Harmy

Well, there is a DVD9 AVCHD version but I'm not sure it can be played on XBox.

Oh, I see. Thanks :-)

Oh, I wondered if something like that was possible. Might it also be possible to render the x264 file using my script without the lossless intermediate?

Jan said:

Edit: One thing that just came to my mind is your rendering/encoding process. Do you have a lossless intermediate of some kind and then encode using x264.exe? Or does all that happen within the Adobe software?

 I render a UT Video lossless file from After Effects and then I just run the x264 script in command line.

Congrats to your new PC;-) What kind of specs does it have?

Intel Core i7-4770K

GIGABYTE GA-Z87-D3HP - Intel Z87

Kingston HyperX Beast 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 2400 XMP

2x WD Red - 3TB

Well, it's enough to put me off the idea :-)

Thank you - I'll try that. Could the same script be used with 64bit version of x264?

So, I'm testing my new computer's capabilities and I decided to do this by finishing the first half-hour of ESB v2.0 and trying to render it the same way I would an AVCHD version - this led me to two realizations:

A) My new computer rocks!

B) I tried rendering the first half-hour of ESB v2.0 with the same settings I used for the v2.1 AVCHD of SW and the quality of the AVCHD encode isn't very good compared to the results I was getting for the SW AVCHD, so this means I'll need to create a new set of settings for ESB's rendering. As I'm not very knowledgeable about such things, I could use some help with that - this is the script I used (written for me by Jan, who I'm not sure is still around here but I sure owe that guy for helping me immensely back when I was rendering SW v2.0):

"K:\\FINAL ENCODE\x264.exe" --pass 1 --bitrate 6500 --bluray-compat --level 4.1 --preset slow --keyint 48 --sar 1:1 --slices 4 --vbv-bufsize 15000 --vbv-maxrate 15000 --open-gop --weightp 0 --colorprim bt709 --transfer bt709 --colormatrix bt709 --me umh --merange 64 --deblock -1:-1 --qcomp 0.8 --stats ".stats" --output NUL "K:\FINAL ENCODE\ESB WP 1.avs


"K:\\FINAL ENCODE\x264.exe" --pass 2 --bitrate 6500 --bluray-compat --level 4.1 --preset slow --keyint 48 --sar 1:1 --slices 4 --vbv-bufsize 15000 --vbv-maxrate 15000 --open-gop --weightp 0 --colorprim bt709 --transfer bt709 --colormatrix bt709 --me umh --merange 64 --deblock -1:-1 --qcomp 0.8 --stats ".stats" --output "G:\ESB_WPfile1.264" "K:\FINAL ENCODE\ESB WP 1.avs"

PAUSE

And here are some PNG screens showing the difference between the original lossless render from AE and the x264 encode made from it using the above script. The screens marked A are from the lossless render and those marked B are from the x264 encode. I uspcaled them to 1920x1080 because the difference is much more visible in full-screen 1080p. It is also much more intrusive in movement - any suggestions on how to alter the script to make it better? It doesn't matter if it makes the rendering slower - with the new CPU it should run quite fast anyway :-)

After I have the new script ready, I'm going to test it by rendering the whole first half of ESB v2.0 (which should be done soon) and post it as a workprint.

So, I finally installed all the necessary software to test the beast out and it's wonderful (THANKS AGAIN TO EVERYONE WHO DONATED!!!) - rendering runs much much faster than on the old computer - I tried rendering the first half-hour of ESB v2.0 with the same settings I used for the v2.1 AVCHD of SW and the average speed of the second pass was around 35fps, whereas, if I remember correctly, I was getting like 3fps with the old computer. (BTW, I wrote more about this in the ESB thread).

At first I was a bit disappointed with the rendering speed in After Effects (BTW, I'd like to thank Chris Solo for donating the entire Adobe Creative Suite 5 Production Premium package to me!) but then I realized I didn't have multi-threading turned on - after that, it runs like lightning (although, when I selected 4 CPUs to be used, each could be allocated maximum 2GB of memory (it always keeps some memory for the system) and the rendering kept crushing, so I had to allocate 3GB to each CPU and this resulted in only 2 CPUs being used for rendering, which is a bit slower but still miles better than what I was used to - but I guess, I will have to save up for some additional RAM in order to get maximum use out of my CPU :-)

I was thinking about it but I really don't think I need it.

Well, I decided to forgo the 746GB for now and just install the Windows and then save up for another, smaller HDD. Hopefully, I'll be able to backup the system and then restore it to the new HDD when get it.

Well, that's what I did, only I made the system HDD 250GB, just to be on the safe side.

I'm not sure - but I think they already are - one shows up as disc 0 and the other as disc 1.

Well, I went to bios, changed all the booting options to UEFI only (some were set to Legacy) and after restart, it didn't recognize the DVD as a bootable device.

GIGABYTE GA-Z87-D3HP - Intel Z87

I'm sorry, I have no idea what that means or how to do it.

OK, so, I have quite a problem on my hands - apparently Windows can't be installed on an HDD with a GTP partitioning.

So, for now, I will have to live with 5TB instead of 6TB and then, when I have some money, I'll have to get a smaller HDD to move the system to.

The different colors are explained in that video you linked to.

I actually figured it out - I used these instructions on the non-system HDD and it worked just fine and I made two partitions on it, one large one and one small one, to which I'll install the Windows on re-install and then after the re-install, I'll do the same with the disc which currently has the system on it.

Yeah, I'll be reinstalling either way.

Well, I didn't choose to partition it this way - in the menu when installing Windows and selecting where I want to install the OS, the HDD space already showed up divided into two 2TB chunks of un-allocated space, which it was possible to allocate and two 746.52GB chunks of un-allocated space, which it was not possible to allocate.

And they are internal HDDs, one of which is my system HDD.

So, I've hit a bit of a snag with the new computer - there's exactly 746.52GB on each of the 3TB drives that the system simply refuses to allocate to a partition. I tried looking for solutions online but no luck - so far, I only managed to find out that I'm far from being the only one with this problem.

So, the Windows did arrive today and everything seems to be running smoothly.

Here are some pictures:

No, I got WD Reds.

Thanks for the link, I'll check it out.

So the computer is up and running but I don't have legally activated Windows yet, because I ordered it slightly cheaper from a different company and it hasn't arrived yet - but hopefully it should arrive today or tomorrow at the latest. Meanwhile, now would be ideal time to test the HDDs but I really don't know how to go about it.

We'll start building tonight :-)

I decided to forgo a DVD ROM in favor of a better case and power supply :-) I have an external BD-RW, so I have no need for an internal DVD-RW.

BTW, what were the tests someone suggested I ran on the HDDs? And is there a tutorial on how to do it?