Specs For A Basic Video Editing PC?

[olds]

Going to build a basic machine for my daughter, nothing too fancy. I was thinking along the lines of a P4, 2.8, intel board, 1 GB RAM, 9600XT, DVD burner and a WD120JB.
I am not too sure on the mobo chip sets and video card choice. Thoughts on this?
TIA

 

[t3hmuffinman]

if you plan on running everything stock i'd reccommend you get your daughter a dell. head over to "chunkywallet" forums and wait for a deal, for anything intel running at stock you can't be dells (pricewise at any rate)

 

[VTrider]

A 9600XT would be a fine choice, make it an AIW version and it would be even better. I have a pretty similair setup on my video editing machine, but I run 2 WD120JB in a RAID 0 array which makes life so much better in oh so many ways

 

[Accord99]

Get two HDs (but don't RAID them), so you can have one drive reading and the other writing. Should greatly improve performance for anytime you have streaming operations with a large video file.

 

[sonoma1993]

im into video editing also, i want to take family video and tranfer them todo dvd, currently i have a athlon 64 3200+ sktt 939 (winchester) the motherboard im using is the abit av8-3rd eye with the via kt800. the harddrive im using is a wd raptor 10,000rpm 36.7gb (system/apps) and a maxtor 300mb 7200rpm 16mb harddrive(video/games). my question is would i get faster encoding/decoding quality using a nforce 3 chipset or the via chipset. when i had my am athlon 64 3200+ skt 754 using a chaintech nforce 250, im using studio 9, , with the my skt 939 setup, my read rate is 10779 Kbyte/sec write 58539 Kbyte sec and my max safe lvl is 9701Kbyte/sec, when i had my skt 754 setup my read was somewere in the 50,000kbyte/sec and write was somewere aeound 50000 kbyte/sec and the max safe was up there too. I thinking im getting these odds numbers with the via chippset cuz im using the silicon 3114 sata and it using the pci buy or whatever it is, and on the nforce the sata was built into the northbridge so it used the hypertransport. so would it be better if i upgrade my motherboard to a nforce 3 motherboard? ii hope u guys understand what i wrote.

 

[JoshRtek3]

It really all depends on what type of video editing you want to do. If it's for a hobby only, then you really don't need that powerful of a system. Just get a half gig of RAM, a good editing program, a good quality DV camera, decently fast P4 or Athlon, a 64 MB video card, and two big hard drives (one for the system, and the other for A/V capture)...

 

[Lyfer]

Basic Video editing machine = Imac + Final Cut.

 

[bob4432]

i personally do some video editing every now and then for personal use and also commercial. my main machine i use (built it in march so i know it is getting old) is a P4 2.8c / LSI U160 SCSI Card w/ 36GB U320 SCSI Main Drive / 80GB PATA Secondary Drive / 1GB Ram / Foxconn I865PE base motherboard / 9800Pro. the motherboard has onboard 1394 and i get the video in through that only, if the source is vhs, my camcorder can act as a dvr so i can use it like a vcr then the video will be on mini dv tape, though quality is not improved over the vhs, this makes it easy for me to get it into my computer. i use the arsenal of adobe products.

i went with the p4 because at the time i built this the a64 stuff was too damn expensive and the p4 did better than a xp at encoding, but now you may look at the skt 754 as they are pretty inexpensive even compared to a 2.8 p4 today and the skt 754 boards are nicely priced also. i am no amd or intel fanboy, i like the best bang for the buck and that is where i put my money.

my next machine will probably be a a64, either skt 754 or 939 as i feel it is a better bang for the buck at this point in time.

i don't see the need for a raid setup (especially a pata or sata raid) for you situation because the processor will be the bottlneck, not the hdds. i think my digital stream comes in via 1394 at 3.5MB/s, so my system can definately handle that as will yours with the wd drive. i would recommend two large drives as video files are huge.

