The past few years have been a good time to
be working with digital video. The technology in today's PCs
-- multi-megahertz machines, larger storage, fast disks,
external USB 2.0 storage, and plug-and-play DV / FireWire
camcorders -- makes DV editing feasible even on common
desktop and laptop systems.
But now we want more: longer and more
complex projects, real-time preview of multiple video
streams and effects, and, of course, high-definition video
-- with up to 4X the data rate and complexity. The PC
industry is answering this demand with new technology
including multi-processor systems, multi-core processors,
hardware-accelerated video processing, and faster disk
access through RAID and SATA.
So whether you're ready to step up to a
next-generation system, or just dreaming of what's to come,
let's take a look at the kind of video PCs that you can look
forward to for your next system. Our exploration is
simplified a bit now that the Apple Macintosh is
moving to the Intel architecture, so we'll check out Apple's
current recommendations for working in Final Cut Studio with
its multi-processor systems, and look at what Intel is doing
to enhance its processors to dual core.
And on the Windows side, we'll use the
Adobe Production Studio as the example for the
discussion, since Adobe has worked with its partners to
develop recommended system configurations. We can also use
the handy Dell website to easily explore different
system configurations and options. Of course, there are many
more options for systems, software, components, and
peripherals, but these companies provide a nice array of
representative options for us to explore here.
Editing on the Macintosh is obviously
centered around the Apple Final Cut Studio suite,
which includes Final Cut Pro 5 with HD editing,
Motion 2 for motion graphics, Soundtrack Pro for
audio, and DVD Studio Pro 4 (www.apple.com/finalcutstudio).
Final Cut Pro is written as a multi-threaded, inherently
scalable application, so it is able to take full advantage
of Apple's current multi-processor systems (as is Mac OS X).
Apple Final Cut Studio
If you need high-end editing power,
especially if you are working with HD, Apple recommends the
high-end Apple Power Mac G5 Quad systems (www.apple.com/powermac).
You'll see noticeable performance improvement, in the form
of more streams and more real-time effects, as Dynamic RT
scales performance with more CPU power. For example, Apple
demos up to 16 streams of SD or even DVCPRO HD video in real
time.
Apple Power Mac G5
The Power Mac G5 is available in Dual and
Quad configurations, with up to two dual-core processors at
speeds up to 2.5 GHz per core -- that's four Velocity
Engines and eight double-precision floating-point units
powering away on your footage. Apple's benchmarks show Final
Cut Pro and Adobe After Effects running from 60 to 69
percent faster on the Quad system, compared to the Dual.
Quad G5 systems start at $3,299 with 512 MB
memory and 250 GB hard disk, and increase to $8,874 with the
full 16 GB memory and 1 TB hard disk (and no display).
Applications like Motion are written to take
full advantage of available processing and memory, so feel
free to load up your system to handle computationally
complex multi-layer composites in real time. The base Power
Mac G5 systems include 512 MB of 533 MHz DDR2 main memory,
and support up to the 16 GB.
DDR2 SDRAM (Double Data Rate Two
Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory) redoubles the data
rate of DDR-SDRAM, offering faster throughput, lower power
usage, and future growth in clock speeds (www.memforum.org).
The Apple Pro applications also can take
advantage of graphics acceleration, so the G5s can upgraded
to use the NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 with 512MB of integrated
GDDR3 SDRAM, or the NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT with 256MB of
GDDR3 SDRAM plus one single-link DVI port and one dual-link
DVI port.
The G5s use the PCI Express
architecture for these graphics card and other expansion
slots, offering double the throughput of the previous AGP 8X
protocols (www.pcisig.com).
PCI Express guarantees each device dedicated bandwidth
through the system controller. PCI Express slots are defined
by their bandwidth, or number of data lanes - typically one,
four, eight lanes, or 16 lanes. At 250 MBps per lane, a
four-lane slot can transfer data at up to 1 GBps and an
eight-lane slot, up to 2 GBps - almost twice as fast as a
133MHz PCI-X slot at a maximum throughput of just over 1
GBps.
Available expansion possibilities for G5
video editing include audio DSP solutions from Digidesign
and video capture cards from Blackmagic Design and AJA
Video.
You also need to move all this data to and
from hard disk. The G5s support up to two internal 500 GB
Serial ATA (SATA) drives for a total capacity of 1TB of
storage. SATA offers dedicated connections for each device,
with faster data rates, longer cable lengths, and even the
bonus of smaller physical cables than the old parallel
ribbon cables that cramped system internals and obstructed
airflow.
While SATA was originally developed as an
interconnect inside PC systems, it has been extended outside
the box with external SATA (eSATA), offering up to 6X the
performance of USB 2.0 and FireWire. SATA runs at 1.5 GHz or
effectively 1.2 Gbps (i.e., 1228 Mbps, or 150 MBps). SATA II
is doubled to 2400 Mbps (300 MBps) -- compared to 400 Mbps
for FireWire or 800 Mbps for FireWire 800.
