Good Article on Disc Setup for Editing

Harm Millard has posted a good article on how to set up one's hard discs for editing. I strongly recommend anyone buying, building or reworking an editing computer read it.
Hunt

Thanks for the compliment Bill. I appreciate you mentioning it. Maybe Eddie can consider adding it to the Wiki, as I sincerely believe it can help a lot of people in setting up their machine and improving performance. Otherwise I would not have written it.

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What security products are suggested for scrubbing rootkits from a Mac? There are good articles on similar repair for PCs and it makes me want to see if I can save this machine. It's in forensic recovery right now so I myself have not done anything yet.

What security products are suggested for scrubbing rootkits from a Mac? There are good articles on similar repairs for other makes online. I would like to investigate whether a machine can be truly scrubbed or if it's best to retire it. I haven't done anything yet as it is a candidate for more extensive forensic recovery.
Also, I am not sure if various malicious spoofing and cloaking tricks (making Wi-Fi appear off when it is on, hiding unauthorized sharing/remote access, falsifying System Preferences preference panes, etc.) are resolved by a thorough drive erase or are more similar to APTs?
Finally, is there any emerging information regarding APT hiding places other than the recovery partition? I have heard mention of the EFI, for example, but it seems unproven and unlikely. Some people have also mentioned the RAM.
This is an upsetting topic to some people, including me, so I appreciate circumspect, measured responses. Thanks! And don't try to answer all my questions if you really just want to comment or answer one. All thoughts are appreciated.

Hi, Lincoln,
A straightforward question. You are correct in recognizing the difference between tentative conclusion and certainty. Here are our main reasons:
1. Incoming items noted on the console (or console sub logs) and Activity Monitor after defenses are overcome, and which are brought in by an unwelcome remote user, often have a process name and the word "kit." (Bear with me.) We soon observe the process is under attack, from terminal evidence and soon, decreased or lost functionality of the process. The terminal generally reports alteration of specific kernel behaviors. A simple example (that may or may not be accompanied by kernel changes and may simply alter permissions) is modifying Disk Utility such that key uses are unavailable. You can see how an attacker might value disabling partition views, mounting and permission repair. In retrospect, DU might not be a root alteration. I was thinking that its relation to fsck flagged it as a possible ring 0 item. I may need to know core parameters of a good example to pick strong ones.
2. Incoming folders hidden for possible later use contained bundles of similar root kits, including some not applicable to Macs. From what I have read from reasonably credible sources, root kits are sold and traded both singly and in bundles.
3. Root kits are a logical next choice for our attackers, as various prior techniques hindered us but did not paralyze us.
4. One of the most authoritative articles I found was about PCs not Macs. I noted the assertion, undocumented, that an estimated one million computers are infected by root kit manipulations, and underscored that the kits can be used by people with low computer skills.
5. MacAfee lists root kits (by description, not name) as a top pop five threat prediction in the coming year, though again, the emphasis is on PCs.
Linc, I am trying to show a spectrum of observations and info that have shaped my thinking. To retrieve better captured evidence requires significant legwork at this time, but it is something I am willing to do if you can be patient. Understand this long attack has been like a natural disaster to us.
I have not linked a few articles of interest because I forget if that's allowed. If so, I'd be glad to.
After reviewing this partial answer, you may form another hypothesis. If so, please share it. I am comfortable with my position but not clinging to it.
Thanks for your interest. Looking forward to your thoughts.
Oh, yeah: some material is out for analysis, so we should have credible opinions pretty soon. Not positive exactly when.

Good setup for editing Canon Vixia HF-S10

Am using a Canon Vixia HF S10 and want to edit. Thinking about an iMac 24 inch with
2.93GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x2GB
640GB Serial ATA Drive
NVIDIA GeForce GT 130 512MB
and Final Cut Express
I see no reason why this wouldn't do the job, but would like some feedback from more experienced videographers and/or editors.
Thanks

You may be right lenn5. It is an amazing little camera. Not just the image but the way the controls are set up. It can be used fully manual. Its manual focus assist feature is especially good. When you start operating the manual focus knob on the front to one side of the lens, it jumps to a close up, a sort of instant zoom that allows for very precise focus. This helps to over comes what I anticipated to be a real short coming, the absence of a view finder. The real test will come when I have to focus in bright sunlight. It has a "brighten view finder" feature which is supposed to help with that. We'll see.

