Optimal PC configuration for SmartCutter

[basa]

I’m planning to change my PC to 4GB RAM notebook or to 8GB RAM HTPC. I like to use Integrated CPU/GPU architecture and USB3 devices (USB3 Pendrives, USB3 external HDDs) with SSD only config (no internal HDD) to cut about 300MB sized MP4 files from my camera and about 900MB sized TS (H.264) files from my DVB-T PVR. To decrease the number and amount of SSD writes, and to speed up the process, I like to use RAMdisk. But to judge if these have sense (to optimize the process speed and diminish SSD writes) it is important to know how Smart Cutter works: what is using, when and where.

I can
1. specify the input file and open it
2. play it
3. mark the in and out positions
4. write it to specified output file (red convert button)
I like to write back the original (.MP4, .TS) formats, no format conversion needed.
How the RAM, the fix and temporary files are used during the above steps? What are the dynamics (mechanics) during the work of SmartCutter?
I’ve seen that SmartCutter using the same directory for some temporary files where the exe file is. So it is useful to copy the SmartCutter folder from SSD to RAMdisk before starting it (it would be useful to allow to specify the TEMP file directory in next SmartCutter releases to avoid this copy).
Questions: Is SmartCutter
1. works in RAM and use RAMdisk for temp files (as I started to run it from there)?
2. read portions of the input file to RAM or to RAMdisk temp files? (It doesn’t read the whole file to RAM or tempfile I suppose)
3. using directly the input file, the RAM or the temp files during play?
4. writing to the specified Output file from RAM or from temp file?
The answers may come from the size of the input/output files. For example if the input file fits to RAM then the whole file is read to RAM and no tempfiles are used, otherwise it is divided between RAM and temp file etc. The process might be more colorful if I add to list some portions and record the list (write the portions at list to one joined file), especially if the portions in the list are from different input files. Division of physical RAM to logical RAM and to RAMdisk is also a question (I don’t prefer to run any other application during SmartCutter run)
I can use RAMdisk for output file too, as my 2TB USB3 HDD is full with my archives and if it destroyed by writing directly to it from SmartCutter it would be very annoying.
How important the CPU speed (where Intel is better) or the GPU (where AMD is better till now) based tools? How important is the number of cores/threads? I prefer to use AMD Trinity APU with UVD3 or Intel Yvy Bridge with HD4000 DirectSync using Windows 7. Are these important for SmartCutter? How the speed/tricks of these processing elements relate to the speed of read/writes? For example to cut the middle 300MB portion of an 900MB TS file, writing takes much more time than processing, so the fast HDD is much important than the fast CPU, QuickSync is much better to cut than UVD3, only 1 processor is used, so multicores are not relevant, CPU frequency is more important than . Windows 7 64 bit version is better than Windows 7 32bit version or XP 32 bit version because.. etc.

Any quantitative advice (how much in percentage) would be highly appreciated

[admin]

Dear basa:
Thanks for your message.

Here is the way how Smart Cutter works:
In the Options, you can specify an output dir other than the input files', this will improve the read/write procedure.
1.Smart Cutter simply reads data directly from input file, no temp RAM or file involved.
2.Smart Cutter always creates all the temp files of cut process under its installed (exe) dir; neither the input file dir nor the output file dir.
3.Smart Cutter writes output file directly into the output dir, no temp RAM or file involved.
4.No more other operations.

5.Hardware configuration is not very important to Smart Cutter, since only small parts of the movie are re-encoded.

If our answer does not fullfil your demand, please keep on posting your further questions.

Please feel free to send us your further advice and suggestion.
Thank you very much.

Best Regards,
FameRing Support Team