@Steve-McClelland

Hi

Send them something like this:

The PC I am looking for is for video editing, not gaming. The particular editing software I am using is designed to take maximum advantage of the Intel processor integrated GPU for hardware acceleration of video decoding, rendering and encoding and as such is an essential component.

A Nvidia graphics can also be used to the programs advantage for decoding and render acceleration of some effects and third party plugins of the software, however it does not play any part in the final encoding step of the video being exported.

The Nvidia Studio drivers also require installing, not the gaming drivers.

HTH

John EB

Ok they agreed now with i7-10700k with UHD630 fro extra £78.

other suggestion was:-

Intel stock cooler - replace with a four pipe cooler - I have replaced mine with an Arctic Freezer 34 eSport (single fan) the processor runs about 10° cooler when under heavy load and also means the computer is quieter as the fan is large and rotates slower.

Is this absolutely necessary as costs going up.

Hi Steve.

There are editors that have better use of using the 'more cores the better' approach such as Adobe Premier Pro and the full version of Da Vinci Resolve but really need top end Ryzen processors to get the best out of the programs whereas Movie Edit Pro and other editors like Pinnacle Studio rely more on the Intel Quick sync component of the Intel GPU to handle video decoding while the majority of the 3D graphics processing is then shared with an additional GPU. As one GPU dips in its processing you can see the other take over as in the image below.

Note where the Intel GPU dips in usage, my nvidia card is working hard on the graphics side of things.

Also note on the next image how little work the nvidia card is doing although the vram gets pressed into action.

I would have done a video you could show them but using a screen recorder at the same time skewers the nvidia contribution from task manager as the screen recorder relies heavily on using the nvidia card.

You should be able to copy and paste the images into your email to them.

Their main objection seems to be the additional cost of the CPU and trying to keep the cost to your budgetary constraints. For that you can not blame them but most engineers are not program coders as well.

Not that any of us here profess to be either (although there are a few engineers and other experienced users here) and with most software companies being reluctant to share how they go about getting the performance out of their software we users are reduced to observing and taking what measurements we can and over time find out which components work better with the program.

The somewhat confusing MEP specifications page is probably the result of a battle between the advertising people and the program coders. With the advertising people saying if we stress this aspect of the program it will not seem competitive in the market place. That I know from my time connected to the advertising industry. They will only push the positives and negate as many of what they see as negatives to one side.

That is why I visit the forums of any prospective program I wish to buy first.

Ray.

@Steve-McClelland

Hi Steve.

Have just seen your additional post.

Yes I would go for a four heat pipe cooler. Quieter though is a relative subject. My pc is in a sound deadened room so any noise seems loud. My graphics card makes more noise than my CPU cooler although the additional contribution to sound levels all add up. Often the pitch of the sound is more annoying than the level.

Ray.

Ok Latest spec offered. Your thoughts please

PC Specification…

Case 

Aerocool Rift Glass Windowed Case

Power Supply 

Aerocool Cylon 700W Power Supply 80 Plus

Processor 

Intel Core I7-10700K 3.8 GHz (5.1 Turbo) 8-Core

Cooler 

Aerocool Cylon 4 ARGB CPU Air Cooler – 120mm

Motherboard 

MSI MPG Z490 GAMING EDGE WIFI ATX Motherboard

SSD 

M.2 NVME - 1TB Samsung 970 EVO PLUS SSD

Secondary HDD 

Western Digital Black 3.5" 10000 GB Serial ATA III

Third HDD 

CUSTOMERS: 4tb WD Black HDD (NOT TO BE FORMATTED) 

Memory 

16GB DDR4

Wi-Fi Card 

Using the onboard WiFi

Graphics Card 

NVIDIA GTX 1660 6GB Graphics Card

Card Reader 

Included on the case. 

Optical Drive 

N/A

Operating System 

Windows 10 Home - OEM

Warranty 

1 Year Return to Base

@Steve-McClelland

Hi

The use of the stock cooler or a better one is up to you - depending on whether you can stand the whine when rendering as it ramps up to full speed.

I replaced the stock cooler after about 2 years as the whining became annoying and after removing it I found it was showing signs of bearing wear so failure would have been on the cards in the near future.

John EB

@Steve-McClelland

Hi.

The spec looks good to me. The graphics card is more than I would have spent but I don't game and it could be better than mine for a smoother playback experience.Either way it will not reduce export times as much as having the Intel GPU in the system. The processor is very nice. I don't know the power supply but the wattage looks OK. I can't find a dbm rating for the cooler noise so no idea if it should be better or worse than another one.

No real objections to the spec at all.

Ray.

@Steve-McClelland

Hi Steve

The specs look good, and the GTX 1660 is a good card. I assume the second drive has a typo in there :

. . . . Western Digital Black 3.5" 10000 GB  . . . . .

AFAIK there is no WD Black drive that large ie 10 TB.

