#Time to Copy Clip
7 messages in this thread
Chuck,
I keep meaning to ask this.
In future upgrades, will it alway take the same amount of time to copy a video
clip as it does now?
IOW, if I have a 5 minute video clip on Flyer Drive A and I want to copy it to
Flyer Drive B, it takes 5 minutes to make that copy.
Also, after I have recorded a video clip, if I just give the "make clip"
command, it only takes a few seconds for the clip to be made, but if I change
either the in scrubber or the out scrubber, even just a few seconds, it then
takes the same amount of time of the clip to make the clip.
Will there ever be a time when it will just take seconds instead of minutes to
make these clips?
Fred
Hi Fred,
Sorry it's been so long.
I'm sure you'll get the same answer from Chuck but — when you record a clip
those hard drives are a'spinnin and a'recordin just as fast as they can
possibly go (thats why they cause us so much trouble). When you copy a file
from one drive to the other why would you expect it to be able to transfer data
any faster than when you first recorded it? I would have expected copying
clips to be slower than when first recorded and am delighted that they copy
just as fast as it took to record them. I would be extatic if I could back the
darn things up just as quickly (that is real time back-up).
Later,
Russ
Russ,
Good to hear from you. I guess we are both keeping busy.
I just thought that coping a file should be faster than creating it. An audio
file takes just a few seconds to copy. I realize that it is nowhere the size of
the video, but it still needs to be layed down on the drive.
I thought that I had made some test on the AVID as far as file transfers and
that they were faster. The AVID died this week end, so I can't test it right
now. A card went zap.
My son was in Toranto last week for a few days. He tells me the AV people at
hotels there are a lot different than those here. I'll fill you in later if you
are interested.
Fred
Russ has the right tack on the video clips issue. When you record a clip, and
then do make clip without moving the sliders, all that actually has to occur is
changing the name of the new recording from the temporary name given to every
fresh recording to the permanent file name you have entered.
If you move the sliders, then a new clip is created by copying the portion you
have selected to a new file. The temp file is then deleted.
A file name change is instant, the copy takes as much time as recording, again
because the drives are working at their limit when recording or playing back
video. The file sizes are huge. Audio file sizes are tiny in comparison, so
that while a 9G drive holds only 48 minutes of video, a 2G drive will hold
hours of audio.
When copying files, the drive work at their fastest available speed, which will
be the write speed of the target drive. A five-minute HQ5 video clip requires
a drive speed of about 5 megs per second to record or to play and will take up
close to a gigabyte of space. Since any drive out right now that does HQ5 is
right at the threshold for HQ5, i.e. 5M/sec is the drive's top speed, then the
time it would take to copy the file drive to drive is going to equal the time
it takes to play the clip.
A five-minute audio-only clip is only going to be about 60MB. If the drive
copies at 5M/sec, that takes 12 seconds to copy.
So the difference you see in copy times between a five-minute video clip and a
five-minute audio clip is the difference in the time it takes to copy one
gigabyte of data vs the time it takes to copy 60MB of data.
Chuck.
Chuck,
The long copying time in the cutting room makes it very tedious to record a
long clip and then "cut" it into smaller ones.
Often I will simply -duplicate- a long clip many times and then change the in
and out points on the several cshorter clips. This takes -no-time.
The only problem with this is that the duplicated clips have the same name and
icon. Couldn't there be a way to change a -duplicated- clip's name and icon so
re-copying, with it's long waiting time, could be bypassed? This would make a
huge time difference, and seems like it would be a relatively simple thing to
do in software…
I second that one.
Regards,
Gary
Thanks Chuck,
I guess I didn't think my question through before asking it. What you and Russ
say does make sence. I just wish there was a way around it.
I should have the AVID up and running by the end of the week. I am going to see
how long it takes it to copy a file or create a new one with a few seconds
removed from the head and tail. Maybe, the AVID is never really writing to the
disk. Just putting in markers. I'll ask their people about that.
Fred