. It is probably similar enough to Chris Vadnais' machine that it should render if the new workstation won't handle it (because of compatibility problems, or whatever). But I would like to get into LightWave Core some time also, and I imagine that is going to take a long time to render. In fact, LightWave is probably what will push me into a second system, I am just guessing. But again I am still all in the guesswork and 'looking ahead' mode...which it is about high time in my life that I begin doing that. I keep turning over in my mind that if I go Mac, I can have Avid, Premiere and Final Cut Pro all on the same machine. But then there is only 32 GB RAM (currently). Or one can go HP, or do a built-it-yourself, and stack the RAM from here to wherever (which sounds very appealing), and as long as you dedicate the machine for simply just video work, it is probably very stable (which is why I test everything out on my laptop, and then only install stuff on my workstation that I really want). composite1 on "To Build or not to Build...." http://videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/to-build-or-not-to-build/page/5#post-47420 Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:15:16 +0000 composite1 47420@http://videomaker.com/community/forums/ "I get the sense that you would go with option A. Since you know a lot more about troubleshooting than I do, this seems like a wise choice for you, and if I had your level of knowledge I would probably opt to save the extra bucks." Norman, You're correct in that I am an 'Option A' guy. However, it was not always so. When I started out, I was standing exactly in your shoes. As I tell those who attend my lectures, 'I learned how to do all of this stuff out of self-defense!' I initially did as you plan to. I bought relatively inexpensive workstations from computer companies overstock and learned quickly to 'improve them.' Once the 'arcane secrets of the computer' were demystified for me building 'my own' became the more reasonable path. Now, if I wanted a 'super computer' like a Cray I'd buy one because my level of expertise does not go to that level... yet. Also, when I research components I look for items that are documented as compatible with the major software my firm uses. Now concerning tech support for software that's different. To get full support from Avid, they want you to use only fully approved workstations as they won't have to do any guesswork. Now that I know I can build a comparable system to the Z800, I would make sure the build would be as compliant as possible for Media Composer. "But is this an appropriate place to ask how much practical difference there might be between 1.92TB RAM and a 'mere' 1.28TB?" Yes as researching the practical limits of potential components for a build is very important. The 'practical difference' between 1.28TB and 1.92TB of RAM is 64GB. Just think about how much more data your 8GB system pushes than your 1 or 2GB system did. The more RAM you have, the less heavy lifting your CPU has to do. Having a RAM memory cache bigger than most harddrives would free a CPU up considerably. Then again, it's all relative to what you are doing. Eventually, these will become more commonplace as 2 and 4k video become more mainstream. Currently, if you are doing really complex motion graphics, visual fx and 3D rendering, you would be able to tell the diff in how much faster your render times would be using such high-end RAM bundles. Not to mention that currently, neither win or mac can support 192GB yet (Win7 192GB, Snow Leopard 16TB?) Anyway, here's the seminal article on building your own render farm and a side article to show you what one outfit did with theirs. <a href="http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,1847365,00.asp">http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,1847365,00.asp</a> <a href="http://hackaday.com/2008/09/30/6-pcs-in-one-clear-case/">http://hackaday.com/2008/09/30/6-pcs-in-one-clear-case/</a> NormanWillis on "To Build or not to Build...." http://videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/to-build-or-not-to-build/page/5#post-47415 Mon, 01 Jun 2009 15:44:02 +0000 NormanWillis 47415@http://videomaker.com/community/forums/ And unless one is doing full-on 3D graphics, how much might one be limited by having, say, a 'mere' 32 GB of RAM? 8GB is as much RAM as I have ever had, so 32GB, 128 GB and 192GB are all pretty much breaking the ceiling of my scale. Norman NormanWillis on "To Build or not to Build...." http://videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/to-build-or-not-to-build/page/5#post-47413 Mon, 01 Jun 2009 15:40:15 +0000 NormanWillis 47413@http://videomaker.com/community/forums/ Hi Comp. >>I'm just sorry that model would only fall short of the 1.92TB HP max RAM by 64GB. Still, 1.28TB isn't shabby. The only real diff between a prebuilt and an in-house built system is how much you pay for it. Granted, with a prebuilt you get tech support, but you have to pay for it and you have to go on their time. Most times, you don't get 'the guru' on the line. Usually it's some poor sap working off a script. Depending on the firm, eventually you will hook up with a guru and get things worked out. With an in-house, you're the guru and depending on your depth of knowledge, skill and confidence handling the tech end can be 'a no biggie' or a nightmare which could get expensive. It's a choice that any working professional will have to make and both have their pos/neg effects on both your workflow, wallet and sanity. Well, I think this is just exactly it. As I see it, my practical options are: A. Build your own. This will save money, and possibly time if you know what you are doing. B. Buy a Dell, HP or Apple prebuilt and add to it. This will cost more than a prebuilt, but less than buying the whole thing from Apple, HP or Dell. However, it comes with tech support (more eyes on the project) and Avid will also give you support. At the moment I get the sense that you would go with option A. Since you know a lot more about troubleshooting than I do, this