also, when building the machine, use ntfs and not fat32. with fat32 you will have a 4GB barrier for a file size wich will limit to how much video you can input as one file. i know ntfs has a limit but it is huge and i have files that are 20GB in size with no problems.

the video card you selected will work, but remember that the encoding will not be done on the video card nor will it help, so don't buy a nicer card thinking it will help the encoding as it will not.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: JoshRtek3
It really all depends on what type of video editing you want to do. If it's for a hobby only, then you really don't need that powerful of a system. Just get a half gig of RAM, a good editing program, a good quality DV camera, decently fast P4 or Athlon, a 64 MB video card, and two big hard drives (one for the system, and the other for A/V capture)...

you would want 1GB of ram

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: sonoma1993
im into video editing also, i want to take family video and tranfer them todo dvd, currently i have a athlon 64 3200+ sktt 939 (winchester) the motherboard im using is the abit av8-3rd eye with the via kt800. the harddrive im using is a wd raptor 10,000rpm 36.7gb (system/apps) and a maxtor 300mb 7200rpm 16mb harddrive(video/games). my question is would i get faster encoding/decoding quality using a nforce 3 chipset or the via chipset. when i had my am athlon 64 3200+ skt 754 using a chaintech nforce 250, im using studio 9, , with the my skt 939 setup, my read rate is 10779 Kbyte/sec write 58539 Kbyte sec and my max safe lvl is 9701Kbyte/sec, when i had my skt 754 setup my read was somewere in the 50,000kbyte/sec and write was somewere aeound 50000 kbyte/sec and the max safe was up there too. I thinking im getting these odds numbers with the via chippset cuz im using the silicon 3114 sata and it using the pci buy or whatever it is, and on the nforce the sata was built into the northbridge so it used the hypertransport. so would it be better if i upgrade my motherboard to a nforce 3 motherboard? ii hope u guys understand what i wrote.

look for benchmarks in the cpu section of the site. most cpu reviews show the encoding using wmv. as far as your hdds #s, where are you getting these #s? some type of benchmark? if so, which one?

 

[imported_Phil]

Originally posted by: bob4432

Originally posted by: JoshRtek3
It really all depends on what type of video editing you want to do. If it's for a hobby only, then you really don't need that powerful of a system. Just get a half gig of RAM, a good editing program, a good quality DV camera, decently fast P4 or Athlon, a 64 MB video card, and two big hard drives (one for the system, and the other for A/V capture)...

you would want 1GB of ram

:thumbsup: 512Mb will not cut it for video editing.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: Accord99
Get two HDs (but don't RAID them), so you can have one drive reading and the other writing. Should greatly improve performance for anytime you have streaming operations with a large video file.

Keep them on separate IDE controllers (one on primary, one secondary), as IDE can only do a transaction with a single drive per chain at a time.

512Mb will not cut it for video editing.

Depends on what program you're using. I use Ulead Videostudio, and I don't think I've seen it use more than 100MB of RAM, as reported by Taskmanager anyway. And this is for editing video files anywhere from 2GB to 50GB.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

Originally posted by: Dopefiend

Originally posted by: bob4432

Originally posted by: JoshRtek3
It really all depends on what type of video editing you want to do. If it's for a hobby only, then you really don't need that powerful of a system. Just get a half gig of RAM, a good editing program, a good quality DV camera, decently fast P4 or Athlon, a 64 MB video card, and two big hard drives (one for the system, and the other for A/V capture)...

you would want 1GB of ram

:thumbsup: 512Mb will not cut it for video editing.

Oh contrare. I do my video editing on a p4 2.0 with 512mb ram. I use Video Toaster and sure it's not a p4 3.6 or whatever the fasting p4 is but it works for me.