While Serial ATA offers plenty of throughput
for working with SD video (DV at 25 Mbps), HD video is more
of a challenge, with DVCPRO 50 at 50 Mbps and DVCPRO HD at
100 Mbps. Apple recommends using the Apple Fibre Channel
PCI Express Card to connect to the Apple Xserve RAID
storage solution, with up to 14 hot-swappable Apple Drive
Modules in a rack storage enclosure, up to 7 TB of data,
starting at $5,999 (www.apple.com/xserve/raid).
Meanwhile, Apple is migrating its product
line to the Intel architecture by the end of 2006. The Final
Cut Studio suite will scale nicely to Intel's dual-core
processors, and Apple is completing the process of
converting the existing versions of its applications to the
Universal applications format -- designed to run natively on
both the new Intel-based and older PowerPC-based Macintosh
systems (www.apple.com/universal).
Apple's benchmarks show performance increases of around 1.5
to 2 X for Final Cut Pro HD rendering with the Intel Core
Duo, (for the iMac compared with an iMac G5 with 2.1 GHz
PowerPC, and the MacBook Pro compared to PowerBook G4 with
1.67 GHz PowerPC).
To get its applications ready for the new
Intel systems, Apple is currently offering low-priced
"crossgrade" promotions for current owners to get the
Universal version (i.e., $49 for Final Cut Studio). The
individual applications are no longer available separately,
only as part of Final Cut Studio ($1299), with upgrade
offers from the previous version of any single application
to the Universal version of the Studio ($199). Upgrades are
not available from Final Cut Express -- the next version
will be Universal.
As you might expect, Windows-based video
editing offers a much broader range of hardware and software
options, which can be both liberating and overwhelming. To
address this issue, Adobe has created the Adobe OpenHD
Alliance, offering a line of integrated, certified,
Windows-based solutions for HD editing (www.adobeopenhd.com).
Originally started with Dell, HP, Intel, and Microsoft, the
group has added 10 additional partners for capture cards,
graphics and video accelerators, audio tools, and data
storage products, including AJA, AMD, Blackmagic, Bluefish,
CineForm, Focusrite, Ciprico, Matrox, NVIDIA, and Rorke
Data.
The OpenHD site offers specific system
configurations from Dell and HP optimized for different type
of production workflow, including HDV editing and HD/SD
editing and finishing. These range from around $6,500 for
HDV editing, to $10,000 with HD capture hardware, to $25,000
with Matrox Axio accelerated HD editing and effects.
These systems are tested and certified with
the new Adobe Production Studio suite of applications
for performance and reliability (www.adobe.com/products/productionstudio).
The resulting systems then can scale from SD to HDV to HD
editing workflows. The Production Studio Standard software
is $1,199, with Premiere Pro 2.0 for video editing, After
Effects 7.0 Standard for motion graphics, plus the latest
Photoshop CS2. Production Studio Premium is $1,699 with the
addition of After Effects 7.0 Professional, Audition 2.0 for
audio editing, Encore DVD 2.0 for DVD authoring, and
Illustrator CS2 software. Adobe also offers the full Video
Bundle with the addition of Macromedia Flash Professional 8
for $2,099. (Dell offers Adobe Production Studio Standard
bundled with the Precision system for $799.)
Adobe Production Studio
The Adobe applications and its compression
codecs are optimized for multi-threading, multiple
processors, and hyper threading on Intel processors -- and
work well on AMD processors as well. Adobe recommends at
least a Pentium 4, 1.4 GHz processor for DV editing with
Premiere Pro, a Pentium 4, 3.4 GHz processor supporting
Hyper-Threading Technology for HDV, and dual Intel Xeon, 2.8
GHz processors for HD (SSE2-enabled processor required for
AMD systems).
Video and graphics effects in Premiere Pro
also can be enhanced with a graphics card offering
GPU-accelerated playback (see
www.adobe.com/compatiblehardware). And for OpenGL
enhanced motion effects (www.opengl.org),
Adobe After Effects supports OpenGL 2.0 cards with native 2D
and 3D graphics (NVIDIA recommended, see
www.adobe.com/products/aftereffects/opengl).
Of course, more memory is also useful: Adobe
recommends at least 512 MB of RAM for DV editing, and 2 GB
for HDV and HD. For taking advantage of the suite by running
multiple applications simultaneously, Adobe recommends a
minimum of 1 GB of RAM. Premiere Pro and After Effects can
both use up to 3 GB of RAM each.
And for best hard disk performance in
accessing multiple streams of video, Adobe recommends a
dedicated 7200RPM hard drive for DV and HDV editing, and a
striped disk array storage (RAID 0) for HD.
The recommended OpenHD system from Dell is
the Dell Precision 670 Workstation (www.dell.com/precision).
While you may be tempted by Dell's Dimension and XPS desktop
lines for home and home office with snazzier designs and hot
new technology, Dell recommends the Precision workstation as
a certified, integrated, and robust solution for
professional video users. In particular, the Precision
provides full OpenGL support and support for SATA RAID
disks.
