Need advice on building high end VIDEO EDITING COMPUTER

[Rellik]

I built a Video Editing PC last year based on an AMD Athlon 600.
It is still going, but I have to agree that Intel is a better solution.

Some important things:

1. Memory. If you are doing video editing and graphics work, there is no such thing as enough ram. If you choode w2k as OS, go for 384 MB at least. 512 is a good idea. Crucial is my brand of choice.

2. Sound. Never forget that if you capture from a DV camera, it is easy to add sound later with a MD deck and a soundcard that has a digital in and output. I recommend the Terratec DMX Soundsystem, since
it has everything you need for half the price of the creative live.

3. Storage. RAID is an option, but it is more important to choose SCSI over IDE since even the best IDE drives drop some frames while grabbing video. This is not too bad for hobby editors, but anyone who demands good quality and lossless transfer simply need SCSI as the IDE protocol simply doesn´t offer this kind of perfect grabbing. Forget SCSI RAID. It will cost you VERY MUCH of your Budget. (decent controllers are 1000 Bucks, and you still need drives..)

As for the space, the 15 gig storage I put in the video system last year is enough to edit 7 minute clips. You must keep in mind that you need the space for the raw data, the copy that is created while you edit, AND the final product. So 1 hour capture space can fill easy wth a 10 minute clip....

4. Big Monitor. 19 inch minimum. Samsung is a good brand. The 950p model. If you can, get a 21 inch.

Tell us some numbers budgetwise.

Here is my recommendation: I chose this as a medium setup that has it´s priority on stability and is still within reasonable price

IF DV Format:

MB: Choice between 100 fsb system BX Chipset or VIA 133 chipset.
ASUS CUBXE (BX)
CPU: Intel P3-850

RAM: 512 MB CRUCIAL PC 133 CAS 2

VIDEO: Matrox G450 and Pinnacle DV500 add.on DV Card for native two codec DV capturing.(lossless) DV500 is around 1000Bucks

Storage: Adaptec 29160 U160 SCSI contoller
1 9gb Quantum Atlas 10 K II for Boot drive and programs.
1 36gb Quantum Atlas 10 K II for capturing and from where
the software will access it´s project files
1 60gb IBM GXP for storage of final data
1 46gb IBM GXP for additional space

Sound: Terratec DMX

Case: Big Tower with 300W PS.

Coolermaster HD cooler for the SCSI drives

Logitech Cordless Desktop

Speakers from Altec Lansing or Creatives Fps 2000.

Samsung 19 inch 950p

Hope this helps...

 

[Prospero]

<< Which soundcard do you like?? >>



I've had good luck with Turtle Beach cards, check out the Santa Cruz. What is your source material going to be on the video end? If it's a DV camcorder, the transfer rates are only 3megs per second. Kind of cuts down on the HDD speed needs. SCSI is nice, but not entirely necessary. I can capture raw YUY and RGB with my IDE raid 0, at 702X480. The only dropped frames I get are done deliberately by the capture software. It's one of the ways it maintains audio synch on long captures. The Pinnacle card is good, but the Matrox has a few more features for the same money, and comes with a video card. The stills editing shouldn't matter much in the end, the requirements are very similair. Two CPU's can help, but the OS situation is the limiting factor. To much of the capture setups are limited by windows 2000 problems. Whistler will address these issues, but you would have to wait for it to be released. For now, I would go with the single cpu, as you could add another later on a new motherboard if you had to. The rest of the hardware would just transfer over to the new system. Oh, on the audio again. I've had Dio cards recomended to me for professional work, but have no experience with them. The Santa Cruz would do pretty much anything you need, and the Live would be ok. I just have heard to many stories about bandwidth, and poping to recomend them with any good concience.

Prospero

 

[frustrated2]

Number budget wise?? I would say anything under $3500 it is not for me so the people who want if would obviously have to have last word on what they would pay

It sounds like I should be buying the biggest hdds that there are available.

 

[Rellik]

Update:

About the Matrox RT 2000. Yes, it does come with more features then the DV500, but as far as I know it does not support 2 codec DV streaming. And it has some issues with delivering the stuff they advertise on the box. I read a test in a rather good mag and they stated it was quite expensive for the features it provided.

Considering your 3500 Budget, I would recommend leaving SCSI out of the system. This will keep cost down. In the IDE realm, I have trusted
IBM drives more then others for the last 5 years. Their current line is really good. Sample Setup:

1 30 gig IBM for OS, programs and other stuff, as office apps.
1 60 gig for grabbing video
1 60 gig for final files
1 46 gig for project files

I would recommend putting the OS and the second drive on your main IDE
channels on the mobo. The other should be put on an additional controller like the promise Ultra100.

You could go raid, but I would risk the higher CPU utilisation of software RAID. And if the users are not experienced a lot can go wrong with RAID. Better spend money on RAM and fast PIII.

 

[rowcroft]

You should really think hard about the IDE/SCSI question, yes IDE is much cheaper, but you get what you pay for. The problem with IDE RAID is that it is very CPU intensive which you want to avoid as much as possible while video-editing. SCSI on the other hand, is much less CPU intensive, has faster transfer rates (160 peak), faster spindle speeds (up to 15k) and allows you to access multiple drives at once. Another good benefit is that it doesn't take as many resources as IDE does. Bottom line, if you want to do any serious video editing, go with SCSI. Also, check out Adobe Premiere 6, it is brand spaking new and works with OHCI compliant firewire cards.

Rowcroft

 

[Hulk]

You might want to take a look at my MediaStudio Pro 6.0 benchmark site to get an idea of various system speeds for video editing.

Ulead MediaStudio Pro 6.0 Benchmark

I would also like to ask anyone in this thread to run my benchmark and submit the score to me.

 

[frustrated2]

Hulk thats interesting. It looks like Intel is the way to go and they keep dropping their prices to
SCSI would really be the absolute best way to go but man when you get into large SCSI hdds you are talking major money and to tell you the truth I don't get why it has to cost almost the same to build a SCSI hdd as it does an ide.

 

[hawkman]

This is great information to put to the creation of a great video editing setup! Does anyone know how much the mentioned SCSI set-up might run?

 

[frustrated2]

Smaller scsi hdds aren't that much more expensive than ide but when you get into the larger scsi drives they are out of this world. SCSI controller cards very greatly in price so I am sure you could find them reasonible. I would go to pricewatch to find out exact prices on these items. I don't know because I don't desire scsi for my own machines as I don't really desire to do video capture hense this great thread with tons of great information

 

[rowcroft]

One of the reasons SCSI is more expensive is that the card and drives handle a lot more of the processing then IDE which is CPU intensive. The extra components add cost and they charge based on performance as well unfortunately. They also can have higher spindle speeds, a buddy of mine just picked up a 9GB 10K drive new for $100 - U160 and everything. Every drive you can afford to make SCSI you should. Let us know what system they end up with and how they like it too.

Rowcroft