Your most import things to concider when purchasing the parts is your capture source. Yes the AIW will do the job, but if she wants excellent quality a seperate capture card is a must. If she is vedeo editing she needs a card that is capable of producing the best 2d image quality. Matrox Parehlia would be a good choice for a video card with exceptional 2d quality.
http://www.videoguys.com/vidcap.htm check this out for a round up of stand alone capture cards. They have cards ranging from $60 to over $1000.

You could just get a Avid station.

 

[olds]

Re: using two hdds.
Is the editing software installed onto the 2nd hdd or do you just tell the software to do the crunching there?
Thanks again for all the info/help.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: oldsmoboat
Re: using two hdds.
Is the editing software installed onto the 2nd hdd or do you just tell the software to do the crunching there?
Thanks again for all the info/help.

They key is when you're editing things together/re-encoding/whatever, you want your source file(s) to be on one IDE channel and the output on the other (I guess that would be option b, telling the program to use the second drive). If you're trying to read and write from the same channel/drive at the same time, it slows things down a lot.

 

[VTrider]

Originally posted by: Accord99
Get two HDs (but don't RAID them), so you can have one drive reading and the other writing. Should greatly improve performance for anytime you have streaming operations with a large video file.

Are you saying this would move large video files faster than a RAID 0 array?

 

[DGath]

Built a few machines primarily for video editing. Both pretty much identical, 2.8Cs, gig, 865 & 875. You don't need anything powerful to simply do it, but it will help out with how quick and snappy the programs run at. I remember doing 3D Studio Max work on a PIII 333 which suited me just fine at the time. Nowadays people are spending 3-4K for pre-built 3D modeling systems which is totally uneccesary IMO. But it is all about patience and how much of it you have.

My recommendation for two different budgets are....

Low-end
--------
2.8C/E
865 board (I like my Abit IS7)
512 ram
160 GB HDD

Maybe even go the AMD (Sempron?) route if looking to save even more money. They're not regarded as good as Intel for video, but you'll still get by with good speed and zero problems.

Higher-end
----------
3.2C/E
875 board (the IC7-G system is noticably faster for whatever reason)
Gig ram
Raptor for OS and programs
120/160 GB drive for captures and editing.

Why not a 915/925 PCI-E system? Not much of a performance gain as of yet with the technology without spending quite a bit of money. Not worth it as of yet, but soon, it will be.


Capture card? I'm the owner of many All-in-Wonders. They're good cards. I'm not going to knock the capture quality. The upgradeability sucks and that's the reason I'm probably not going to buy another one since I game. But if there is no gaming, All in wonders are great. Go with a 9600 as that has a good set of features and still supported drivers-wise, whereas the older ones I don't believe are. AIWs are nice becuase of the Multimedia Center all-in-one ease, and recommend them if not going with 3rd party PVRs or gaming (because of non-upgradability).

If you want to go seperate, a Hauppauge PVR250 is a good choice as it has hardware MPEG2 encoding which will go straight to DVDs. Someone else will have to comment about the capture quality of them though. They are also the most supported card for PVRs. Might not be an issue, but if you have a TV card in there anyways, why not take advantage of it's tivo-like functions. Windows MCE is a possibility as well as other commercial programs like BeyondTV. Latest open-source PVR to come out is Media Portal, a near MCE lookalike that should become really impressive over the next few years.

Pinnacle Studio is a good, easy to use, feature/function loaded program that is good for the novice. I don't have any direct experience with more professional programs with the exception of Adobe Premiere, which didn't really blow me away. First direction I'd look is Pinnacle Liquid I believe is the title. But that is simply because I like Studio, but it could use some more stability which I'd assume Liquid has.


However, someone else mentioned before that going the Dell route would be a good idea and I agree. Sure they're not the system of choice in a DIY-type forum like this. But get a non-budget priced & spec'd system from them and you'll be in good shape at a great price.

 

[gsellis]

For a basic editor (and editors are like processors or video cards when it comes to their followings... ) I like Pinnacle Studio. I have used Magix and one of the base Ulead products too. I will repeat some of what has already been said.

