Mac Pro - Video rendering v's ram

[MaDDoG]

Hi guys - we are in need of new Mac Pro at work. It is fairly well specced and will be used primarily for rendering video and then burning the final product to DVD. From memory it has 2 quad core chip and 4 x 1Tb drives with a Nvidia 8800gt video card and 30" Mac monitor.

The staff member who will b e using this machine has several quotes from suppliers but one thing stands out. Two are quoting with 10 Gb ram included?? When I ask questions of said staff member the response is that it will speed up rendering. I would have considered that 4 Gb would be quite adequate.
It is not the cost that concerns me, merely the need for all that ram.

Thanks for any help re this.

Mark

[Rxx]

I might be completely wrong with this, but while the ram does help, wouldn't it really not make the rendering go any faster? Isnt that more of a CPU issue?

[MaDDoG]

Not sure actually. I think that ram has a fair bit to do with it though.

[Rxx]

Eh, like I said. Not sure. 4 does seem fine to me though. Someone who knows will come around

[bobtomay]

The CPU is the primary workhorse related to encoding.
Do not know what size files you will be working with.
The only things I have done are of course re-encoding DVD's or taking recorded programs, editing out commercials and re-encoding.

I have done this with both 1GB (that was a whole bunch when I built the machine) and 2GB in the system. For what I was doing, did not see any difference in the amount of memory usage when I upped the system memory to 2GB.

This could be quite different in professional apps, don't know. With the ease of adding memory to a MacPro, would think starting with 4GB should be sufficient. Keeping tabs on memory usage. If it hits 70-80% used during the encoding process, then likely it would benefit to some extent by adding more.

You might try to find a forum with some Pro's and see what their experience is.

[MacHeadCase]

Maybe look at this Apple Pro (http://www.apple.com/pro/) section. Sometimes they feature pros working in video editing and they talk of the Macs used with the specs and software, etc.

[MaDDoG]

The CPU is the primary workhorse related to encoding.
Do not know what size files you will be working with.
The only things I have done are of course re-encoding DVD's or taking recorded programs, editing out commercials and re-encoding.

I have done this with both 1GB (that was a whole bunch when I built the machine) and 2GB in the system. For what I was doing, did not see any difference in the amount of memory usage when I upped the system memory to 2GB.

This could be quite different in professional apps, don't know. With the ease of adding memory to a MacPro, would think starting with 4GB should be sufficient. Keeping tabs on memory usage. If it hits 70-80% used during the encoding process, then likely it would benefit to some extent by adding more.

You might try to find a forum with some Pro's and see what their experience is.

Thanks Bob - I have done a little asking around at different sites. The files we have to render can be anywhere from 7 minutes to 6 hours NTSC MPEG4 D1 quality video plus attached two channel audio.
The current Mac Pro we have is now almost 2 years old and very slow to render. It has only 2 gig ram I think from what I remember when I specced it out. We are now getting behind because of the amount of requests for evidence we are getting so its time to double our output ability. While doing so I felt it was a good idea to get a better machine.

Maybe look at this Apple Pro (http://www.apple.com/pro/) section. Sometimes they feature pros working in video editing and they talk of the Macs used with the specs and software, etc.

Thanks MHC - I'll have a look tomorrow.