editing workaround for slow computer (editing)

WhiteOpus

WhiteOpus

Hello, I have recently expanded my startup company from just myself to now four people total (woo!). One of the newcomers wants to help with primary editing (saving me time and stress), but his computer just isn't fast enough to efficiently edit our footage (Canon 6D and 550D). I understand that he will absolutely have to invest in a faster computer at some point - I am currently still editing everything because my computer can handle it - but is there any way to help his system scrub through the files more quickly, without dropping frames and freezing up?
 
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What sort of computer is it? Are you transcoding your footage for your post workflow, or using the native H.264 files?

My suggestion would be to transcode to an intermediate codec designed for editing (like ProRes or DNxHD) - play around with the different versions and figure out what's goign to be best. It may have to be ProRes Proxy or DNxHD36 if the computer is that slow.

You would lose some time at the beginning for transcoding, and at the end for the online/relink, but that's pretty common anyway.

What are you editing on?
 
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WhiteOpus said:
Hello, I have recently expanded my startup company from just myself to now four people total (woo!). One of the newcomers wants to help with primary editing (saving me time and stress), but his computer just isn't fast enough to efficiently edit our footage (Canon 6D and 550D). I understand that he will absolutely have to invest in a faster computer at some point - I am currently still editing everything because my computer can handle it - but is there any way to help his system scrub through the files more quickly, without dropping frames and freezing up?
Click to expand...

No offense at all, but it bounds down to lowering pre-render quality to the lowest setting, sucking it up and being patient. I edited on a Windows XP Intel Duo core 2.0 Ghz with 4GB Ram and a Nvidia GT 8600 for seven years. All that you can do is be patient and watch the rendered footage a lot when finished.
 
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jax_rox said:
What sort of computer is it? Are you transcoding your footage for your post workflow, or using the native H.264 files?

My suggestion would be to transcode to an intermediate codec designed for editing (like ProRes or DNxHD) - play around with the different versions and figure out what's goign to be best. It may have to be ProRes Proxy or DNxHD36 if the computer is that slow.

You would lose some time at the beginning for transcoding, and at the end for the online/relink, but that's pretty common anyway.

What are you editing on?
Click to expand...

I'll have to get the specs at our team meeting tomorrow night. I know it's a consumer-grade laptop, so this may not even be possible. Just wanted to get an idea of what is possible. By transcoding to an intermediate codec, do you mean taking each video file and using third-party software to convert the files to a simpler codec? Would this involve degrading the image quality of the video?
 
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WhiteOpus said:
do you mean taking each video file and using third-party software to convert the files to a simpler codec? Would this involve degrading the image quality of the video?
Click to expand...

Yes. Whether it degrades image quality or not depends on what you transcode to. If you transcode to something like ProRes 422 from a DSLR, you're not going to be losing anything.

The purpose of an intermediary codec is to transcode your footage for easy offline editing. Now, in some cases, these codecs are used from end to end - for example, the Alexa can shoot ProRes 4444, and some might simply edit the native ProRes files.

A traditional workflow for film editing would be something along the lines of:

-copy camera negatives/transcode to an easier to edit intermediary codec
-complete edit
-export EDL/AAF/XML
-import EDL/AAF/XML to your online software
-re-link with original camera negatives in the online at full resolution and full quality
-complete the online process (i.e. colour grade, insert final sound mix etc.)
-final master export
-create deliverables from master export

The online edit re-links your original camera 'negatives' (the original files from the camera) at full resolution and quality. Then you do your colour grade, insert sound mix and then do your final export.

The online doesn't necessarily have to be in a seperate piece of software - you would just re-link the original files when you're ready to export.

Or, you could see if the computer could handle something like ProRes 422 or similar and edit as normal.
 
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GuerrillaAngel said:
This is why one doesn't go half ass when it comes to editing equipment. Think about the wasted hours (weeks!, months!) when a "variable" shows up unexpectedly.

Good luck.
Click to expand...