Dell Precision 670 Workstation
You can use the Dell website to explore
various configurations of the Precision 670, to understand
the current cost / performance trade-offs in adding more
processing and storage. The recommended configuration
includes dual CPU 64-bit Intel Xeon 3.6 Ghz 800 FSB
Hyper-threaded processors, 4 GB 400MHz DDR RAM, Seagate 80
GB 7200 RPM SATA system drive plus 500 GB 7200 RPM SATA
media storage drive, and a PCI Express NVIDIA Quadro 3450
256 MB video card -- plus 16x DVD+/-RW Drive, Windows XP
Pro, and Adobe Production Studio Standard, for around
$6,000.
The biggest first question is processors.
The Intel Xeon workstation processors currently are
available in speeds from 2.8 to 3.8 GHz, with single or dual
cores, and with one or two processors in the system (www.intel.com/products/processor).
You can look at the price curve to help choose an optimal
speed -- it's probably worth $100 more to step up from the
slowest speed (i.e., from 2.8 to 3.0 GHz), but the jump to
the top of the line (from 3.6 to 3.8) is more like $400, and
may not result in much visible speed-up.
The Xeon processors do support Intel's
Hyper-Threading Technology under Windows XP, offering
two virtual processors on the same hardware -- which means
that the one (virtual) processor can be running flat-out for
an intensive operation like video compression, while the
second is still available to allow the interface to remain
response and do other work (www.intel.com/technology/hyperthread).
Since hyper-threading has been available in a variety of
desktop Intel Pentium and Xeon processors (although not on
mobile systems), most video applications now use
multi-threaded designs to take advantage of multi-processor
systems.
The next processor step is to dual-core
processors, with two full processors in one -- offering
up to double the performance (although limited by memory
access). These include the Dual-Core Xeon for
workstations and servers, Pentium D (dual-core) and
Pentium Extreme Edition (dual-core and
hyper-threading) for desktops, and low-power Core Duo
for laptops (beyond the Pentium M).
Your choices for processor upgrades, then,
start with one Xeon 2.8 GHz. You can jump up to a faster 3.8
GHz processor for $930, double down with a dual-core 2.8 GHz
processor for $950, or add a full second 2.8 GHz processor
for $1,299. Your best bet is probably to spend your money on
a matched set of processors with whatever bump in speed you
can afford, giving you two full processors, with the bonus
of hyper-threading to add two more virtual processors. Of
course, for mega performance, you can splurge on two
dual-core processors. Or, for future upgrade options, get
one dual-core processor now, and come back for the second
later.
For system memory, these 32-bit Windows XP
systems offer up to 4 GB, with a similar cost curve: $130 to
jump from 512 MB to 1 GB, $120 for the next GB, and $320
more for 4 GB. You can save money by filling the memory
slots with lower-capacity DIMMS, or pay more to leave space
for chips later. (These applications run under 64-bit
Windows, but are not yet certified for it.)
And for video / graphics performance, Dell
offers a wide range of PCI Express x16 graphics cards, with
dedicated memory and support for graphics and video effects.
The nVidia Quadro FX 3450 adds $725 to a basic system, with
OpenGL support and dual monitors with analog VGA or digital
DVI interfaces.
Finally, the Dell Precision platform offers
a tremendous variety of options for built-in RAID
(Redundant Array of Independent Disks) support on the
motherboard to gang together multiple disks for enhanced
performance and/or reliability. Dell recommends the new SATA
drives for higher capacity, but also supports older and
familiar SCSI drives that still spin faster.
You can configure at least two drives as
RAID 0, striped together to spread the data across
multiple drives for double (or more) the performance. Or use
RAID 1 for mirrored reliability (with increased
performance but half the storage), RAID 5 for
striping with redundant parity (the best of both worlds), or
RAID 10 (1+0).
This will be an interesting new year for
PC-based video editing, with Apple's new Intel-based systems
and the coming of the new version of Microsoft Windows Vista
(www.microsoft.com/Windowsvista).
Processors are blowing past 3 GHz, and new
dual-core processors offer even more performance. Intel's
new microarchitecture, due out later this year, offers
significantly lower heat, with a 2X to 3X performance
improvement per watt -- making laptop-based editing even
more interesting for Windows and Apple.
The new PCI Express bus and Serial ATA disks
with RAID configurations are offering major boosts in data
throughput, not only on the motherboard, but in external
disk drives from companies like LaCie (www.lacie.com)
-- with external terabyte drives, multi-terabyte RAID
enclosures with hot-swappable drives, and SATA II towers
with sustained transfer rates of 160 MBps. Just add a SATA
card to your system, plug in four of these units, and enable
software RAID within Windows XP for unbelievable
performance!
The software is upgraded to support multiple
processors and the latest graphics cards, so it's not
unreasonable to expect your next system to not only fly
through SD editing, but also step up comfortably to HD
editing.
Apple Final Cut Studio
Apple Power Mac G5
Adobe Production Studio
Dell Precision 670 Workstation
