Korean Job Discussion Forums

Demophobe · Joined: 17 May 2004

Well, talking about 7200k hard drives.....can you even get a 4500k anymore? That's not the rotational "speed" we should be talking about now, with 7200k being the standard....it's read and write speeds that matter. Maxtor has some good numbers in this area...the DiamondMax 9, specifically. Telling someone to "get a 7200k drive" isn't really saying a lot...think about buffer memory speed, average latency and seek times...

As far as MM2, it's a great program for the money (free!). It's just about options. I used Pinnacle Studio 8 and the scope of the software is incredible (as is the cost). It's professional video software as opposed to a home user, the same way any software comes in different flavours for different needs. It was way beyond me, so I too use MM2 now, but the higher-end software was obviously capable of so much more in the right hands.

Derrek · Joined: 15 Jan 2003

Get any new 7200 speed drive, and you'll be fine. I'm a Maxtor fan too.

And yes, 7200 has become the "standard", but there are plenty of slower sub 6,000 speed drives out there that don't cut the mustard. And whether 7200 is the standard or not, you can easily buy a slower one by accident if you don't look at what you're getting.

It's the ability to lay down information at speed which is important to video editing. That is where your frame errors happen. The access and seek times of todays drives are pretty much all good enough.

I ediited on the AVID Media composer for 5 years (various models). It's a system designed specifically for Film and TV production, and is recognized as the standard. Pinnacle has some competing products, but their market share is tiny by comparison. Pinnacle on a corporate level is not that impressive, but their home user stuff is good for the home.

Demophobe · Joined: 17 May 2004

Well, hard drive size is of importance here too, depending of course on what format the OP is going to be capturing in. In fact, the 4200RPM variety tops out at 80GB, and nobody in their right mind uses a drive that small anymore, especially a person set on doing video editing.

Not trying to be argumentative, but trying to give the OP some good tips while dispelling them a needless worry. I give enough stress to people in this forum already. Wink

Derrek · Joined: 15 Jan 2003

I haven't seen a drive that slow in so long...the more recent older (now former) standard is 5,400 RPM. AVOID THOSE TOO! I have edited with those, and they cause frames to drop about 40% of the time after about 7 seconds of digitizing.

Yes, get a minimum of 120Megs on a 7200RPM drive. I have 80 Meg, but I am efficient with getting rid of old video I don't need after a project is done. I need more, but didn't have much money last year when I got it. My little Mini-ATX mainboard and PS are maxed out too.

Even better, get a second drive for video stuff only, and have it dedicated to it's own IDE (or whatever your system uses for HD hookup). Demophobe can explain that newer, faster thing than IDE (Serial IDE or something?)

Demophobe · Joined: 17 May 2004

Whoops! My bad...I meant 5400RPM, not 4200.... Embarassed

Yep...SATA....and if the OP waits a very short while for the next series of drives, they will get 3GB/Sec as opposed to the current 1.5GB/Sec in the current SATA drives. (SATA) I put a link in the "Droolage" thread to the next gen mainboard, but that won't be seen for a while. 3GB/Sec SATA drives may well arrive before the chipset that supports it....nothing like the incongruency in the computer world.

Hmm...I think we are talking to each other at this point. The OP is probably already too busy editing to post back.

eamo · Joined: 08 Mar 2003 Location: Shepherd's Bush, 1964.

Demophobe · Joined: 17 May 2004

It's just doing what you tell it. If you want a smaller file size, you have to specify that in the pre-capture stages. It will let you choose from a number of formats, and .avi (uncompressed) is simply one of them.

There is a drop-down menu I believe, which lets you choose from a variety of formats and it even lets you know approximately how big the file size will be. If not a drop-down, then it will present a list of formats for you to choose from a check list. If you pay close attention to the options or the menus that you must clik through before you begin the capture, I think you will see these options.

muggie2dammit · Joined: 28 Oct 2004 Location: Ilsan, Korea

[quote="Derrek"]Yes, get a minimum of 120Megs on a 7200RPM drive. I have 80 Meg, but I am efficient with getting rid of old video I don't need after a project is done. I need more, but didn't have much money last year when I got it. My little Mini-ATX mainboard and PS are maxed out too.

Demophobe can explain that newer, faster thing than IDE (Serial IDE or something?)[/quote]

Go for a 200GB 7200rpm, preferably one with an 8MB cache. If you can get a SATA (serial ATA), it's worth the extra 10 - 20k won. At the moment the actual performance isn't a lot higher than the old standard IDE drives, but that little bit might just be crucial, and the potential performance is much higher for the future.
Maxtor, the Hitachi 7K250 series and Western Digital drives are generally better in terms of performance. Seagate isn't so good but the newer Seagate 200GB drive does a lot better than its older cousins. Samsung drives are quiet, but their read/write performance generally lets them down.