Video Analysis System

[iduno]

Hiya's,

I need some advice on some PC's we use for analysing stereo video footage at work.

Essentially we record footage from a pair of underwater video cameras that allows us to get accurate length measurements of fish in the frame. In order to analyse the footage we have to playback two video feeds simultaneously to pinpoint the heads and tails of the fish. Until now we've been working on Standard Definition (PAL) cameras with few problems. We've recently upgraded to High Definition cameras which of course results in Higher resolution (1440x1080) and much larger file sizes.

Our PC's are struggling to playback the footage smoothly. The HD video files are about 10Gig each.

I was just wondering what our priority of system requirements should be. Ie. where is our bottleneck likely to be.

One note, our video cards are very low end (ie. the cheapest card the boss could buy with dual monitor support). Since we're not rendering, just playing back is this likely to be causing the stuttering?

We have Striped raid HD's but haven't noticed any diff when using these or external USB HD's so i'm not sure if this helps. (Helps moving files around though)

The PC's are all Intel Dual cores with 2 gig ram. (More RAM?)

Anyway, any advice or assistance would be appreciated.
Thanks.

 

[ahslan]

well when playing the footage, im guessing your cpu activity skyrockets to 100%...this would mean that the video card isn't able to do much work and therefore your CPU is doing most of it...do you happen to know what kind of video cards you guys are running?

 

[iduno]

Yeh, the CPU activity is definately 100% with 2 videos. One video playing at normal speed the CPU it sits at ~70%.

The video cards are x600's and one GF6600 (which seems worse).

 

[iduno]

Actually, One of the PC's apparently fried a vid card a few months ago and they replaced it with a GF9400. On that one the CPU load sits at 25% with one but 100% with two. It does seem to play a lot smoother but still not great.

Maybe it's time to stop buying the cheapest possible card on the market at the time.

 

[batuchka]

Hmm i am thinking the usual cookie cutter video editing build

1. Quadcore
2. lots of RAM
3. fast HDD
4. Decent enuff GPU
I am thinking it won't cost ya an arm and a leg either

 

[ahslan]

ya...it seems like the more modern your gpu is, the better it is at handling HD video...(a powerful processor and lots of ram never hurts either )

The x600 and the 6600 video cards you guys have are outdated...i remember my friend had a 6600 and couldnt even play the HD version of the movie Transformers...upgrading to something current like an ATI 4670 would most likely solve your problems, without drawing too much power form the PSU

 

[iduno]

Thanks guys. Looks like new Vid cards are the simplest solution.

 

[xtc28]

May I ask what your full system specs are. It would also be nice to know what programs you are running to optimize your hardware choices.

Just going on a whim here. Your Processor MAY be ok as a dual core For your steroscopic input (depending on which one). What kind of hardware are you running for input on the board, USB, PCI interface or etc..... The graphics would probably be better for you with a higher end card No LESS than a NVIDIA 9800 GT or ATI HD 4770. Now depending on what input types and configurations your software can provide you may even be better off with a workstation card. When it comes to the size of the files I would have to suggest getting two Seagate 1.5TB HDDs and raid them. You will have plenty of space for what ever you need and plenty of speed