New Video Editing / Gaming Rig

[JoshRtek3]

Here's the rig I'm going to be buidling in the next few weeks:

Case: Lian-Li PC-61 Black Aluminum Midtower
PowerSupply: Antec TruePower 430 Watt
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 3.4 GHz (550) Socket 775 Processor
Memory: 2 x CRUCIAL / MICRON 1024MB PC4200 533MHZ DDR2 DIMMs
Motherboard: Asus P5AD2-E 925XE Socket 775
DVD+-RW: NEC 16X Double Layer DVD±RW Drive, Black, Model ND-3500A Black
DVD-ROM: SONY 16X BLACK DVD DRIVE
Floppy Drives: Sony FD MPF9201121-1/MPF920-Z (Z/121) 6082 1.44MB 3.5in Floppy Disk Drive
Hard Drives: 3 x Western Digital Caviar SE WD1200JD 250 GB Serial ATA 7200 RPM Hard Drive
(1 for system drive, and the other two RAID 0'ed together for A/V scratch)
Sound Card: Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Sound Card
Video Card: Asus Extreme AX800XT/2DT Radeon X800XT PCI Express 256MB DDR Video Card
OS: Windows XP Pro SP2

Any flaws...? Opinions, suggestions?

Thanks!

 

[drifter106]

sweet

 

[edelbrock]

If you are going to overclock any, I would get this ram instead. Especially if you upgrade to a 1066 processor later.

 

[tiap]

Your really close imo.
I prefer Plextor drives
radeon aiw, that way you can use it as Tivo etc too ( vid card isn't important for encoding anyway)
Separate controller card so all your drives are on master, forget the raid.
Creative Labs is far too bloated, you could end up with software conflicts, check out a M-audio revalution
Use non bloated software, will save you a lot of conflicts.

 

[imported_NoGodForMe]

Looks great.
Going with Intel was the correct choice on this one. The HT works great when running multiple apps.
And you'll still be able to play the latest games.

 

[gsellis]

Figure out what editor you are going to use before you firm up what hardware you are getting.

Three logical drives may be faster than two, C: for OS, F: for Video, G: for Render might be optimum. Each letter is a drive or volume, not a partition on a drive. I now store on my R0 with 2 200s and Render on a EIDE 250.

But again, what editor? You might even benefit from a AMD 64 with some editors and have better gaming.

The real editor's answer is to only have a dedicated editor. 😀

 

[JoshRtek3]

Wow, cool...thank you for all the replies.

A few notes:

If you are going to overclock any, I would get this ram instead. Especially if you upgrade to a 1066 processor later.

Don't plan on overclocking at all. As it will be an editing rig, it needs to be as stable as humanly possible. I changed my memory selection to Kingston Value RAM, a few dollars cheaper and still name brand.

I prefer Plextor drives

I do too. I've got one in my old rig now that's been flawless for nearly five years. However, Plextor doesn't make a 16x-Speed burner (or do they?). If they do, in fact, make one, I'm getting it instead of the NEC. I suppose the same goes to the DVD-ROM drive.

radeon aiw, that way you can use it as Tivo etc too ( vid card isn't important for encoding anyway)

If you can direct me where to buy one for PCI-express, I'd love it...

Separate controller card so all your drives are on master, forget the raid.

Why no RAID 0? I'm been reading lots of people blasting RAID lately...but I've always thought it was a good solution for video editing. The Asus P5AD2-E comes with two separate Serial ATA controllers, both supporting 4 drives each (either RAID or no-RAID). Also, I thought with Serial ATA, there was to slave/master designation, so wouldn't all the drives be masters anyway?

Creative Labs is far too bloated, you could end up with software conflicts, check out a M-audio revalution

Excellent point. I've not really ever been a fan of their cards. When I was considering getting a Mac a few weeks ago, I looked at the M-Audio card and wa fairly impressed. I'll check the prices here soon.

Three logical drives may be faster than two, C: for OS, F: for Video, G: for Render might be optimum. Each letter is a drive or volume, not a partition on a drive. I now store on my R0 with 2 200s and Render on a EIDE 250.

Cool, so you're suggesting (with my proposed setup...) one 250 Gig for System, one 250 Gig for Video / Audio Scratch, and the third for render only, and no RAID 0? Sound like a good option.

But again, what editor? You might even benefit from a AMD 64 with some editors and have better gaming.

I'll be editing with Avid Xpress Pro, working almost exclusively with DV25 411 material. I figure later on down the line when I can afford Avid's Mojo, I'll get a Medea SCSI RAID if I choose to encode 1:1 uncompressed DigiBeta and BetaSP... But, for now, it's just DV.

I was considering getting a Mac for a while there. I like Macs just fine, but I like Avid more. I've used Final Cut Pro, and I like it, but I prefer Avid a million times over. Avid is disgruntled with Apple at developing their own editing software, and, as such, as made it less of a priority to optimize their software for Macs. Plus, PCs are cheaper, I can custom build my own, and, in most cases, faster.

