Importance of HD RPM

movax · Post by **movax** » Fri Oct 27, 2006 21:16

Greetings,

Its time to stop lugging a big arse desktop PC to gigs. So I'm going the lappy route! Yeah! I will miss the uber quality of my DPS Velocity system though....

My question is, how important is the HD RPM, when using mostly short loops? Because if they can fit in memory, once the loading has taken place, the HD is "done".

Currently salivating over an Intel Core 2 Duo T7400, 2.2GHz ...

Thanks!!

VJair · Post by **VJair** » Sat Oct 28, 2006 00:28

Hard Drive speed is just about THE most important thing as far as resolume is concerned.

vj.döppler · Post by **vj.döppler** » Thu Nov 02, 2006 22:27

the best thing to do in order to have an excellent quality vj act and freezeless clip load is to use an external HDD.
IDE harddisks (pc) are faster than Laptop HDD
check this out:

RPM: (the MOST important thing):
external disks: 7200
laptop disks: 5600 (on some expensive models), but the most common speed is 4800RPM.

BUFFER SIZE:
External: 16MB
Laptop: 4 - 8Mb

PLATES (discs):
External: 3 plates
Laptop: 2 plates

ALL OF THIS affects the performance of your liveact.
ALSO: check the compression (codec) of your clips
smaller clips (in size and time) are faster to load.

Laptops are made for mobility, not for performance. check the size of your home pc and the size of your laptop. Laptop harddisks are made to fit in the size of the laptop, so, they don't care (a lot) about the speed-performance, because more speed is traduced into more battery consumption and more heat generated. (your laptop will turn into a portable stove.)

VJ Nexus · Post by **VJ Nexus** » Tue Nov 07, 2006 15:34

hd speed is vey important... I've reached the point however where it's no longer a bottleneck at all by using 10,000rpm drives in raid 0. That's about as fast as you can get at the consumer level. I've seen 10,000 rpm laptop drives - if it's in your budget, i'd go this route for the best possible speed - raid if possible too. Otherwise there are external solutions. besides, you should run your clips off a different hard drive anyway. So, either invest in a very speedy internal hard drive (will need 2, one for program one for clips) or get an external solution. they do make raid options for external drives if you can get afford 2.

movax · Post by **movax** » Wed Nov 15, 2006 00:13

Very informative, thank you. I am leaning towards the lapper with a 7200 external HD, because I already have one!

So, any advice on codecs? I've been trying QT "Graphics", "Cinepak" and "Video" for things ranging from low-color vector gfx to high speed betawave inducing clips.

I wonder if there is a site that analyses the performance of different codecs depending on length of clip and type of content.

VJ Nexus · Post by **VJ Nexus** » Wed Nov 22, 2006 01:33

indeo 5.1 - deinterlaced - 95% quality

sj1972 · Post by **sj1972** » Wed Nov 22, 2006 02:15

Hi NexusIntent

It seems on the board that you have tried different codecs out. How was your results with the mjpeg codecs compared to indeo?

My own results says that indeo 640 480 is in general better that mjpeg. But I still think that the indeo quality is quite trashed on some clips - and I wonder if there is a better avi codec out there...

Steen
syncopated.tv

movax · Post by **movax** » Mon Nov 27, 2006 22:00

There are 2 different factors regarding codecs.

1. size of output movie file
2. subjective quality of output movie file

The way these things turn out depends completely on the
source footage. So the codec & settings that are best for 8bit style large blocky graphics will almost certainly not be the best for wispy detailed fractals. And vice-versa.

I think this would be a realy useful project, to go through different types of source footage and run them through different codecs, then analyse the subjective quality vs. file size.

Its all a matter of tradeoffs.

I just ordered my brand new Core 2 Duo 2.0 lappy. Viva la Visa!