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MillimeterTest Drive: HP Compaq 8710p, Part 2
Nov 26, 2007 12:00 PM, By Jan Ozer
Editing with Autodesk 3ds Max.
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3D Design
Perhaps there’s not a lot of crossover between video editors and 3D design folks, but I wanted to run Autodesk 3ds Max 8 tests to cover all bases, and because the Autodesk program is one of the most efficient multi-threaded programs out there. I rendered two files, both tutorials available on the installation disk. The first was Command Lake Tut from the character animation folder, the other Shop Daylight from the Mental Ray folder. I rendered both to 1920x1080i resolution, using the MOV format and Apple Animation codec.
Table 4. Autodesk 3ds Max test results. All times in min:sec.
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As you can see, results varied with the project type. In the Shop Daylight project, which involved the rendering of complex lighting, 3DS Max proved wonderfully efficient in using the multiple cores. The four-core xw4600 actually exceeded the theoretical maximum by rendering in 2.78X, and the xw8400 come close to its potential, rendering 4.18X faster than the notebook. In the Commander Lake Tut character animation, 3DS Max wasn’t nearly as efficient, and neither system doubled the performance of the notebook.
Encoding with Sorenson Squeeze.
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Streaming Software Encoders
In addition to their DVD production chores, many videographers must convert their footage to streaming formats to send to clients for approval or post to a web site. The two predominant multiformat batch streaming encoders are Grass Valley ProCoder and Sorenson Squeeze. To test how the 8710p held up when producing streaming files, I rendered a one-minute test file to Windows Media, Flash (VP6), Real Media and H.264 using both programs on all three computers (Table 5).
Table 5. Encoding times for Sorenson Squeeze and Grass Valley ProCoder 3. All times in min:sec.
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As you can see, rendering times dropped significantly when producing on the two desktops, but nowhere close to the expected levels.
Summary
If you buy a four-cylinder car, you expect it to accelerate more slowly than the turbo-charged eight-cylinder muscle car, and so it was with our 8710p notebook. In many, very relevant, cases, such as when rendering from Premiere Pro and Vegas, you can expect the notebook to perform at its expected levels. In others, the disparity between notebook and desktop wasn’t that great. Overall, however, since the Intel processor family is now pretty much based on similar technology, there is no unexpected performance disparity for working on a notebook.
In addition, what’s critical to me is that the notebook editing experience is very similar to the desktop—display aside, of course. I can capture my video and perform basic edits with the same general speed as a desktop. For large projects, after editing in the field, I can use Premiere Pro’s Project Manager (click Project > Project Manager) to collect project assets for transfer and rendering to my desktop.
Overall, nothing that I saw came anywhere close to convincing me that it was time to dust-off my desktop CPU carrying case and replace my notebook with a desktop. Unless rendering performance is an absolute priority, the 8710p is definitely preferred for editing on the road.
