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Building a machine for video editing?

S

sailor420

Member
OK, I have a friend who wants a machine for video editing. She is a local photographer, and does a good bit of digital work in that realm, but neither of us do any video. She would like to start working with video, both out of a digital video camera and especially exploring combining the mediums of still and motion photography. She wants a Mac, but doesnt think she can afford it.

What kind of specs would you look for in a video editing machine? I built a quick one out on Newegg:

p4 2.8
1 Gig pc2700
200Gb HDD
Abit IC7 mobo
ATI All-In-Wonder 9600
350w Antec PSU
8x DVD +/- R/W
Windows XP Pro
19" Samsung LCD screen

Any suggestions? Am I going overkill? Not enough? What about software? I know diddly about movie editing, and dont even know where to look... Specifically, software wise, I need a good editing program (adobe premier maybe?), a good way for her to capture the data off of her camera, and a good way for her to burn the data to DVD.

Also, keep in mind this machine has to be used by someone relatively computer illiterate. Read: when her machine doesnt do what she wants it to, I am getting a phone call. So it needs to be reliable. No overclocking, nothing like that.

Thanks for any input.
 
looks good, but go for 1 gig of pc3200 ram instead. since your system runs off a 200mhz system bus, its better to get ram that matches that speed for optimal performance. otherwise, that's pretty nice setup for video editing.

for software, adobe premiere is perfect, but its pretty expensive. for a start, microsoft's windows movie maker isnt too bad. that's wut i currently use to video edit on my athlon xp 1800+, 512 ddr pc2100 ram, radeon 7500, and 60 gb harddrive. for my system, its "ok" as in good enuff. for yours, it should be perfect.
 
Yeah, I think I will upgrade the RAM.

What about the video card? Does she need something like an All in Wonder? If not, Ima drop something like a 9200 in there and save some money.

How is that microsoft software? How much does it cost? How powerful is it?
 
Also, keep in mind this machine has to be used by someone relatively computer illiterate. Read: when her machine doesnt do what she wants it to, I am getting a phone call. So it needs to be reliable. No overclocking, nothing like that.
Click to expand...
Then tell her to get a DELL and she can call them..😉
 
Originally posted by: sailor420
Yeah, I think I will upgrade the RAM.

What about the video card? Does she need something like an All in Wonder? If not, Ima drop something like a 9200 in there and save some money.

How is that microsoft software? How much does it cost? How powerful is it?
Click to expand...

It comes with Wndows XP.. Not really to spectacular of a program. Microsoft tried to come up with something to compete with iMovie.
 
Just a couple of things:

-the ram should be PC3200 AT THE LEAST (PC2700 will actually underclock your CPU as it requires the 400FSB)
-you might want to consider 2 120gb SATA 7200rpm hard drives in a RAID-0 array (much faster for video editing) and a 36 or 74GB raptor to install windows and your applications on
-the P4 you chose is an excellent choice and should be faster than most macs
-an all-in-wonder videocard would be nice...but why not get the R9000AIW? much cheaper than the 9600, and will perform just as well for the stuff she'll be doing (as long as she doesn't like gaming)
-you could just get a regular videocard then add on a capture card/tv tuner if you want/need those features
 
I would prefer to build it for her. I dont mind doing routine maintenance for her, and Dell will rip her a new one if she tries to buy anything moderately high-end from them.

Unfortunately, RAID, or even a Raptor or multiple SATAs are out of the picture. I am definitely going to get her one large SATA drive (200Gb WD), and am definitely knocking the RAM up to pc3200. Also, I will be knocking the vid card down to the 9000. I didnt even realize they made an AIW on that chipset.

Any other suggestions? Any suggestions on software? It needs to be somewhat powerful, but I think Premier is a little overkill (and pricey, too).
 
Unfortunately, RAID, or even a Raptor or multiple SATAs are out of the picture. I am definitely going to get her one large SATA drive (200Gb WD), and am definitely knocking the RAM up to pc3200. Also, I will be knocking the vid card down to the 9000. I didnt even realize they made an AIW on that chipset.
Click to expand...

200 gig SATA drives are expensive though. Why not get 2 80-100 gig SATA drives and run them in RAID 0? It would be a nice improvement for anybody that deals with large files.
 
Reliability and price. Stringing together either two 80s or two 120s would be more expensive, in addition to essentially doubling the chances of catastrophic data loss.
 
You mentioned software - my usual recommendation for editing software that's better than a lot of the freeware out there (doesn't crash every few minutes, and handles most video formats, including MPEG2) , and it isn't nearly as expensive as Adobe's stuff, is Ulead's Videostudio. Granted, it doesn't do some of the fancy stuff that Adobe can do, but it does do basic editing, like cutting and joining video, (de)multiplexing, and corny transitions and effects.
Oh, it also does let you create menus for DVDs, and if you want to, write the DVD from Videostudio too - or put it on the hard drive for later burning by something like Nero.

RAID 0 - the little bit I do remember about probability and statistics is that it's closer to a 1.5x chance, not 2x, of losing data if you have two drives. Don't ask me to explain it, as I don't remember much more about it. Prob&stat was tied with Calculus as the most bizarre math I'd ever seen.

Video capture - check into Hauppauge's WinTV PVR-250 or 350. The 350 has a TV-output feature that the 250 lacks; otherwise they're similar cards. They record to MPEG2, and they do the MPEG2 encoding on the card, so you can encode at full-res, without giving your CPU a heart attack.
 
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