3D stereo setup for editing

I've been charged with coming up for a solution to allow for both our modelers (using Maya 2011) and our designers (using the stereo rig in CS5.5) that will allow them to preview their content in stereo on their machines (ex: in the composition window in AE). Meaning new monitors, glasses, and graphics cards across the board. After doing some research, it looks like NVidia's 3D Vision Pro with a Quadro card provides a hassle free means of viewing stereo content on ones own machine; however, there is no support for Macs (which is what our designers are running.)
Ideally I'd like to find a solution that is consistent across Windows (Win 7 Pro for our modelers) and Macs for our designers; such that we could both re-purpose the hardware if necessary in the future and provide a consistent use across the studio. I've not been able to find any solution that supports Macs out of the box. I'm continuing to look into this but I'd like to know what are other studios are using in their workflow?

crydrk,
Thanks for the idea about polorization. I have heard of this as being a viable option on both platforms, but as you indicated, at a reduced resolution (half iirc.) We have experience with NVidia's 3D Vision and the only time we experienced dropped signals was when we would turn away from the signal.
As far as I can tell, AE does not appear to be capable of real-time stereo editing, where you can see the restults in stereo, outside of anaglyph mode, which would have been the ideal scenareo. As a result I want to make it as easy as possible for our art and design team to preview their work in as uniform a way possible. At this time I'm looking more into the 3D TV setup, which should work so long as the graphics card supports 3D out.

System Setup for editing / motion graphics and color-correcting

I am looking to add a second monitor for previewing in FCP as well as color-correction. I've looked into a JVC LCD 20" Production monitor with SDI, etc. coupled with a Blackmagic Decklink HD card. But that combo costs over $3500. Is there a lower-cost solution to this? A second Apple Cinema Display? Or some other recommendation? And would I need a Blackmagic or AJA card to properly monitor?
Any recommendations/brands/costs would be appreciated.
The bulk of the footage I edit with is shot in XDCAM-EX format (EX3).
I currently run a Dual 2.3 PPC G5, but will be upgrading shortly to a Dual 2.8 Quad Core.
Thanks.

You want us to do all of the research and cost breakdown for you? Uh...no.
But I will recommend a low cost alternative. Matrox MXO and Apple Cinema Display (which Apple as discontinued).
http://magazine.creativecow.net/article/matrox-mxo-broadcast-monitoring-on-a-des ktop-monitor
Shane

Good Premiere pro Cs5.5 Video Editing Computer Set Up For Under $3000

Hey everyone im hopeing to hear for Harm Millaard input on this and anyone elses who understands PC computers for video editing. I need to build a computer set up for my specific needs. I am a youtuber who makes videos for a living and I need a speedy computer for editing primarily in premiere pro CS5.5 and sometimes in After effects. I use magic bullet 2.0 color grading in almost all my videos so that slows my computer down alot. The current computer I have now shuts off when ever it runs to much stuff and gives me the BSOD so its extreemly fusterating because editing something small can take me all day because of the constent shutting off. Mostly does BSOD when I uses Magic Bullet 2.0 I shoot with DSLR footage but once in a while it will happen out of the blue when running alot of things but mostly when exporting. I need a list of specs that will all work together to give a perfect workflow for my needs and I also would like advice on what Raid because I dont fully understand it as well as what back up drives etc should I have. I plan of buying the specs and having someone build it for me and set up raid etc that knows how to do all that. In case some of you wonder what type of computer I have now these are the specs if you need more information on what I have in my computer ask exactly what info you want to me to tell you and ill look it up.
If you have advice on specs I dont have to re-buy that I could take out of this computer to save money then that would be better as well. I currently have no back up external drives as well so Idk what I should buy for that as well. Thank you all for your time a head of time!