I think it's more like half-budget, as we're all amateurs with low incomes, having just formed the company less than three months ago. But yes, we will absolutely need to upgrade in order to get anything done efficiently/to justify having a team in the first place. Thanks!
 
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Like Jax, I would've suggested an inter/intraframe conversion to see if that works for you. My h264 footage was so slow to edit on my computer that it was making my workflow impossible. It's mainly the scrubbing etc that does it, as it has to calculate using the frames around the one you are moving to - which means every frame you scroll past is hammering away at your processing power too.

I've not done any video editing for a while now so I couldn't tell you what I settled on (it wasn't prores though) but there's plenty to choose from so I'm sure you'll find one that suits.
 
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I've been using an HP i3 since 2010 to edit and do effects with my T2is and a Panasonic SD100 camcorder. Worked great for Vegas editing but bogged down with HitFilm2 Ultimate to the point I could hardly use it. I even had to pop for a new Nvidia card to do graphics work.

Last week Office Max offered a new Dell i5 with a 1 tb 7200 rpm HD and 8 Gigs of memory for right at $500.
That's less than I paid for the old rig 4 years ago so I couldn't pass it up.
They still have it at least until the 8th:
http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/949691/Dell-Inspiron-3000-Desktop-Computer-With/

I've since added a GH4 to my kit and upgraded Vegas to edit 4K and have an order in for Hitfilm3.
So far this new machine runs like lightning and even renders about 4 times faster than the old one.
The best part is that the built in video can handle Hitfilm without having to add a new card.
It hurts a little to bite the bullet and get a new machine, but the time saved is well worth the price of admission.

I know I'll have to go up to a better rig sometime, but this will pay for itself for now with just the improvement in time savings.
Clients don't always get "render time". I'm sure I'm not alone with that one! ;)
 
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Come to think of it, it was only when I started playing with Hitfilm that I got the slowdown too. It was always there a bit beforehand, but not to the point of stalling workflow.
 
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Use the offline/proxy (I hate the term proxy) method. I did a feature this way in 2010 on a computer that was then 8 years old. I used Streamclip to convert my footage to 240p, did an offline edit in Vegas Pro 9, exported and EDL and conformed the online in After Effects CS4. It's relatively straightforward when you get used to it
 
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Hey sorry to resurrect this thread...I am finally doing a test to figure out EDL. Used Streamclip to convert to 240p, cut a test edit, exported EDL, created a new project and imported the full-res files, imported the EDL. This gave me a folder with the filenames but I am now unsure of how to actually relink (conform?) the hi-res stuff to the lo-res EDL. I am just a little lost with how to proceed. I'm sure there's some youtube video...but I can't seem to find it :no:
 
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If it were me, I'd look into transcoding to low res proxy files as part of your ingest workflow so that anybody could pick up and run with an edit, even on a older laptop, then reconform to the higher resolution clips for render.

That's not a bad workflow to get accustomed to anyway, especially if the potential of shooting raw might be in your future eventually.


@WhiteOpus what are you using for editing? Software-wise.. that would help people point you in the right direction.

If you have access to a mac or linux machine, this little script I wrote a few months back would help you with your transcoding. Ideally you could have a cheap machine that only does footage transcoding so that you don't waste time waiting for transcodes on your primary edit machine.

As written, it'll transcode Sony XDCAM footage (.mxf files) to prores LT. Which was what I needed for the specific project I was working on when I wrote it. I processes a full directory of files, and outputs into a different directory. :)

Code: 
#!/bin/bash
 
# These paths should either be relative to the current directory
# or full system paths.
 
SOURCE_PATH="Camera_Original"
DEST_PATH="Prores"
 