seems like a wise choice for you, and if I had your level of knowledge I would probably opt to save the extra bucks. However, at my level I would probably choose option B, because I believe I am going to want the support from Avid, and Dell Gold Technical Support has been awesome (but again, I do not recommend Home and Home Office). But is this an appropriate place to ask how much practical difference there might be between 1.92TB RAM and a 'mere' 1.28TB? You mentioned earlier doing a build like this for use as a 'render farm.' I am curious to know about render farming, since I think I read that Vegas Pro 9 now supports that as an option. But with a twin-Xeon and 1+TB of RAM, would you really need to 'send it out' to a render farm? Or could you not simultaneously render in the background, since one would have so many cores and so much RAM that one could render and simultaneously edit? Or where is my thinking off? Thank you, Norman composite1 on "To Build or not to Build...." http://videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/to-build-or-not-to-build/page/5#post-47412 Mon, 01 Jun 2009 15:26:31 +0000 composite1 47412@http://videomaker.com/community/forums/ "All of this is still in the majorly 'hypothetical' phase for me right now, because I am still trying to get my mind wrapped around all of the tools and codecs and gizmos that I already have. It has been good to dig into this kind of thing at the hypothetical level, but I cannot get too serious about pricing DreamWorks-class machines when I'm still only getting started...." Recognizing one's current limitations, priceless. Norman, You've hit upon the mantra I express to anyone in the biz no matter what their level. Recognizing your limitations at your current stage. Even if you have dumptrucks full of cash to throw at it, I would still say start small and build up as your skillset increases to take advantage of your current capabilities. Concerning the 'Dreamworks-class' workstation build I priced out, I have to say initially it was just a curiosity. But now that I see for around 10k I could build one, it's not that far fetched a prospect. I'm just sorry that model would only fall short of the 1.92TB HP max RAM by 64GB. Still, 1.28TB isn't shabby. The only real diff between a prebuilt and an in-house built system is how much you pay for it. Granted, with a prebuilt you get tech support, but you have to pay for it and you have to go on their time. Most times, you don't get 'the guru' on the line. Usually it's some poor sap working off a script. Depending on the firm, eventually you will hook up with a guru and get things worked out. With an in-house, you're the guru and depending on your depth of knowledge, skill and confidence handling the tech end can be 'a no biggie' or a nightmare which could get expensive. It's a choice that any working professional will have to make and both have their pos/neg effects on both your workflow, wallet and sanity. NormanWillis on "To Build or not to Build...." http://videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/to-build-or-not-to-build/page/5#post-47403 Mon, 01 Jun 2009 07:42:08 +0000 NormanWillis 47403@http://videomaker.com/community/forums/ Hi Comp. I really appreciate your help and advice on this thread. I am running behind right now. If I had more time (or if I was looking to buy anytime soon) I would price a bare-bones Z800 (and probably also a Dell T7500; and to be honest, also a Mac Pro) and then price it out with adding my own drives and such. My goal would be to see what I could get a machine with a warranty for, that Avid would also support. As earlier stated, Dell charges a fairly tight price for the basic model, but then where they 'make their money' is by all of the add-ons to the basic models. The last time I checked they wanted something like $506.00 for a simple 1TB Western Digital Caviar HDD, when one can get a 1.5TB Seagate for something like $129.00 through Tiger Direct (when the Seagate comes with a 5 year warranty). One can also get lots faster RAM from Crucial, and other aftermarket RAM houses. I would imagine that HP is about the same. The last time I looked, Apple also charges a small fortune for their RAM. Right now they only want $6,100.00 for 32 gigs of RAM, which is down from the $10,000.00 they were asking a few months ago. Mercy! My original plan was just to purchase the base model, and then trim it out with my own stuff. However, considering Charles Fulton's Z800 review, which showed that the first Xeon processor does not even 'break a sweat' when rendering Premiere and such, I am wondering whether I really need a twin-Xeon model after all, when I go to upgrade. Right now I am thinkin' the Z400 looks pretty good. But I don't know. All of this is still in the majorly 'hypothetical' phase for me right now, because I am still trying to get my mind wrapped around all of the tools and codecs and gizmos that I already have. It has been good to dig into this kind of thing at the hypothetical level, but I cannot get too serious about pricing DreamWorks-class machines when I'm still only getting started.... Thank you, Norman composite1 on "To Build or not to Build...." http://videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/to-build-or-not-to-build/page/5#post-47322 Fri, 29 May 2009 02:15:44 +0000 composite1 47322@http://videomaker.com/community/forums/ "... How many hours a year does it take to be your own tech support?" Norman, That's a pretty good question. The majority of the time is spent during the build and testing phase. Unless you do something stupid like fry components (not yet in 9 years) or get a few 'lemony fresh' components putting everything together usually takes about a week. If you are not fortunate enough to have everything you want all at once, you'll have to spend a few days reconfiguring your expansion card arrangement or installing extra harddrives, RAM, etc. depending on how many add-ins you're installing. Unless something doesn't fit out of the box or is defective, it takes maybe a couple of hours to get additions in and test