Video Editing PC

[privatebreyer]

OK, I'm in the process building a PC primarily for video processing (editing, burning to Cd or DVD, recording from and to VHS, Digital 8). It would also be used for general office type work.

The specs I had in mind go something like this...

A7N8X Deluxe (using on-board LAN, Sound, Firewire, USB2 ect)
Athlon XP 2500 Barton
512mb-1gb DDR-333
Either ATI AIW Radeon 8500 or 9700 (input-output to VHS, Digital 8)
40gb SATA HD (for OS, Office, vital programs)
120-200 GB SATA HD (file storage)
Sony DRU-500A DVD burner
Plextor 48x CD Burner

$: 1600-1800

Is there any special considerations that need to be taken for video editing other than lots of hard drive space and ram?
Also would I be better with one of those Pinnical Studios DV cars to transfer video? Which one?
Any other recomendations?

 

[Remedy]

The Specifications are fine. But i would much rather pick up a Matrox Parhelia oem and a RT.x10 to make it alot more useful to have TV monitor in/output while maintaining your dual monitor configuration. You should also consider going dual monitor, may it be CRT or DVI LCD base. The benefit from it is breath taking. The RT.x10 is also a nice companion for visual transfer methods. Advice on the Disk storage, you should also consider a Removable Disk caddy to bring work to a safe location. There is nothing worst than leaving your unfinished draft or master piece on your workstation only to come home and find your system isn't functioning or having problems and you can't get to your work.

Don't let anyone here tell you need RAID 0 or 2 drives striped for performance. The 7200RPM drive of today fast enough for your job.

 

[HendrixFan]

Current 7200 drives are fast enough to record real time, but you will still see a big performance boost with RAID during the editting process. I had the WD 120GB SE drives and noticed a huge jump in both video and audio editting by putting the drives on RAID. Its not vital, but if you are spending 1600 on a PC for video editting, you may as well go with RAID.

 

[privatebreyer]

I seriously doubt dual moniters will be possible... I guess I should include a back story....

I'm building it for a research class that is presentation heavy. The instructer wants to video tape presentations and be able do various stuff with them like critque or save to a nice package. And have have it around for general classroom use. We got a $1700 grant thats got to be used in a few weeks, or we'll lose it, and nothing else to spend it on.

Beyond that our budget is nothing, so more than 1 moniter is out. Further more, no desk space.
Also, givin the level of expertise that would be using it, the Matrox card would probably be a waste.
I'm graduating this year, so the real challenge here is making something with enough power to be very usefull for a good long time, yet still as idiot proof as possible.

I'm after something with a good entry level video editing suite with enough ports on it to work with just about any a/v equipment, and can do basic stuff with it. Thus the AIW Radeons.

And as for the raid, I'm for or less ignoirant of it. I know that its used to combine multiple hard drives into one big one. I was planning on keeping them seperate so all the data streaming to the big one for videos would not be interuped by the OS or anything else.

 

[Hulk]

The system looks really good except for the following:

I've heard about some problems with on-board Firewire with that mobo.
I would get the non-Deluxe version and get a Pyro firewire card.

I would also get a Santa Cruz soundcard. Very solid, a lot of video editors are using them.

Finally, do consider the Parhelia. It's amazing for 2 or 3 monitor work.

 

[privatebreyer]

If I were to use a Pinnacle Studio Deluxe PCI package for all the inputs/outputs, would that negate the need for an AIW card? Would I still need a strong video card to run all that video? How strong is strong in this case?

 

[human2k]

Wow, im suprised no one's recommended a mac!

 

[privatebreyer]

Originally posted by: human2k
Wow, im suprised no one's recommended a mac!

Please don't!

 

[LethalWolfe]

Originally posted by: human2k
Wow, im suprised no one's recommended a mac!

You should get a Mac!


Seriously. The specs look okay. Do you have a way to convert everything into DV and capture it all via firewire (Like a ADVC from Canopus or Hollywood Dazzle DVbridge or a DV camera you can use as a pass-thru)? That's the way I'd go. DV is a great format and some editing programs don't like it if you are mixing and matching different formats. What program do you think you'll use? If yer on the bubble I'd recommend Vegas Video 4. I've only toyed w/it abit (FCP is on my editing rig, VV4 demo is on my PC), but it gets lot of good reviews and it has a cult following. Getting a RT (real time) card from Canopus or Matrox is kinda iffy if you are only working w/DV 'cause lots of RT can be done w/software only (depending on what editing software you use).

If you are only working w/DV I wouldn't worry about RAIDing the drives. Just one more thing to go wrong and unless you layer a lot of video and have a lot of super-quick cuts (like a 20sec clip made up of 2-5 frame long edits) yer not gonna drop frames on a current 7200RPM HDD (unless something is malfunctioning).


Lethal

 

[PhishPhan]

MAC's are nice for ornamental arrangments.

 

[NeuronBasher]

Also, as much as it pains me to say it, you might want to consider an Intel processor instead of the Athlon. In every benchmark I've seen in recent months the P4s have a substantial lead over AMD in the video encoding department. If you're really serious about video editing it might be worth the extra money to get the Intel solution over the AMD.

