Building a video editing system

[flipflopper]

Build computers for friends, and someone wants a good video editing system. Usually I build budget computers, y'know, Semprons/AXPs + SFF w/ integrated video.

I've been somewhat out of the loop for the past year, and have never payed much attention to intel...

After doing a bit of research, am I correct in assuming I should go with something like a P4 540 / 550? (3.2/4.3GHz.) They seem to be a bit cheaper than their northwood counterparts, and unless somethings quirky, it seems better to go with the newer sockets. (It strikes me that athlonxps are slowers at video, and dual processors aren't really done cost effectively)

Would getting a SFF cube be okay? No 3D stuff will be done... I imagine the intel integrated video is petty stuff, but it'll be good enough for surfing/music/video editing, right? And how much memory is needed? (If more than 1gb is needed, there won't be enough DIMMs...)

On a side note, it's curious the things that I have found different from a year ago... processors aren't speeding up as fast as they used to (intel GHz-wise), graphics now are using PCIX, RAM is still standard at PC3200, and optical drives still usually dont use SATA.... but worst of all, the badass NF2 system with decent integrated video/audio are going to become a legacy....

**Just did more research, apparently i was off! DDR533's being used, but it doesn't seem to increase performance on P4's...., and the 915 video seems pretty decent.... is it even better than NF2 (gf4fx ) video?

 

[stevty2889]

The reason the Prescotts are less expensive, is because at the same clock speed as the northwood, it is slower and also consumes more power and generates more heat. The newer intel graphics is better than the extreme graphics/extreme graphics 2, and would be good enough for his purposes, as video editing doesn't depend on the graphics performance. Talking about the DDR533, I think you are refering to DDR2, since thats what the newer intel chipsets use. DDR2-533 is much more expensive than DDR-400, but doesn't offer any performance advantage. For video editing, I would recomend 1 gig for ram, as it will be used. An SFF cube would probably be ok to use with a northwood, but Prescotts would be difficult to keep cool in something like that. Also some of the higher end A64's are able to out do the Intel proccessors in some video editing applications, so it depends on the software he's using as well.

 

[gsellis]

A Northwood is not always better than a Prescott for video editing. Even without SSE3, a Prescott has been faster doing encoding. Video editing is about the only case where clock for clock, a Prescott actually was faster.

SFF - The Shuttle SB83P (or is it the 81?) is killer. Room for 3 drives and quiet with great cooling from the reviews, 915, 16 lane PCI-e, front 1394a port, and more.

Video - Don't go with the Intel video. Although faster than before, it will not playback some HDV content well. As you get into it, you will start looking at other works and you will start playing content such as WMV-HD 1080p content just to see what someone else did. I know 1080i HDV content from a Sony FX1 does not play well on sets with some Intel chipsets that we have in our test pool. Get a mid-range card, preferrably with Encode/Decode assistance (a little high-end of this, but the 6600 looks sweet). If you plan to use Pinnacle software, get a higher-end card as Studio 9 (some effects) and Liquid Edition use the GPU via DirectX to render effects and playback the timeline in realtime. HDV content editing with the Liquid Edition 6 may require (720vs1080) 256MB of memory (think X800 or 6800 too).

If you know what you want to use for editing (software), check their site and discussion boards for recommendations. You may find a good combination listed there.

 

[flipflopper]

oy, also, any tips on the harddrives? I was thinking of just going with a typical 160gb hitachi...

has anyone found dual hard drives useful? or faster ones? raid? etc..

 

[gsellis]

Originally posted by: flipflopper
oy, also, any tips on the harddrives? I was thinking of just going with a typical 160gb hitachi...

has anyone found dual hard drives useful? or faster ones? raid? etc..

RAID0 may help, but its primary benefit is big drive space. I used it to create a 400GB partition. I have it as my C:, but that is unnecessary.

I am not Hitachi fan, but that is because I do not like IBM. I am not sure where to draw the line of what is from where there. WD and Seagate are my mainstays. Others swear by Maxtor, where I sweat by them.

With 250GB EIDEs at $130 or less, I would try that route. I have 650GB of space for video editing. The last 250 was an emergency purchase as I was going over space. I have about 20GB and 40GB free on the volumes. But, I also am doing a 16 DV tape project (3 cameras).

Multiple drives do equal faster depending on the editor. My source video is on one, my rendered video is on the other. That way the NLE has reads and writes on different volumes for the most-part.

 

[flipflopper]

i don't think i'd actually attempt raid, but, how intense is video editing on the HD? Would it significantly boost performance to have one small HD for the system, and one large one for the files?

Any other advice regarding the processor / ram / mb would be appreciated.... is 1gb of memory enough, you think?

And does anyone else really recommend a separate graphics card? It seems overboard to buy a 3d card when you aren't going to do any 3d work.

 

[gsellis]

Originally posted by: flipflopper
i don't think i'd actually attempt raid, but, how intense is video editing on the HD? Would it significantly boost performance to have one small HD for the system, and one large one for the files?

Any other advice regarding the processor / ram / mb would be appreciated.... is 1gb of memory enough, you think?

And does anyone else really recommend a separate graphics card? It seems overboard to buy a 3d card when you aren't going to do any 3d work.

I actually lean towards 3 HDDs for a system. OS, Video, Render (scratch) and store (like keeping a copy of a DVD as an iso file).

I have 1GB and sit at 400MB free most of the time.

3D cards do not help with NLEs. 2D cards are fine. The exception is where the GPU is used by the editor, BUT that does not mean a $4k 3D card is going to help (most of those 3D cards lean towards OpenGL performance and Liquid uses DirectX).