Well!!!!.....where do I start?? You must spend some time here reading all the valuable info that has been presented and discussed many times here. Basically, PPro is a very demanding , PROFESSIONAL program that needs beefy and SPECIFIC hardware to run properly.
AMD CPU will not cut it.....it lacks the necessary instruction set that Intel has that apply to video processing.
You need a fast Intel i7 CPU for starters.
You do not mention video card.....NVidia CUDA card of over 1GB video memory is required to enable the "Mercury PlaybackEngine", which provides a TEN TIMES INCREASE in rendering speed of previews.....not to mention accelerating the export process by handling some specific effects during export.
Some DSLR codecs,( like Canon MOVs) cause PPro....which is a 64bit program..... to open the 32 bit " Quick time Importer" process, ( as Quick Time is 32 bit), slowing down the process, even with good hardware. Editing highly compressed consumer codecs,( AVCHD,etc.) in real time ,then exporting can be very taxing on a computer, requiring top -notch components. Even if you do it the old way and transcode to a more edit friendly codec before editing.....you would then need a larger,faster disk system to handle the huge files at a high speed!!!
16GB system memory is OK for 5.5.....with 6 and later, 32GB is better.
Two separate hard drives are the required minimum for PPro......currently, the best performing and cheapest setup would be : C drive= 120GB quality SSD, D drive = 2x 7200 RPM HDDs in onboard RAID 0 for pagefile,previews, and all cache files. E drive= same setup as "D", for media,project files, and export. F drive = large 7200 rpm disk for necessary backup of important files and backup of "D" drive. All drives should "indexing" and" compression" turned OFF,( under drive Properties window).
Less expensive would be just three separate 7200 RPM HDDs...that could be OK with just DSLR footage which is so compressed that it requires less actual MB/sec., unless you are using many tracks of video, upping the requirement needed.
Read the many posts and articles by Harm Millard and Bill Gehrke....they have contributed a tremendous wealth of knowledge and experience to the readers.....preventing many from making bad purchases and expensive mistakes when trying to construct a machine that will perform well....their website, PPBM5 is invaluable as it can show you all the video benchmark results of differently configured machines. It is a good guide as to what you may want to build,or, purchase.....Good Luck!!

Hard Disk Setup for Video Editing

Dear Forum.
My name is Tom Woods and I was hoping that you may be able to advise me or point me in the right direction, in regards to the question below....
: ) Im not sure if you are in this area or not, my apologies to you if this is the case.. Here goes..
I'm thinking of getting Adobe Production Premium installed where ill be using Photoshop, After Effects, and Premier Pro, and need some advice on my current Disk Setup to maximize performance to work with editing HD 1080i video.
My question is;
"Which of my internal 'Disks', do I assign the following processes to, these processes are;
Photoshop: SCRATCH DISK
After Effects: DISK CACHE
Premier Pro: SCRATCH DISK Captured Video / SCRATCH DISK Captured Audio / SCRATCH DISK Video Previews / SCRATCH DISK Audio Previews
Premier Pro: MEDIA CACHE FILES / DATABASE
And finally the recorded Video 'parts' ready for editing, and the 'previews', and then the 'saved project file'.
My current Disk setup is:
C: SSD - 90GB (quite full)
D: SSD - still considering size to purchase
E: SSD - still considering size to purchase
F: HDD - 500 GB (currently used for all Video Parts and all work)
*Also, for drives D & E, what 'SIZE' in GB would they need to be for assigning the Scratch, Cache and other files mentioned above? (when i purchase them)*
If you can help me out with this it would be totally amazing, im really stuck and finding internet advice very unclear..
I appreciate you will be busy but I thought I would try here first for some help! Thank you so much for reading this so far...
My Best regards to you
Timmy

