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willab · Nov 9, 2003, 11:50 PM

I would like to build a PC to use for encoding video to Mpeg2, I would still like to use iMovie and FCP to edit on my Mac though. Can I do tthis by networking them with firewire? I do not want any menus for the burning, I want it to auto-play. Any suggestions for PC encoding and burning? How long will a two hour video take to encode?

willab · Nov 10, 2003, 10:34 PM

Is this worth doing, will their be a dramatic speed difference compared to that of my eMac 800mhz? Here are possible specs for the machine http://homepage.mac.com/willabele/comp.pdf

buddhabelly · Nov 11, 2003, 11:36 PM

Originally posted by willab:
Is this worth doing, will their be a dramatic speed difference compared to that of my eMac 800mhz? Here are possible specs for the machine http://homepage.mac.com/willabele/comp.pdf

It would be better if all you want to do is use a seperate computer to encode your video and keep your emac resources free. Not sure about the actual speeds you'll will get with the pc, but probably will be faster than the eMac. Is that only 128MB of ram? Get more if it is.

As for networking over firewire, I think their is a product that does this. http://www.unibrain.com/home/

willab · Nov 12, 2003, 12:58 AM

Originally posted by buddhabelly:
It would be better if all you want to do is use a seperate computer to encode your video and keep your emac resources free. Not sure about the actual speeds you'll will get with the pc, but probably will be faster than the eMac. Is that only 128MB of ram? Get more if it is.

As for networking over firewire, I think their is a product that does this. http://www.unibrain.com/home/

No, the RAM is 768. It looks like I may get an extra Mac for free soon, so I most likely will not do this.

buddhabelly · Nov 12, 2003, 02:38 AM

Originally posted by willab:
No, the RAM is 768. It looks like I may get an extra Mac for free soon, so I most likely will not do this.

I thought it might have been more, but on the pdf all I could see was 64x64.

I had a similar idea when I bought my powerbook, however, I've had troubles figuring out how to do this efficiently, and my tower and monitor take up tons of space. So, since I bought a MOTU 828mkII, my powerbook has really turned into my main and only machine, and I generally try to work it so I encode and render over night, and then have the scheduler shut down the computer when it's done.

willab · Nov 12, 2003, 09:22 AM

Originally posted by buddhabelly:
I thought it might have been more, but on the pdf all I could see was 64x64.

I had a similar idea when I bought my powerbook, however, I've had troubles figuring out how to do this efficiently, and my tower and monitor take up tons of space. So, since I bought a MOTU 828mkII, my powerbook has really turned into my main and only machine, and I generally try to work it so I encode and render over night, and then have the scheduler shut down the computer when it's done.

how do you do this? What software are you using? I have 768 in the eMac, the PC would have 2 512s.

surgestrip · Nov 12, 2003, 10:30 PM

if the pc has winxp it supports 1394 networks w/ no extra soft
if your encoding on the pc use TMPGenc athlon at about 1800+ w/
7200 rpm drive going from dv to mpg2 probably get u realtime encoding

buddhabelly · Nov 13, 2003, 02:59 PM

Originally posted by willab:
how do you do this? What software are you using? I have 768 in the eMac, the PC would have 2 512s.

nevermind. It's just a comination of exhaustion and misreading the PDF you posted.