2.8-3.2 Intel with a leaning to Prescott is a good idea for Studio. Studio likes Prescott.

If you go with Studio, actually get a better video card, but a 9600XT towards the high end (for Studio). Studio uses DirectX calls to the GPU, so GPU and video memory matter. 64MB is good, but some Hollywood FX stuff works better with 128 (assuming you get S9 Plus). BUT if you are using lots of FX, it is a lot like using lots of fonts and font sizes in a document. Great for kids (which this is), but considered a rookie thing.

2 drives most definitely, and I would consider a 200GB as one. 13GB/hour of AVI video. Edit in AVI then convert to MPEG as it cuts and renders much faster and works in realtime better.

512MB of memory is enough with low end editors. Get 1GB though if you can (as you listed), but 512 is a good start.

If you have a DV camera, don't bother with the AIW, but do make sure you have Firewire covered. I would not use the onboard audio, so consider getting a Creative Audigy 2 with a Firewire port. Works quite well. The AIW works OK for capturing Analog Video, but I would go with something like Studio Moviebox DV instead as there are fewer sync issues (vid through AIW, audio through sound card - tape glitch will put A/V out of synch.)

Get a Pioneer 108 or NEC 3500a DVD drive. Either cannot go wrong. My personal pref is the 108, but the NEC with bitsetting for DVD-R and +R has its moments (some older settop DVD players do not understand +R or -R media well - bitsetting is a 'lie' that tells the player that it is a DVD-ROM disc).

If you really want to go nuts, I drool for a Shuttle SB81P (or is it 83 - always forget, too lazy at the moment). Firewire front and back, holds 3 drives, PCI-e16x, 5 1/2 bay, SFF... umm. BUT, I have not seen an editor using one yet.

@DGath - Pinnacle Liquid Edition. I use version 6, which is just out. It is $500 new, but cheaper than Vegas or Premiere. HD built in. Not sure I would recommend it to someone who does not want to commit to editing yet. BUT, a powerful tool. I have a project that we are shipping the DVDs on that was 16 tapes, 23 marching band performances, 3 cameras, and a full 2 DVD set of all the bands. The new multi-cam feature probably saved me 40-60 hours of editing time (at about 150hours+ now).

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: VTrider

Originally posted by: Accord99
Get two HDs (but don't RAID them), so you can have one drive reading and the other writing. Should greatly improve performance for anytime you have streaming operations with a large video file.

Are you saying this would move large video files faster than a RAID 0 array?

Depends on what you're doing and what the array is attached to.

RAID0 (I'm assuming a 2-disk RAID0) doubles the STR of the disks involved. If you were reading from and writing to the same RAID0 (since your system sees it like a single hard drive), you'd run into the same problem as with two drives on the same channel -- the disks can't read and write simultaneously, so it greatly drops your throughput (and it also puts a lot of extra strain on the read/write heads, as they have to seek back and forth constantly while this is going on). In this case, you might actually be better off with two separate drives.

However, loading a file from the RAID0, or writing a file to the RAID0 (if the source was another drive in the system) would be faster. Fastest of all would be to have two RAID0s, and read from one and write to the other. But you would need one to be attached to the chipset directly, or else the limited PCI bus bandwidth would start to constrain you (or you would need both to be on PCI-X or PCI Express buses, which have more bandwidth to begin with).

 

[DaFinn]

Originally posted by: Matthias99

Originally posted by: VTrider

Originally posted by: Accord99
Get two HDs (but don't RAID them), so you can have one drive reading and the other writing. Should greatly improve performance for anytime you have streaming operations with a large video file.

Are you saying this would move large video files faster than a RAID 0 array?

Depends on what you're doing and what the array is attached to.

