Great Cheap editing machine!

[CoralVision]

Hey all,

I've been using PrPro and Ae for more than 10 years, most recently recently on Win7 and Mac OS. I recently bought a super cheap ($650!!) Win10 tower at CostCo, and WOW, I am super impressed with the performance!

This is the one:

HP Performance Pavilion 580-137c Desktop - AMD Ryzen 7 - 4GB Graphics

I haven't pushed any boundaries with the 3D rendering from Ae yet, just 2D Ae Dynamic Linked comps, multicam event video, and Lumetri Color, no pre-renders, just going straight to export "match sequence settings" (original capture media is Canon XF MPEG from model XF300).

The thing is currently rendering circles around machines that cost 4X as much $$$ a few years ago.

Also, I think PrPro may just be happier running on Win10 than on the other operating systems I have tried.

I am pleased with this situation.

Thanks!

Eric D - CoralVision

[Peferling]

Good to hear.  Thanks for sharing, that looks to be a good deal.  Did you add any additional hardware (i.e. dedicated drives for video)?

At my day job I have a loaded Dell T7600 that cost $11,000.  However, I personally use off-lease Dells for my side gigs and work I take home, and they run about $500 each and are just as quick, (I have my eye on a bare bones model for $150). 

I also work exclusively with Canon XF, and transcode everything else to MXF (which all the major studios use - it was created to meet their needs).  Which is a native format that runs faster than real time in Premiere.  Only clips or portions of clips that have FX applied are rendered.  Everything else is a direct stream copy.

[CoralVision]

I haven't done anything special to it, I just unboxed it, loaded the software, and attached a USB 3 external for scratch.

...

It's great to learn you are committed to Canon XF - despite the awkwardness of my completely manual media management (using only finder/explorer) it has been simple and solid. One thing, though that keeps cropping up since I started with PrPro and Canon XF (on CS6) is intermittent problems with the plugin "MXF Importer." Have you had errors related to this plugin in your encode logs from PrPro or AME?

[RjL190365]

Now if you can replace the HDD with a SATA III SSD and an m.2 PCIe SSD...

[Raymond_Herrera]

That is a good tip, Eric. I looked at the specs and have a few comments.

- It says: "Computer Type: Gaming Desktop". Those are high performance and price sensitive.

- The OS is Windows 10, Home version. Any shortcomings?

- I wonder whether the 16GB RAM is the maximum

[CoralVision]

On the OS - my IT staff told me I would need to upgrade to Win10 Professional in order to "be on the server," which in their business/government IT paradigm refers to A) Outlook, and B) the server-based financial management software. I have no need for that from this machine, so I just mapped my NAS drives and kept moving. I have not bumped into any limitation with the OS, though I confess I have not yet tested AME on watch folders on the NAS yet...

[chrisw44157881]

it seems fast because its actually not doing anything. its a smart rendering feature. now try exporting a h.264....

[Peferling]

Benchmark testing indicates it's slightly under the fastest Intel core i7.  Of course, that it could be different from within PPro.  So why not test it and share?

Video:

Benchmarking Performance: CPU Encoding Tests - The AMD Zen and Ryzen 7 Review: A Deep Dive on 1800X,...

3D Animation:

Benchmarking Performance: CPU Rendering Tests - The AMD Zen and Ryzen 7 Review: A Deep Dive on 1800X...

[Raymond_Herrera]

[Chris wrote:] "it seems fast because its actually not doing anything. its a smart rendering feature. now try exporting a h.264...."

Chris:

Perhaps we are comparing the proverbial apples & oranges?

It seems that the OP was referring to the GPU, while you are talking about the CPU.

Of course, the way to go would be to run some comprehensive benchmarks, such as those mentioned by Peferling.

-RFH

[CoralVision]

You may have a point, I'll let you know when I have a chance to test - thus far I am only comparing this machine to two others doing the same tasks - rendering "master" outputs from color graded canon XF sequences with relatively simple Ae DL comps. I have one of the other machines running AME doing downstream h264 encodes. As I said, on apples-to-apples comparison this bargain tower is performing far better than I expected - I will let you know if it disappoints me on the h264 deliverables!