# wildcard for files to process
FILES="*.MXF"
 
# FFmpeg arguments/options
FFMPEG_OPT="-vcodec prores -profile:v 1 -acodec pcm_s16le"
 
# Container wrapper format (file extension, mov, avi, etc)
WRAPPER="mov"
 
# Verbosity level: quiet, panic, fatal, error, warning, info, verbose
VERBOSITY="warning"
 
 
######################################################################
## DO NOT CHANGE BELOW THIS LINE
######################################################################
 
clear
for FILE in $SOURCE_PATH/$FILES
do
  FILENAME=$(basename "$FILE")
  CURRENT="${FILENAME%%.*}"
  echo "Processing $CURRENT..."
  ffmpeg -i $FILE $FFMPEG_OPT -v $VERBOSITY $DEST_PATH/$CURRENT.$WRAPPER
done

To use a different flavor of Prores, you'd change the 1 after the -v:profile flag for the FFMPEG_OPT variable accordingly:
0 : ProRes422 (Proxy)
1 : ProRes422 (LT)
2 : ProRes422 (Normal)
3 : ProRes422 (HQ)


This would likely need to be completely rewritten to work on windows though may work with minor tweaks if you have cygwin tools installed and have bash available... *nix based operating systems (OSX == unix/bsd, and all the various flavors of linux apply) make things a lot easier to script tasks on the command line, and provide more helper tools to get things done than windows/dos.

Note: This is technically what ALL of those various gui conversion apps do, 90%+ of them use ffmpeg under the hood... that's a FREE tool, paying $20+ for a, generally crappy, gui is kind of silly. ;)
 
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Will Vincent said:
If it were me, I'd look into transcoding to low res proxy files as part of your ingest workflow so that anybody could pick up and run with an edit, even on a older laptop, then reconform to the higher resolution clips for render.

That's not a bad workflow to get accustomed to anyway, especially if the potential of shooting raw might be in your future eventually.


@WhiteOpus what are you using for editing? Software-wise.. that would help people point you in the right direction.

If you have access to a mac or linux machine, this little script I wrote a few months back would help you with your transcoding. Ideally you could have a cheap machine that only does footage transcoding so that you don't waste time waiting for transcodes on your primary edit machine.

As written, it'll transcode Sony XDCAM footage (.mxf files) to prores LT. Which was what I needed for the specific project I was working on when I wrote it. I processes a full directory of files, and outputs into a different directory. :)

Code: 
#!/bin/bash
 
# These paths should either be relative to the current directory
# or full system paths.
 
SOURCE_PATH="Camera_Original"
DEST_PATH="Prores"
 
# wildcard for files to process
FILES="*.MXF"
 
# FFmpeg arguments/options
FFMPEG_OPT="-vcodec prores -profile:v 1 -acodec pcm_s16le"
 
# Container wrapper format (file extension, mov, avi, etc)
WRAPPER="mov"
 
# Verbosity level: quiet, panic, fatal, error, warning, info, verbose
VERBOSITY="warning"
 
 
######################################################################
## DO NOT CHANGE BELOW THIS LINE
######################################################################
 
clear
for FILE in $SOURCE_PATH/$FILES
do
  FILENAME=$(basename "$FILE")
  CURRENT="${FILENAME%%.*}"
  echo "Processing $CURRENT..."
  ffmpeg -i $FILE $FFMPEG_OPT -v $VERBOSITY $DEST_PATH/$CURRENT.$WRAPPER
done

To use a different flavor of Prores, you'd change the 1 after the -v:profile flag for the FFMPEG_OPT variable accordingly:
0 : ProRes422 (Proxy)
1 : ProRes422 (LT)
2 : ProRes422 (Normal)
3 : ProRes422 (HQ)


This would likely need to be completely rewritten to work on windows though may work with minor tweaks if you have cygwin tools installed and have bash available... *nix based operating systems (OSX == unix/bsd, and all the various flavors of linux apply) make things a lot easier to script tasks on the command line, and provide more helper tools to get things done than windows/dos.

Note: This is technically what ALL of those various gui conversion apps do, 90%+ of them use ffmpeg under the hood... that's a FREE tool, paying $20+ for a, generally crappy, gui is kind of silly. ;)
Click to expand...

I'm on a 2009 iMac, using premiere pro cs6 to edit. As for the code, I have no idea how to apply any of that information, feeling like it would be helpful to take a few classes perhaps?
 
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