them properly. The next phase that takes the longest is installing and getting all of the software to 'play nice'. This last go-round from 32-bit to 64 took longer than usual only because some of the components which said they supported Vista neglected to mention they didn't at 64-bit. So, the time it took to change out for comparable supported gear or waiting for a software update had to be factored in. Lastly, the regular upkeep and maintenance is where the rest of the time goes. I never really thought of that as 'hourly tech support', but it is. With the new rig there's a lot less regular maintenance as the system defrags while idle and now with the major bugs worked out (I always leave room for conflicts with new software) the only thing to do is maintain regular back-ups. Now, I do have a couple of small upgrades scheduled as I plan on putting in a faster CPU and adding a blackmagic pci-e multibridge card. That and keeping our other 'puters in good working order I figure without a build going on I spend no more than 150 man hours a year with 2 active NLE's, 2 admin systems and a laptop. With an in-house build that jumps an additional 100-200 hours depending on how meticulous I get. So 350 hours a year may seem like a lot, but the amount of time and money I save not having to send gear off and waiting around to get it back, I can't put a number on it. As an aside, rarely does anything just go completely 'mam's up'. Recently, we had a large client drive nearly go down and it took about 20 hours to restore it. Mainly, because the older NLE wasn't capable of fully restoring it. The next day we hooked it up to the new system and it restored the drive completely in 5 hours. If I had to depend on outside techsupport, it would have cost me over a thousand dollars and days if not weeks to get that drive back. Being 'your own tech support' once you've gotten some experience building your own rigs is an invaluable asset. However, on occasion you will run into things that are outside of your experience and you'll have to 'fight your way through it'. It's definitely not for the tech challenged nor for the faint of heart. When my associate techs and I run out of ideas and we can't dig anything up online, then I'll send it in. More often than not, there's someone in tech support who's just as stumped but on occasion you run into some real guru's. So I'm not against tech support at all. I just consider it a 'last resort.' NormanWillis on "To Build or not to Build...." http://videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/to-build-or-not-to-build/page/5#post-47317 Thu, 28 May 2009 22:33:29 +0000 NormanWillis 47317@http://videomaker.com/community/forums/ Hi Comp. >>You just have to be your own tech support. Think about it, you could build a complete system for less than half of what you could pay for as a pre-built. How many hours a year do you figure you spend, either directly at tech support, or in preparation to be your own tech support? In other words, how many hours a year does it take to be your own tech support? NormanWillis on "To Build or not to Build...." http://videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/to-build-or-not-to-build/page/5#post-47316 Thu, 28 May 2009 22:07:14 +0000 NormanWillis 47316@http://videomaker.com/community/forums/ Oops. I apologize if I misread. Norman composite1 on "To Build or not to Build...." http://videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/to-build-or-not-to-build/page/5#post-47315 Thu, 28 May 2009 21:20:46 +0000 composite1 47315@http://videomaker.com/community/forums/ "I don't get it. If I get more for less if I go with the HP, then why would I even consider building? What advantages am I not picking up on?" Norman, Actually, for only $1300 more the build gives you an immensely powerful NLE for a lot less money. Two faster CPU's, a GPU that's 3x faster, 10.5x more memory, nearly 7x the harddrive space, e-SATA controller card, multiple media card reader, A Blue-ray reader and recorder with 2 giant HD monitors. To get anything approaching the same thing from HP you're going to spend $17k (64GB RAM, 3TB harddrive space, no blue-ray.) Yeah, you get tech support, but to buy a system with the same capacity you're going to spend over $25k-$30k. You figure after putting CS4 production suite or the Sony Suite on it your'e still under $12k and have a hideously powerful system. You just have to be your own tech support. Think about it, you could build a complete system for less than half of what you could pay for as a pre-built. NormanWillis on "To Build or not to Build...." http://videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/to-build-or-not-to-build/page/5#post-47309 Thu, 28 May 2009 19:44:32 +0000 NormanWillis 47309@http://videomaker.com/community/forums/ Hi Comp. I am really grateful for all of your help and continuing advice. It is such a wonderful blessing to be able to converse with a 'real industry pro.' However, I am confused. You are telling me that for $1300.00 less I could get HP's machine with Adobe CS4 Production and three years' tech support? I don't get it. If I get more for less if I go with the HP, then why would I even consider building? What advantages am I not picking up on? composite1 on "To Build or not to Build...." http://videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/to-build-or-not-to-build/page/5#post-47301 Thu, 28 May 2009 18:01:47 +0000 composite1 47301@http://videomaker.com/community/forums/ Norman, As promised, I researched a comparable build to the Z800. To see their unit I based my build upon go to: <a href="http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF06b/12454-12454-296719-307907-296721-3718645-3718646-3979020.html">http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF06b/12454-12454-296719-307907-296721-3718645-3718646-3979020.html</a> To see what I could build for $1300 more check your messages. Now to be fair, HP does include Adobe CS4 Production and techsupport for those who are not tech inclined. But you do have to pay for that. Let me know what you think.