As for a real editor having a dedicated editing rig...well, I'm fresh out of film school and if I'm going to own a PC, a damn well better be able to play Half-Life 2. Thanks for all the help guys!

 

[frankie38]

why dvd rom drive?

I suggest spending the xtra $ and get 2 of the same dvd burners.

 

[gsellis]

Originally posted by: JoshRtek3
Wow, cool...thank you for all the replies.

A few notes:

I prefer Plextor drives

I do too. I've got one in my old rig now that's been flawless for nearly five years. However, Plextor doesn't make a 16x-Speed burner (or do they?). If they do, in fact, make one, I'm getting it instead of the NEC. I suppose the same goes to the DVD-ROM drive.

I would get a NEC or Pioneer before Plextor. Pioneer has a longer standing in video and NEC has bitsetting for +R and possible -R media, not just DL.

radeon aiw, that way you can use it as Tivo etc too ( vid card isn't important for encoding anyway)

If you can direct me where to buy one for PCI-express, I'd love it...

I like the AIW (I have a 7500 on my older editor), but there is not a PCI-e part yet and there are better solutions for AV capture. The Canopus ADVC100 is great. The Pinnacle Studio MovieBox DV is really good too (but not with Avid and not the USB one). Just noticed there is now a ADVC110. Going to hop over and read about it...

Creative Labs is far too bloated, you could end up with software conflicts, check out a M-audio revalution

Excellent point. I've not really ever been a fan of their cards. When I was considering getting a Mac a few weeks ago, I looked at the M-Audio card and wa fairly impressed. I'll check the prices here soon.

M-audio is very good, but I disagree about using the Audigy. I have had zero hitches with it and I also use Sound Forge 7 along with the tools in my editor. What ever you get, I do recommend a satellite control for audio volume that some speaker systems come with. I have had to change the volume quickly when working with diverse media because of volume differences. It is also good if there is a very convienent headphone jack on the satellite for either better listening or not disturbing someone else in the room (or next room, next building, next block... 😉 )

Three logical drives may be faster than two, C: for OS, F: for Video, G: for Render might be optimum. Each letter is a drive or volume, not a partition on a drive. I now store on my R0 with 2 200s and Render on a EIDE 250.

Cool, so you're suggesting (with my proposed setup...) one 250 Gig for System, one 250 Gig for Video / Audio Scratch, and the third for render only, and no RAID 0? Sound like a good option.

Raid 0 is fine. But I would still try to get three 'drives'. I have C: as a R0 volume (not necessary), E: as a R0 volume, which allowed 2 200s to give me 400 and it should be faster when I do the big block read and writes (don't use 512 byte sectors - I think I did 32k or 64k - lots of slack on a normal system, but with 2-20GB files, I don't have that issue as much). Why do I need over 600GB while still doing SD DV video? Lots of my projects are 10-20 DV tapes long.

But again, what editor? You might even benefit from a AMD 64 with some editors and have better gaming.

I'll be editing with Avid Xpress Pro, working almost exclusively with DV25 411 material. I figure later on down the line when I can afford Avid's Mojo, I'll get a Medea SCSI RAID if I choose to encode 1:1 uncompressed DigiBeta and BetaSP... But, for now, it's just DV.

I was considering getting a Mac for a while there. I like Macs just fine, but I like Avid more. I've used Final Cut Pro, and I like it, but I prefer Avid a million times over. Avid is disgruntled with Apple at developing their own editing software, and, as such, as made it less of a priority to optimize their software for Macs. Plus, PCs are cheaper, I can custom build my own, and, in most cases, faster.

As for a real editor having a dedicated editing rig...well, I'm fresh out of film school and if I'm going to own a PC, a damn well better be able to play Half-Life 2. Thanks for all the help guys!

I went through the same arguments. I settled with a Xeon as I use Pinnacle Liquid Edition. Tuned for Xeon, but it is not always a benefit. I would have had to pay more for a Mac and lots of the little tools that make life easier are not available or too expensive with a Mac.

A peer forum for you, being a DV kind of guy at the moment, is at Dvinfo.net Check in the Community section for the board.

 

[JoshRtek3]

Thanks again...

I would get a NEC or Pioneer before Plextor. Pioneer has a longer standing in video and NEC has bitsetting for +R and possible -R media, not just DL.

Agreed. I'm going to go with the NEC drive.

I suggest spending the xtra $ and get 2 of the same dvd burners.

What's the advantage to having two burners in one system?

Also, what kind of software do I need to burn my own DVDs? Initially, I don't need something full-featured... I just want to be able to burn my films and others' projects to DVD, as well as throwing on some simple, but tasteful, menus and buttons.

I like the AIW (I have a 7500 on my older editor), but there is not a PCI-e part yet and there are better solutions for AV capture. The Canopus ADVC100 is great. The Pinnacle Studio MovieBox DV is really good too (but not with Avid and not the USB one). Just noticed there is now a ADVC110. Going to hop over and read about it...

