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Video
Creation The AMD Way
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Author : Wayne
Date : 23rd December 2002
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Introduction :
This article is something I've had churning away
in the dark recesses of my mind for some time now and I should
really start by thanking Rabah over at AMD, Evesham Technology,
Jeff Hyland at JVC, Steve Wise at Pinnacle and Judd Hughes at
Bennets Electical (Bangor) without who this would never have
happened. Let me state right from the outset that if you're
here hoping to find masses of information on advanced videography
you're going to be sorely disappointed, I'm approaching this
whole article from the only standpoint I reasonably can, that
of a total novice. Okay so I'm not quite a complete video virgin,
as a qualified photographer I did also dabble in video for a
short while and tried my hand at editing with a pretty rudimentary
twin SVHS VCR setup accompanied by a cheap genlock
and an even cheaper audio mixer.
So what's a video novice doing writing a review
on video creation and editing? Well the way I see it there are
a lot more people in my situation than there are pro or semipro
videographers and the ones most likely to benefit from my discoveries
and my mistakes are those who, like me, are at the start of
what seems like a very daunting learning curve. Because of my
privileged position as the owner of a hardware review site I
get to loan rather than buy the equipment needed to put together
this article and this of course means my mistakes cost me nothing.
By sharing these mistakes I hope I can also serve to make you
aware of the pitfalls and save you some money in the process.
The primary platform for the editing side of this
article will be the humble PC. Lots of people own camcorders
and they almost mindlessly transfer hours of footage to tape
without even thinking about how much better the final results
could look with a little time and thought. For many of these
people the word "editing" conjures up an image of
some guy sat behind a desk bedecked with hundreds of sliders
and dials lit by little more than the half dozen monitors flickering
away in front of him. Even those like myself who've dabbled
a bit tend to still envisage the disapproving look on the faces
of the family as you commandeer most of the living room with
your bulky equipment and rat's nest of cables, extension leads
and scribbled notes, not to mention the fact that they're missing
Coronation Street while all this is going on. Modern computers
have revolutionised home video editing but for some reason it's
still a bit of an elitist practice and while it's true that
a powerful computer will certainly ease the process the fact
is that just about anybody with a 200MHz or faster PC has a
world of possibilities at their fingertips. Hopefully during
the course of this article I can debunk some of the myths that
video creation and editing is some kind of dark, mysterious
art best left to the wealthy and the broadcast companies and
inspire you to give it a go for yourself.
The Background :
It all started about six months ago when I was
talking to Paul Dutton of DVDoctor
fame (now one of the main men over at The
Overclocking Store). I mentioned how I figured it was time
I took a fresh look at the world of video and how it had evolved
in my absence. Being the guy he is he immediately became enthusiastic
about the idea and began suggesting ways of going about it.
A couple of weeks later I was talking to our good friend Rabah
over at AMD about my plans and he also seemed very keen on getting
this project off the ground. Before long the groundwork was
laid and we had Steve Wise from Pinnacle, Evesham Technology
and JVC onboard to help get things moving. In terms of the PC
used we all decided it was probably best to run with an "off-the-peg"
system rather than some unattainable custom built rig simply
so that anybody wanting to go out and buy our test platform
could do so. I'd had experience in the past with Evesham so
it seemed logical I should use one of their systems and Rabah
kindly took on the role of coordinator to get everyone singing
from the same hymn sheet. The biggest decision we made was to
use a dual processor Athlon MP system and while this may seem
initially to go against our aim of keeping things mainstream
I think we also need to work on the myth that multiprocessor
platforms are only for powerful servers or the hardware extremist.
AMD processors have led the way in terms of price and functionality
for some time now and while I won't pretend you need to follow
my route down the dual CPU road in order own a perfectly capable
editing system if you can afford to do it you'll not regret
it. If your intentions are to do nothing more than add a bit
of music to the Christmas and holiday footage then a dual processor
system is probably overkill but if you're equipping yourself
with even half a mind towards making this a more serious hobby
or even earning a living from it then the time savings gained
from running dual processors will certainly start to make sense
over time. The other thing a dual processor system affords me
is flexibility. This way I can simply whip out one of the two
CPUs and compare the benefits of one against the other.
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