RAID0 (I'm assuming a 2-disk RAID0) doubles the STR of the disks involved. If you were reading from and writing to the same RAID0 (since your system sees it like a single hard drive), you'd run into the same problem as with two drives on the same channel -- the disks can't read and write simultaneously, so it greatly drops your throughput (and it also puts a lot of extra strain on the read/write heads, as they have to seek back and forth constantly while this is going on). In this case, you might actually be better off with two separate drives.

However, loading a file from the RAID0, or writing a file to the RAID0 (if the source was another drive in the system) would be faster. Fastest of all would be to have two RAID0s, and read from one and write to the other. But you would need one to be attached to the chipset directly, or else the limited PCI bus bandwidth would start to constrain you (or you would need both to be on PCI-X or PCI Express buses, which have more bandwidth to begin with).

2 disks is better than 1 OR raid 0 array. And SCSI is better then anything previously mentioned.

In my personal videoediting machine i have:
P4 3,4Ghz
1Gb RAM
Adaptec SCSI card + 10Krpm scsi drive for os and applications
2x 120Gb 7200rpm/8Mb cache SATA drives in raid 1 for storage
DVD+-RW
Terratec GF FX5900 Ultra VIVO 256Mb
in additon I have external 200Gb drive for extra storage.

I find the machine to be more responsive under heavy load w. SCSI disk!

 

[Rahabib]

what you get should be built around your software. I am a video editor and let me tell you, it pays to look at the requirements for the software. AVID Xpress DV and Pro are very finicky about Firewire cards, Mobo, and even sound cards. Premier and Vegas are more forgiving but thier capture cards are not. Apple... well you are stuck with what they give you anyway so if you dont want to have any hassle get that with Final Cut Pro.

My suggestion is beware of VIA and Windows with Service Pack 2. Some editing software and external drives have issues with it. Oh and dont skimp on the drives or RAM only 7200+ drives and SATA is even better. RAM minimum 1 Gig, and get good brands (too many horror stories).

The issue with 2 HD vrs striped raid 0 depends on the software and hardware. Personally I stripe but if you have issues then reformat and put video on one and audio on the other. Just do a long test run 9like 1 hr) and then edit. If you use Premier if might be better to try both since it conforms audio while you edit. Striping has been ok for me but you might get a bit faster with the 2 drives. If you get any more than 2 drives then stripe the remaining drives so you have 1 big drive for video and 1 smaller drive for audio. This will also depend on the capture card (if any). I use canopus (beware! crashes like crazy)DVStorm2, and it captures (muxes) to one AVI file so 2 HDs wouldnt work anyway.

Good luck.

 

[Steve]

Originally posted by: oldsmoboat
Going to build a basic machine for my daughter, nothing too fancy. I was thinking along the lines of a P4, 2.8, intel board, 1 GB RAM, 9600XT, DVD burner and a WD120JB.
I am not too sure on the mobo chip sets and video card choice. Thoughts on this?
TIA

Somehow I have the feeling that people are suggesting a machine that is really overkill for your daughter's needs. What do you mean by basic video editing - is she recording TV shows, making DVDs, saving video files from her webcam....????

 

[olds]

Originally posted by: sm8000

Originally posted by: oldsmoboat
Going to build a basic machine for my daughter, nothing too fancy. I was thinking along the lines of a P4, 2.8, intel board, 1 GB RAM, 9600XT, DVD burner and a WD120JB.
I am not too sure on the mobo chip sets and video card choice. Thoughts on this?
TIA

Somehow I have the feeling that people are suggesting a machine that is really overkill for your daughter's needs. What do you mean by basic video editing - is she recording TV shows, making DVDs, saving video files from her webcam....????

She is filming projects with her DV cam and then editing it. She has Pinnacle but she has an older (1.33) AMD machine. So I want to build (or buy) a P4 system for her.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: Rahabib...Oh and dont skimp on the drives or RAM only 7200+ drives and SATA is even better...

why is sata better than pata? please explain this to me

 

[Steve]

Gotcha, in that case don't pinch too many pennies