Tom,
Let's start with the terminology. Once you understand that, things will become a lot easier.
MEDIA: Name for all the raw material you shot, whether video or pictures or audio recordings. It does not matter whether this was captured from tape based video cameras, or imported from card or disk based cameras.
MEDIA CACHE: When Media are imported into a project, PR automatically creates three kind of files that are stored in the location you set up in the Preferences. They are .IMS files or indexed files, .CFA or conformed audio files and last .PEK files, that display the audio waveform in the timeline.
MEDIA CACHE DATABASE: Also automatically created by PR and contains pointers to the files in the Media Cache.
Note that occasionally the Media Cache and Media Cache Database can become corrupted and in that case it is a good idea to Clean the Media Cache from Preferences. When opening a project indexing, conforming and generation of PEK files is automatically done. Just be a bit patient for that process to finish.
PREVIEWS: Also called RENDER files. When you render a timeline to turn the red bar into a green bar for preview purposes, PR stores .XMP files in the PRV directory location you have set in the Project Settings.
Media files are typically very large and require a good sustained sequential read speed. Once ingested (imported or captured) they remain unchanged, because PR is a non-destructive editor. On the one hand this makes a SSD an ideal type of disk, because it is only reading the media files and not writing, but the size may be the limiting factor.
Media cache files are typically small and many, so here sustained R/W transfer rates are important, making it less than ideal to put them on a SSD, because the major drawback of SSD's is their limited and finite number of writes.
Now Tom, to your specific situation:
C: SSD for OS & programs.
D: HDD for media and projects (because of the size of the media and frequent changes in projects).
E: SSD for static page-file and exports.
F: SSD for media cache and previews, although a HDD may give you better life expectancy but also slower performance.
Maybe this article can be helpful as well, because it shows the impact of codecs on your system: Adobe Forums: What PC to build? An update...
You may have to get additional HDD's for raid configuations, if you edit 4K material or 422 material, because it is all about transfer rates.
To give you a rough indications of what you can expect from your drives, I suggest you get HD Tune Pro to test for yourself, but here are some indicative figures:
SSD: R around 450 MB/s, W around 300 MB/s, depending on the brand/model in steady state with SATA 6G. SATA 3G is far slower. Sandforce controllers may top out around 250 MB/s W.
HDD: R around 150 MB/s, W around 140 MB/s

I've been giving HD videos in MTS format and convert the for editing in FCE. Looks good in the program, but when I export the finished film, quality had been noticeable diminished. Is there any way to prevent FCE from lowering the output quality?

Hello -
I've been sent HD footage in MTS format and converted it to Mp4 for editing in FCE. It looks good in FCE but when I export the movie, the quality is noticably diminished. Is there any way I can prevent FCE from lowering the quality on export?
Thanks.

>I use Foxreal video converter for Mac to convert the MTS using the Apple intermediate codec setting and the problem is that I don't get image, just audio
My thought would be to NOT use Foxreal video converter.
Use MPEG Streamclip or Clipwrap.
-DH

Any good articles or case studies on using MS technologies for BYOD in education settings ?

Looking to see if any good articles or case studies on using MS technologies for BYOD in education settings ? (schools, colleges etc)

Check if this helps:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=39681
Yuri Diogenes [MSFT] - http://blogs.technet.com/yuridiogenes

Re user tip: How can I import a homemade DVD into iMovie for editing? - I've followed instructions so far so good, until I get to "You can then FILE/EXPORT USING QUICKTIME and choose Apple Intermediate Codec as your video codec. " How do I do that?

Re AppleMan 1958 excellent user tip: How can I import a homemade DVD into iMovie for editing? -
I've followed instructions with success until "You can then FILE/EXPORT USING QUICKTIME and choose Apple Intermediate Codec as your video codec. " How do I do that?
I installed MGEG Streamclip 193b8 and used their utility to install quicktimempeg2 and got a message stating it was successfully installed. (I'm on latest Maverick 10.9.2 on iMac) Then I dragged the VIDEO_TS file from my home DVD into the streamclip app. It asked which of 4 files to use, and I selected the first one. Streamclip played the video with the sound. so far so good. but now I cannot figure how to use quicktime player 10.3 to export this vob file out of streamclip.

Thank you for your quick reply and for clearing up my confusion. I'm exporting the first section now. I choose the smallest size, 3x4 but I'd prefer to go higher as this DVD was originally a VHS home movie. I'm wondering if after three conversions (VHS,->DVD->MPEG) the resolution will be so poor as to not support a larger size frame? If it can, what size should I select when I export?

Is the i5 iMac good for editing in AE and PP ?

Hey guys,
I am interested in buying a new iMac for editing my videos. Will the new iMac with a display of 21,5 inches and an i5 CPU at 2,9 GHz will be good for editing videos and short films on Adobe After Effects and Adobe Premiere Pro ?
Thanks for the help and sorry for my English.

