Advice Needed - Home Video Editing setup

[RBC]

I want to upgrade a machine to do a ton of home video editing / DVD burning over the next year. I want to keep my current ATI 8500 pro but I was hoping for mobo/cpu/memory recommendations, in particular whether I should go intel or stay with AMD. I'm hoping to stay below $300 for the three. The lags and slow downs with Studio 8 on a AMD 1700, K7S5A/Crucial 2100 - 512 mb are driving me nuts. Thanks in advance for the help.

 

[tdent1138]

I don't do a tremendous amount of hardcore editing, but I do play with my DV movies - streamed in via firewire - and my setup works very nicely. Check my sig for details. The only real specific recommendation I would make is that if you are doing alot of encoding, I would tend to go with *gasp* Intel rather than AMD unless you're going to be able to go with an A64. All the benchmarks I've seen do indicate that the Intels are faster encoders. My next system will be an A64 without doubt (assuming Intel doesn't stun me with their 64 bit piece in the next few months - as in whenever HL2/D3 come out).

BTW, if you go Intel, make sure you get a Northwood, not a Prescott...

 

[SgtZulu]

Hahaha a video editing machine for under $300

Go home kid you make me laugh

 

[Markfw]

Pinnacle Studio 8 is a special animal, and in your price range also, I think the best you could do is something like a Athlon64 3000+, and motherboard, and use your memory (if it will even boot with 2100 in there) and set the bios down to (gasp) 133. When you get money, get a gig of PC3500, but that is like $300 for the good stuff. I have Pinnacle Studio 8 and run it on a XP2400 cpu and 512 meg PC2700. It does fine. I even used it on an XP1800 with 512, and noticed the difference.

An alternative would be NF7-S and XP2500 CPU and memory, but you could only get 512 meg to fit the $300 budget, or (gasp) mix the 3200 you get with the 2100 and set the speed at 133. But then your XP1700 would be almost as fast.

Edit for Intel buffs: Pinncle Studio 8 takes about 4-8 hours (depending on the CPU) to encode the project in preparation for DVD burning. The extra speed that a P4 would give for this application is minutes if at all, as this is not the application they use to benchmark "encoding".

 

[Lyfer]

You're gonna need a 1GB of ram, currently the "Value" stuff runs for over $200. Now you do the math.

 

[RBC]

Thanks all for the advice. This helps. Except sgtzulu - no reason to be such a jerk.