Yeah, I'm going to stick with the Asus video card right now. If I get the Mojo later on, it'll allow be to rid myself of rendering. As far as bringing in analog media, I'll have it converted to a digital format first before I bring it into the computer.

M-audio is very good, but I disagree about using the Audigy. I have had zero hitches with it and I also use Sound Forge 7 along with the tools in my editor. What ever you get, I do recommend a satellite control for audio volume that some speaker systems come with. I have had to change the volume quickly when working with diverse media because of volume differences. It is also good if there is a very convienent headphone jack on the satellite for either better listening or not disturbing someone else in the room (or next room, next building, next block... )

I'm running Avid Xpress Pro right now on my old rig (Pentium III 1.0 GHz, 512 MBs SDRAM, Sound Blaster Live!), and there doesn't seem to be any conflict. So I will probably stick with the Audigy. Additionally, I have the Klipsch Pro Media 4.1 speaker system, with satellite audio-volume control. The case I'm getting (Lian-Li Black, PC-61) has audio jacks in the front (as well as firewire!).

Raid 0 is fine. But I would still try to get three 'drives'. I have C: as a R0 volume (not necessary), E: as a R0 volume, which allowed 2 200s to give me 400 and it should be faster when I do the big block read and writes (don't use 512 byte sectors - I think I did 32k or 64k - lots of slack on a normal system, but with 2-20GB files, I don't have that issue as much). Why do I need over 600GB while still doing SD DV video? Lots of my projects are 10-20 DV tapes long.

So you're suggesting a 250 Gig no-RAID 0 system drive, and two RAID 0 arrays after that. One for A/V scratch and the other for render? If that's the case, I'll have to upgrade more HDs later, because the cash flow won't support that right now. But good idea!

Thanks again for the help guys.

 

[gsellis]

I probably would consider RAID on the media drive and yes or no on the Render drive (scratch). At DV speeds, it is not that important. HDV needs any advantage you can get.

I don't use Avid Xpress, so do not know it. I assume you can get an Elemental Stream as an export. I really like MediaChance DVD-Lab as a DVD authoring tool ($99). It is shareware with an unrestricted 30day trial. There is also a new pro version ($199) that even allows mixed 16:9 and 4:3 on the same video (the next price point that I know of on an authoring tool that will do that is around $2k). BUT, you do need an encoder (they have teamed up with Tmpgenc too if you don't want to use Avids).

Also, Nero is a must any way you cut it.

 

[halfadder]

The Avid tools are great. I love Avid Xpress DV and Avid Xpress Pro. They're about as close as you can get to Final Cut Pro on the PC.

 

[JoshRtek3]

^How much is Nero again? Nero has built-in support for DVD burning, as well as CD-Rs, right? I'm pretty sure Avid's encoder is quality. We've been using it at my film school for some time now and I've never noticed any problems.

 

[gsellis]

Originally posted by: JoshRtek3
^How much is Nero again? Nero has built-in support for DVD burning, as well as CD-Rs, right? I'm pretty sure Avid's encoder is quality. We've been using it at my film school for some time now and I've never noticed any problems.

Check in Hotdeals. I thought I saw a copy available for under $10. Could be mistaken. I think the standard price is $40 without media, but that was over a year ago when I bought a new copy.

 

[JoshRtek3]

^I'll have to look into that. I tried finding an NEC DVD burner that had it OEM, but no luck.

 

[gsellis]

Try Newegg. They almost have it in stock in three different colors IIRC.

 

[frankie38]

Originally posted by: frankie38
why dvd rom drive?

I suggest spending the xtra $ and get 2 of the same dvd burners.

Sony 16x dvd rom is $29 shipped from newegg. nec 3500 is about $69 shipped from newegg.

So for $40 more you get:

1) ability to burn cd's and dvds, backup to dvd burner.
2) unattended dvd and cd burning. no need to insert blank dvd/cd into drive.

I'm sure there are other great reasons. Anyone elso care to elaborate.........

 

[gsellis]

Originally posted by: frankie38

Originally posted by: frankie38
why dvd rom drive?

I suggest spending the xtra $ and get 2 of the same dvd burners.

Sony 16x dvd rom is $29 shipped from newegg. nec 3500 is about $69 shipped from newegg.

So for $40 more you get:

1) ability to burn cd's and dvds, backup to dvd burner.
2) unattended dvd and cd burning. no need to insert blank dvd/cd into drive.

I'm sure there are other great reasons. Anyone elso care to elaborate.........

I personally would skip the second drive and spend the money on a set top player just for compatibility testing. I want to get another inexpensive player for the room where we have the computers so that I do not have to interrupt in the other room where the big TV is. That way I can still work on stuff while keeping an eye on my 'final' disc. I have a single drive in my main station and have not really needed a second drive.