Building a video editing machine, need some advice

[DGath]

Building my dad a machine, no gaming or overclocking, just some ahrdcore video editing. Here's what we're going with so far...

Motherbaord:
Either an ASUS P4C800 or a Gigabyte GA-8KNXP

Processor:
2.8c

Ram:
1 gig corsair (he's also thinking maybe 2 gig, is it worth it?)

Hard drives:
Boot drive is gonna be a Raptor
Storage drive is probably gonna be either a 120 or 160, not sure yet.

The big question I have is video card. He'd like to use it for TIVO functionality. I have an AIW 8500 DV that I think I might give him (and upgrade myself to a 9600 AIW when they come out). That's all he'll need for power right? That might even be too much because for video editing, that stuff doesn't even go through the graphics card, right? He'd be fine just going with a cheapo 5 year old NVidia card or something, right?

So I could definately use some advice as to what graphics cards to use for a video editing machine. We'll probably buy a MPEG2 encoder to go in there, maybe a DVStorm2.

Then we're gonna get a DVD writer. We'll probably just buy whatever looks most appealing, any suggestions?

Budget is about 3 grand, and we don't need a monitor. So help me out here.

Thanks

 

[DaveSimmons]

I just recommended the p4C800-E to my brother, since he wanted IDE RAID-1 mirroring and it has the equivalent of an $80 Promise card onboard. It's also the second generation of the design and got a positive review on the main AT website.

1 GB should be fine, cheap Crucial PC3200 should be fine too since encoding is CPU-hungry and editing is disk hungry, neither are really memory-bandwidth-hungry.

Storage, getting 2 drives to allow backups is a good idea whether you run them RAID-1 or just copy files with windows explorer. My brother chose Samsung but WD (whiny for some people) or Maxtor are also good choices. Some models of all 3 brands carry a 3-year warranty, and paying the extra $5-10 for 8 MB cache is a good idea for editing.

DVD - I like the Pioneer A06 and it writes -R which is more compatible with home DVD players as well as +R/+RW.

TIVO you're probably better off getting a real TIVO, but if the AIW has worked for you then it should work for him too. Or people also use the Leadtek winfast card (search Hot Deals for a 1,000 post thread).

> editing, that stuff doesn't even go through the graphics card, right?

Right, video editing only goes through the card when you're capturing analog video through the video-in port. Anything else is just using the disk and CPU, with the video card showing the results not helping or hurting quality.

> probably buy a MPEG2 encoder to go in there, maybe a DVStorm2
For capturing analog video? If the video is already digital you could use a software encoder like TMPGEnc instead.

www.vcdhelp.com is a good site for capturing and encoding info.