"It's really amazing...That computer can save me hours at a time." Tim Taylor

"Action!" is taking on a whole new meaning for film editor Tim Taylor. And it has more to do with what happens when the camera stops rolling than when it starts.

Action is just what Taylor is getting from his latest "prop," a computer powered by an AMD Athlon™ processor.

"It's really fast. That's what we care about here," Taylor said of the AMD Athlon processor, AMD's newest chip offering. "That computer can save me hours at a time."

Taylor is the main man behind the camera at The Production Group, a video production, film production and post-production studio in Austin, Texas.

Two years ago, Taylor operated out of an analog edit suite, complete with a range of specialized expensive editing devices.

"It looked just like a TV station," Taylor said.

The Production Group has since moved to non-linear editing, relying on powerful desktop computers for its post-production needs. The desktop environment is an astonishing one, said Taylor, and less costly than the analog editing studio.

However, in switching to a desktop environment, The Production Group sacrificed real-time editing capabilities for lengthy computer rendering times. With the powerful AMD Athlon processor, Taylor returns to high-speed editing.

Rapid rendering

Since he began using an AMD Athon processor-based system, Taylor said he is typically saving up to 50 percent in rendering time compared to his previous desktop platform. With some applications, including Adobe After Effects, Taylor indicates he has seen rendering speed multiply as much as four-fold.

"It's really amazing," he said.

The Production Group's clients benefit from the rapid rendering times as well.

"Any client from the TV world is still used to having things happen in real time. He doesn't want to sit there, even for an hour, waiting for something to render," Taylor said. "It's getting to the point where they can walk out of the studio with the product."

With the fast rendering turnaround the AMD Athlon processor enables, Taylor also can create more complex graphical effects.

"Speed makes you finish faster. Now I can add a couple more layers. The quality of what you produce is better," he said.

Sheer speed also helps when your business is a one-man operation, as The Production Group is, allowing Taylor to accomplish more work overall.

In the past, Taylor's desktops have frequently choked on complex graphical software. The AMD Athlon processor-based system has been compatible with all the applications Taylor ordinarily uses.

"It's just been seamless," he said.

The AMD Athlon processor has even had positive repercussions on Taylor's personal life.

"For any graphics guy, being able to render faster means he gets to go home earlier. He gets to see his kids," Taylor said.