Expensive video card needed for video editing?

chefg

Junior Member
Dec 24, 2003
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I'm buying the components for my new system, and have a question about a video card. I'm going to install an analog video input card (pci slot) to load 30 years worth of home movies (from VCR and analog camcorder) into the system for editing, and burning to DVD. As for the video card (not the analog reader) itself: do I need an expensive video card for faster editing and rendering, only, if I don't intend to use it for playing games?
 

sugarkang

Senior member
Nov 16, 2003
248
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WAIT A SECOND.

if you're going from VCR to PC, don't you need a capture card? in that case, you'd need something like an ATi All In Wonder card. The faster the better, because you don't want to drop frames.

if you're going from camcorder to PC via firewire, then no you don't need a video card. however, you'll still need a fast cpu, enough ram, and a fast hard drive so you don't drop frames there using premiere or whatever else you use to get that video off.

lastly, you will need a very very big hard drive, preferably two, and also a fast cpu. in this particular case, i'd go with a pentium (blah!!!) because it works better at video encodes.
 

pulse8

Lifer
May 3, 2000
20,860
1
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if you're going from camcorder to PC via firewire, then no you don't need a video card. however, you'll still need a fast cpu, enough ram, and a fast hard drive so you don't drop frames there using premiere or whatever else you use to get that video off.

Not entirely so. I've edited a 2x5 minute pieces on an old HP 700Mhz machine using the hard drive it came with an everything worked fine. Rendering is slow as hell, but it will work when capturing to and from a firewire source. The fast hard drive and CPU just make things easier to deal with, but aren't a requirement. Which, by the way, is your best bet quality wise unless you're building a system that can software encode to a really good codec like Huffy on the fly.

For 30 hours of footage, if you're going to digitize it all at once using firewire, you'll need about 400GB of space. That only includes capturing the raw video. If you're going to be dealing with it all at once, I'd suggest having at least 500GB in the machine to work with.
 

oldfart

Lifer
Dec 2, 1999
10,207
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Video card means squat. CPU speed is most important. A decent amount of ram (512+) and plenty of HD space, especially for analog capture. Analog capture is a real PITA. Since you have a ton (30 years!) worth of stuff to convert, I would spend extra on the video cap card and get a good one that has hardware MPEG2 real time encoding. It will save you a ton of time.

As an aside, if you have a DV camcorder, many have A->D passthrough conversion. The analog source connects to the DV cam, and the DV cam converts it to DV on the fly, outputs in on the firewire and the PC captures it via firewire. This is a nice way to go as well.
 

Genx87

Lifer
Apr 8, 2002
41,091
513
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Holy sweet Jesus I am going to have to order a few HDs then hehe. I easily have 30 hours worth of stuff I will be converting soon.
Maybe Ill be ordering two 160 GB drives instead of 1 hehe.
 

oldfart

Lifer
Dec 2, 1999
10,207
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DV capture is ~ 13 Gig/hr. Analog is much higher depending on the codec and amount of compression used during capture. Real time MPEG2 capture is ~ 4.5 Gig/hr, but can be poor quality unless a good HW encoder is used.
 

clicknext

Banned
Mar 27, 2002
3,884
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Originally posted by: Genx87
Well would the 9600 Pro AIW be considered a good Mpeg2 encoder?

Plese say yes :)

Sorry, but I wouldn't say so. The quality of mpeg2 I get on this thing ain't exactly phenomenal. Actually I don't think it's a hardware encoder, only has it in the software. I could be wrong, though.
 

sugarkang

Senior member
Nov 16, 2003
248
0
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rather than get two 160gbs, just get one 7200rpm 8mb cache 200GB drive.
no amount of giggage is going to let you get 30 years worth of stuff on hard drives.

you're going to have to piecemeal this work. capture a few videos, then to xvid, or dvd if you prefer. DOOM9 is a great resource for everything and everything you want to do.

FAST CPU is going to be the key. you're going to spend more time encoding than capturing. WAY WAY MORE. as far as i know the P2.4C is the best for overclocking, but i'm no expert on pentiums.

and it will definitely be in your interest to overclock as much as possible (while finding 100% stability).
 

Jeff7

Lifer
Jan 4, 2001
41,596
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In terms of MPEG2 hardware encoding, the only ones I know of are Hauppauge's PVR cards - PVR PCI (no longer supported), PVR-250 and PVR-350. The only problem is, there are some image quality issues, though this can be tweaked, and there are considerable driver difficulties to be overcome by Hauppauge's developer. And yes, developer is singular - 2 pieces of evidence. One was in an e-mail from Hauppauge, stating that "their developer is busy with other projects" - and the second is just that their driver releases are far-spaced, and they usually don't fix as many problems as they create.
Great praise there for the products there, eh? For the record, I do have a PVR-350, and it does work. I don't know that the quality is the most excellent, but I think that it is better than a VHS, but not DVD quality. I record TV shows, then edit the commercials out of the stuff I want, using Ulead Videostudio 7, and put them on DVD. Even after that re-encoding, it still looks good.
Click the second link in my sig for the SHSPVR forums - probably the best place to go for info/help with Hauppauge products. Bear in mind, it is a much smaller forum than Anandtech.

I'll echo what has been said too, and say that a videocard, in terms of just outputting to the monitor, not the capture part, will not speed up rendering of edited video - the CPU does the rendering/encoding, so you'll want a fast one, like a fast Pentium 4. High bus speed is a plus too, and a fast hard drive or even a RAID array can just help the work go faster when dealing with big video files.
 

Keysplayr

Elite Member
Jan 16, 2003
21,219
55
91
I posted this in a similar thread but thought it was also appropriate here.


Just got a Pinnacle Studio Deluxe and it is absolutely fantastic! Comes with a fully featured Analog/Digital capable card with firewire ports, Studio Deluxe software and a really nice breakout box. I bought this one mainly for its analog/digital capabilities as I still own a non digital vid cam. When I upgrade in the future to digital it will still work with it. Anyways, using this program, I was able to make beautiful DVD's of my baby boy with menus, screen transistions, musical backrounds and my DVD looked as if I (an amateur) could not have possibly made it. Couldn't be happier. I believe the kit cost me about 179.99. Which costs much less than a 9600/9700 AIW card. You dont have to remove your existing vid card either because its just a PCI capture/encoder/decoder card.

If you have the coin, I would whole heartedly recommend picking one of these up. I have never dropped a frame and I only capture at full speed. Your system may differ with your speed of CPU and mem config.

My system:
P4P800
P4 2.8/533
1GB PC2700
GeForceFX 5900
Audigy2
NEC DVD +RW
40GB Seagate
80GB Western Digital (This is the drive I use to capture)

Good Luck

Keys
 

lifeguard1999

Platinum Member
Jul 3, 2000
2,323
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1. Video Capture - We use Matrox for professional level work; a TV/Capture card works at home for me.
2. Fast CPU - dual 2.4GHz at work; 1.46 GHz Tualatin at home
3. Lots of RAM - We use 2GB at work.; 768 MB at home
4. Fast Disks - I would go with a RAID setup of 7.2K or 10K RPM drives if you are on a budget; 15K RPM SCSI if you are not on a budget; single 7.2K RPM at home
5. Software - Adobe Premiere & After Effects

It just really depends on what quality you are shooting for.