I'd say but be sure to get enough memory
also make sure the programs you will be using are in osx versions
because if you already have a license for a windows version and
it's not a cross platform license you will have to buy them again

Any codecs good for editing on internal laptop drive?

i know editing in a native dv or hdv format on a laptop isn't good and/or safe for the drive....so are there any codecs other than offline RT (I want to be able to send the clips to motion and make nice graphics, etc) I can capture to and edit and have the drive work so hard and have no future possible sync issues?
THANK YOU
God Bless America~!

The issue isn't really the codec, it's just that you are asking the system drive to do alot when you also use it to capture and playback media.
That being said, many people successfully capture to and edit DV on their MacBook Pro using the system drive. I've done it many times myself, I just don't rely on it if I have another choice.
External FW drives are so cheap these days, it only makes sense to use one for editing even if it's only to increase your storage space. Believe me, even if editing using the system drive works for you, you'll be amazed how quickly you fill that sucker up with media, render files etc.
rh

What is the best program to use on Mac for editing, cropping photos from my computer. Looking for a free program that is good.

What is the best program to use on Mac for editing, cropping photos from my computer. Looking for a free program that is good.

If your needs are limited to those tasks then both Preview and iPhoto will fit the bill They are already on your Mac. There is a free download from Google called Picasa available here:
http://picasa.google.com/
It works much the in same manner as iPhoto. For some really heavy duty work there is GIMP available from SourceForge:
http://www.gimp.org/macintosh/ Also a free download.
Message was edited by: kennethfromtoronto

What is the best way to have Mac setup for sync-ing 2 calendars? Any way to change? When we 1st got our Macbook we unknowingly set it up wrong--as 2 separate users, with separate everything. Good for contacts and email, bad for calendar, photos, music.

What is the best way to have Mac setup for sync-ing 2 calendars? Any way to change? When we first got our Macbook we unknowingly set it up as 2 separate users, with separate everything. Now I have an iphone and I want to sync calendars but not contacts or email. Any direction you could give would help! thx

Anyone...anyone? Bueller...Bueller?

Best setup for iMac with SSD & HDD? Best location of scratch & home folders

Best setup for iMac with SSD and HDD? Best location of scratch & home folders?
Computer:
iMac 2.93 GHz Quad core i7, 8GB RAM, 1 TB HDD + 256 GB SSD
There is not much info from Apple about the best way to set up an iMac with a Hard Drive and Solid state drive. I’ve looked at a few of the forum posts across the web and came up with a plan and lots of questions. (I do use photoshop frequently, but not on a professional level):
1. I will keep OS and Applications on SSD
2. About moving the home folder: I saw some posts about moving the whole home folder, but it makes more sense to me to only move selected fodlers withing the home folder tomake the best use of the SSD. So will keep the home folder on SSD, but move certain folders (document /music/iphoto/download) to 1 TB HDD via instructions I found on the macintoshperformanceguide website:
cd
sudo cp -r Documents /Volumes/Master
sudo rm -rf Documents
sudo ln -s /Volumes/Master/Documents Documents
3. I would like to get 8 more RAM when I can afford it
4. I will attach an external hard drive for most of my documents and backup storage
5. Now here is where I’m not sure what’s best:
a. Should I partition my internal 1 TB hard drive and use the first partition as a scratch disc for photoshop and other applications? How much should I partition? Is there any benefit to this if the rive is partitioned?
b. Should I use an external drive as a scratch disc?
c. Any advice on a good 1-2 TB external drive?
d. Should I just leave things in factory settings?
Don't assume I know the basics - I got all the above just by searching around. Any advice and commentary is appreciatedThanks.
Message was edited by: sfandtheworld

Thanks for the advice and the links. yes, I would like to speed up ps as much as possible.
I wonder if putting the scratch disc on the same drive as the OS would cause them to interfere with each other? Even if they are on different partitions, they would not be able to be accessed at the same time, or could they? That's why I was wondering if I should place scratch disc on the internal HDD -- but then I don't know how much to partition for it (or to partition at all?)
ALso, I read on a few places that too much read/write on the SSD wears it down over time? Is this more of a theoretical concerns - it does not make sense to me since it has no moving parts!
thanks again for the advice ... I'm gonna go digest those links

Good Article on Disc Setup for Editing

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