Avid Liquid v7.0 Recommendations for System Builders Systems & Workstations Generic Cookbook December 2005 Avid Technology, Inc. Avid Technology Park, One Park West, Tewksbury, MA 01876 Copyright © 2005 Avid Technology, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Product specifications are subject to change without notice or obligation.
Avid Liquid – Recommendations for System Builders OVERVIEW: Technical Background Explains how Liquid processes data and explains how PC components impact Liquid’s performance. Build Your Own System Explains how to build a cost-effective non- xw8200 system that meets the customer’s expectations. TECHNICAL BACKGROUND During capture, the incoming video and audio signal is converted to an uncompressed data stream in the Liquid Pro box and sent to the PC via the USB 2.0 interface.
The reverse process applies for playback and editing. At first, the data is read from the hard disk to the main memory. The CPU takes the data from the main memory and decodes to YUV (uncompressed) for further processing. The decoded video is written back to the main memory. Now CPU and GPU effects can be rendered on the original video. CPU and GPU effects read the uncompressed data of the frames they have to process from RAM and calculate new frames based on effects and filters.
System Disk • SATA: J low price, high capacity K performance L reliability • SCSI: J highly reliable J good performance L high price, lower capacity • SCSI disk with SATA interface J lower price K lower performance, capacity and reliability Conclusion: use what you prefer, if you want to use a SCSI JBOD on the onboard dual channel SCSI controller you should choose the SATA or SCSI on SATA interface for the system drive to keep both SCSI channels reserved for the JBOD.
b. Encode the uncompressed data stream of the Liquid Pro box (see above) c. Handle the decoding of the compressed media (like DV, HDV) d. Process the realtime CPU effects, which are the higher quality realtime effects e. Process all media data, like all of the data needed for an HD image; bear in mind that the CPUs decompress the data, so a HDV clip with a data rate of 25 MBit on the disk becomes huge after decompression and processed in the system.
Background information: The graphics card is highly integrated into Liquid’s internal data processing. A state-of-the-art GPU (Graphics Processing Unit, processor on the graphics card) is very powerful and processes the video that has been decompressed by the CPU. The graphics board has a significant influence on the performance if you are using realtime GPU effects, as the load for decompression and realtime effects processing is balanced between the CPU and GPU.
a. b. c. d. e. f. Studiou.mod rm.exe umi.exe reintime.exe masfilter.exe watcher.exe The following file types must be excluded from virus scanning: 2vuy avi bmp bsi dif dv dvd dvsd ft index index2 idx jpg m2v mif mlk mmx mov mp3 mpa mxf pk png pcd pcx psd tga tif vfo wav wma xlk xml yuv Avid Liquid System Requirements Please also check Avid.com for the latest changes in Avid Liquid and Liquid Pro system requirements.