John EB

https://shop.westerndigital.com/en-gb/products/internal-drives/wd-black-desktop-sata-hdd#WD101FZBX

@Steve-McClelland

I knew it existed.😉 They are relatively new drives aimed primarily at gamers. The blurb tells you roughly how many games you would expect a given drive to support. Mostly marketing bumph but good drives in the past.

That's the first time I've seen it listed for creatives though. Both have similar needs for performance. It's going to make backups a pain 😇 That seems a reasonable price as well.

Ray.

I actually specified that drive as I currently have a WD Black 4tb Installed in current pc.

@Steve-McClelland, @CubeAce

Hi

Well I = (b/a) * pi * i * e / mu.

John EB

@johnebaker @Steve-McClelland

Don't feel bad John, it hadn't reached the WD spec sheet pdf when I last looked. New arm mechanism I think Load/unload cycles ⁴300,000 and comes with 5 year warranty now. Possibly to compete with the Seagate Iron Wolf drives. Looks like a whole new drive. This is what, 5th generation or more of the WD Black drive?

Ray.

@CubeAce

Hi Ray

. . . . Don't feel bad John . . . .

It was a surprise to see the WD Black disc of that size for gaming! In servers and NAS devices yes, for gaming ???.

@Steve-McClelland

Hi

What is your backup regime and devices for your video files?

John EB

Ray, you mentioned the graphics is higher than you would of done but you are not a gamer, however neither am I. i don't game at all. Only want upgrade to edit video, no gaming at all. Therefore what could I put in instead to reduce costs. and still be good enough

@johnebaker

Hi John.

How big is Microsoft Flight Simulator? 😂 Also look at things like RED camera footage. Niche market? Maybe.

@Steve-McClelland

Hi Steve.

That is actually a difficult question at present with current inflated prices for even good second hand graphic cards. Your offering at least will be OK but I seriously don't know because most prices are much higher than they should be right now. If you have been offered that card at a good price then there may be nothing to be gained looking for a less capable one that may cost just under that price due to current demand. If you don't like it you would not lose out much if you sold it a bit later at the moment. Replacing it could be trickier. Normally I would feel that going above a 1060 (now de-funked and hard to get) would normally have been an investment of diminishing returns of cost vs performance, video editing wise. Useful if you do other things like John Baker does. I opted for a 4GB 1650 super at the time because it is adequate but at the time was also relatively cheap. I think on reflection the 6GB version may have been a better buy but that's life. Also the card uses DDR6 vram not DDR5. No real idea if that helps or not but makes me feel better 😂.

So bottom line. If you are being offered that card at a reasonable price then take it. It won't do any harm and the benefit of it over a lower card may be more than I think. It's just we don't see a great deal of difference between our different cards performance vs cost within reason between members. I think it needs not to be too old a model using a more recent internal architecture rather than worrying about the amount of ram beyond 4GB, but the one offered to you is OK from that viewpoint.

Ray.

@CubeAce

. . . . How big is Microsoft Flight Simulator? . . . .

Approx 150 GB all in.

About the same amount as my last big project which contained 151 GB of video and 7GB of images taken over a period of 9 weeks, all told I have about 10 TB of video in backups over 6 backup drives spanning 14 years.

John EB

Hi Guys,

Just starting a new project and was going to use a movie template but they are not there. I have downloaded the extra content and says all downloaded, any ideas where they are as only one showing at the moment

@Steve-McClelland

Hi Steve.

Leave it open for a while where the content should be. Sometimes the program is doing background sorting before everything appears the first few times the program is opened. Do you know what is missing?

Ray.

All of them missing. Ok think i found them on my B drive but program is installed on C drive, where should I copy them to

@Steve-McClelland

Hi Steve,

When you installed, you were asked to determine the path for VideoContent. The default is:

C:\Users\Public\Documents\MAGIX\Common\Videocontent\Movie Edit Pro Plus\MovieTemplates

(Yours will be Premium) unless you put them somewhere else.

So, you don't see the above items?

FYI, there are various durations available. As soon as you select one of the templates, a folder is created under your MEP Projects (if that's what you use) with the name of the template, for example:

B:\Documents\MAGIX\Movie Edit Pro Plus\Projects\

and several MVP files are created:

• 2014_Aurelia_120s.MVP
• 2014_Aurelia_15s.MVP 
• 2014_Aurelia_180s.MVP
• 2014_Aurelia_30s.MVP 
• 2014_Aurelia_60s.MVP 
• 2014_Aurelia_90s.MVP 

If you want a different duration, just open one of the variants and save it with a new name for your project.

The only problem is that it will open in Timeline mode, not template mode. Just replace the placeholders with your own stuff using Swap or shortcut 4 on the top of your keyboard.

Or, you can do it using the Movie Template interface by selecting the Movie Template and the Settings button at the bottom right of the Media Pool and selecting a duration.

John CB

Thanks the one i can see is where you linked to C:\Users\Public\Documents\MAGIX\Common\Videocontent\Movie Edit Pro Plus\MovieTemplates, however thats it, so I will copy them over from the b drive, I must of selected wrong drive when downloaded. Super.