Hi jacquestoo

I use external drives which are USB 3.0 as the the ports on my Laptop are USB 3.0. The drives I use are Seagate Sata III drives in pairs. That is, the external is set up as a raid 0 with two seagates in each. The drives are 10K Rpm drives and it has a marked effect of using both Edius & Lightworks on my Laptop. If for exmple you switch to a standard USB 2.0 drive, then both applications are sluggish.
This of course depends on what files you are trying to manipulate. HD 1920x1080 XDCam files just don't cut it for speed IMHO if you are not using fast drives connected to a high speed port. E-Sata is another option.

Edius uses highly efficient codecs such as HQ & HQX which results in a smoother playback of HD Images but it will slow down if the hardware is not up to it. Setting up buffers and projects correctly is the key here. I generally use HQX to provide TAW 4 with the necessary files to burn Blue-ray discs on location for example.

Lightworks handles 2 streams of full HD along with Keyed bottom of frame supers, & transitions including 8 Audio tracks. Some projects will also include VFX and Colour Correction. This is where Lightworks can slow down particularly if you have a lot of Colour Correction. Best advice here is to render the results and again this is where hardware up to the task is important. AFAIK Lightworks hands all image processing to the graphics card GPU so an under specced graphics card will cause freezing & jerky playback.
However, I have to export the file to TMPGenc Video Mastering 5 to burn a Blue-ray disc. Playing Lightworks timelines is flawless on my laptop probably because there are no bottlenecks in terms of data throughput.

There is some discussion regarding the 10bit v 8bit pathways in Edius, but certain aspects such as the Layouter and CC can be performed on files at full 10 bit.

Your question regarding whether your laptop is up to the task, I have had Lightworks running on much lower specced machines and it works well, but having the hardware to support the file types and data transfer rates is most important. Pro-Res and Cineform files are not taxing on Lightworks at all but Jaquestoo I don't edit long lengths of material. Most of the files I deal with are batch captured with in and out points so as to just take in the amount of the file I need as opposed to huge files being resident on the system. I would imagine with long files, buffer underun etc may occur on slower systems. My shots can last from say 1 minute for a PTC (Piece to camera) to individual shots for overlay from 2 to 10 seconds. Habit really, but the idea of just ingesting long lengths of video that I probably won't use is well just a waste of time imho

I would think that graphics cards can be replaced although Dell may not offer this on some of their models as they seem to team up components pretty well.

Perhaps just to make things easier on your Laptop running light works, I would suggest culling the length of the files if you just don't need them.

Cheers

Ronnie

OK, comparisons seem to be in order in this thread. Ronnie, how do you think Symphony/Media Composer compares with the other two (LW/Edius)?

Of course this can't take in to account the vast price differential between Symphony and LW... roughly $6,000 currently, compared to how much for Lightworks?

(This is a serious question, Ronnie, despite the jokey piece in the para above.)

jwrl wrote:


Hi Jwrl,

A soon as I had responded I thought have I just stepped into the comparison quiz.

The simple response here is use what will do the job. Be it LWKS,EDIUS,MC/Symphony/FCP/Smoke along with what you are most comfortable using. Remember editors spend lots of time alone in dark rooms looking through vision so the better the match to software the more enjoyable the experience.

As an owner/user of Media Composer and Symphony 6 on a machine I built to Avid Specifications and above,
I have nothing but admiration for their software. It integrates into my workflow seamlessly but again the machine it is running on was purpose designed and so I would expect nothing less.

Jwrl has also made mention the price difference. Absolutely correct

I feel Symphony has the edge for Primary & Secondary Colour Correction, Avid Visual FX combined with Boris Continuum Complete make for an excellent alternative to After Effects. I use Twixtor & Re-visions Blur Plugins as well and the results are startling on Symphony. I have this setup with its own RAID as I use this system for more longer term Projects/Series.
With the above in mind, I find the Avid interface well laid out and switching focus within the application is great. The cost of this system is probably the main detractor but it is capable of much more than just editing.

Lightworks in my workflow would be used more for Daily Projects where the emphasis is on the cut rather than "can we kinda do some effects on this" It is a doddle to edit on, uncluttered and straight to the point. It is stable on my Laptop allows me to take projects to clients & review/re-edit there and then at their location.
I know this sounds weird but I have even taken a program I cut on LW way back in the beta days that Lawyers needed to see before hand. So portability is key here.

The two main codecs I use are ProRes and DNxHD so all my systems incl Edius must be able to use these file types along with any others that comes along. This is where Edius is in class of its own. As stated by Jacquestoo it will play just about any file you attempt. This is extremely handy when a client comes in with his/her special memories..you know what I mean, its in that special format nothing will play...and you must be able to accommodate it somehow Edius will do it.... usually.

So I think i may be the wrong person to ask for comparisons in NLE's as I love using every one of them. They all achieve the same result ultimately and they are like humans really......quirky I mean

Cheers

Ronnie

ABCRONNIE wrote:

Arguably, in my book, that makes you exactly the right person to ask. Thanks for the post.

Hey guys, Ronnie and jwrl. I've seldom enjoyed watching a techno-philosophical discussion more than your present one. Don't believe everything you think (from the musings of the great Jacquestoo) Remember what you told me three months ago, jwrl? You told me to use whatever tools work for my purposes. I didn't forget. And thanks for all the input, everybody. J.

I would like to refer the Edius 6.5/LW 11.01 incompatibility in the presence of the Phenom II-6 1090T processor to the BUGS section. I fully concur and agree with ABCRonnie on the cause(s). J.