Check out Anand's article from when the 3000+ Barton came out.

 

[RyanM]

Actually, latest Benchmarks show dual-Pentium 4 Xeons, at 2.8 GHz, outpace dual Athlon MP's, at 2 GHz, by a mere 1 to 2 percent (exporting to Sorenson 3 Quicktime from Adobe Premiere). Note that the MP platform is about a year and a half behind the Nforce 2 chipset, and that has a definite effect on speed.

What does that mean to you? A single Athlon XP Barton, if clocked at 2000+ speeds, would SURPASS (due to the extra cache) a 2.8 GHz P4 in the same test. Your Barton is a good choice.

I would go with more RAM. 2 512MB sticks of of PC2700 would be more than enough.

I would have 2 hard drives. The first would be the fastest small-capacity (20 to 40 gig) you could lay your hands on. If you can wait for the Raptors, perfect. If not, there are other options. Use that as the boot drive, then grab a 120 or 200 GB WD special edition drive for storage duties.

Finally, you would be better off with a dual-monitor rig. Period. If you can't afford 2 19" monitors, buy two 17" flatscreen CRTs. Motion video isn't edited in a high resolution, but the extra workspace is EXTREMELY beneficial to your efficiency.

 

[NeuronBasher]

Two of the three benchmarks in the video encoding section of the article that I linked to above (from February 11, 2003 -- pretty recent ) have the Intel offerings showing a substantial performance gain over the AMD chips. The third did indeed have a smaller margin of gain. In any case, the Barton probably is still a reasonable choice, particularly if switching to Intel would cause another area to get skimped on.

As far as pure price/performance ratio is concerned, the AMD can't be beat, there's no question about that. But if money is no object then I think the Intel solution would be at least marginally faster.

Take my opinion for whatever minimal value it's worth.

 

[privatebreyer]

Originally posted by: MachFive

I would have 2 hard drives. The first would be the fastest small-capacity (20 to 40 gig) you could lay your hands on. If you can wait for the Raptors, perfect. If not, there are other options. Use that as the boot drive, then grab a 120 or 200 GB WD special edition drive for storage duties.

When will the Raptors be availible in the 36gb size. That would make a perfect book disk.

 

[Duvie]

What does that mean to you? A single Athlon XP Barton, if clocked at 2000+ speeds, would SURPASS (due to the extra cache) a 2.8 GHz P4 in the same test. Your Barton is a good choice.

You can't interplate that from that....look at other benches across the range of differing formats, mpeg2, mpeg3, mpeg4, Divx, and heck alot of programs are optimized for sse2 and you don't know for sure the above test was....

I will get some links but generally speaking an amd of pr rating of 2500-2800+ barton likely will be quite comparable to a p4 2.8ghz....AMD mhz for mhz wins but I think in a single processor setting amd is not goinf to win benches with a 200+ cpu spotting intel 1.2ghz....cmon follow it up with a link of single cpu setups...He isn't buying a dual setup so compare apples and apples here....

(2000+ beats a 2.0ghz willamette in divx 5.02 mpeg4)

(2000+ was lower then a 400fsb 2.2ghz northwood in media encoder version 9)

(2000+ just beat a 2.2ghz 400fsb p4 northwood in quicktime version 6)

(2000+ below 1.8a in mp3 encoding but around a 2.4ghz in both pinnacle and mpeg2 encoding)

pretty much like I said find a pr rated amd chip near 2800+ and it will act like a 2.8ghz p4....Lets just think he meant a 2ghz amd chip which would have been far less ridiculous....

 

[privatebreyer]

Originally posted by: LethalWolfe

Seriously. The specs look okay. Do you have a way to convert everything into DV and capture it all via firewire (Like a ADVC from Canopus or Hollywood Dazzle DVbridge or a DV camera you can use as a pass-thru)? That's the way I'd go. DV is a great format and some editing programs don't like it if you are mixing and matching different formats. What program do you think you'll use? If yer on the bubble I'd recommend Vegas Video 4. I've only toyed w/it abit (FCP is on my editing rig, VV4 demo is on my PC), but it gets lot of good reviews and it has a cult following. Getting a RT (real time) card from Canopus or Matrox is kinda iffy if you are only working w/DV 'cause lots of RT can be done w/software only (depending on what editing software you use).

Lethal

I was thinking about the Pinnacle Studio Deluxe 8. It easy t use and supports a number of formats. The camera itself is firewire ready. But believe it or not, not everyone has a DVD player. So I may be required at some point to record to VHS.

 

[RyanM]

Supposedly, the Raptors are gonna hit the market in the next week or two. Supposedly.

I can already imagine what I'm gonna do when I get it....partion 6 gigs away for windows, 30 gigs away for program files, and install all my programs all over again. Mmmmmmmm.....10,000 RPM.....:rools::

 

[Scuzz]

I just built a simular system for my wife. We wanted to capture DV and analog from a VCR and make DVDs.

Asus P4 MB wiith Gigabit and 6.1 sound.
80GB 7200RPM Maxtor for video
20GB (old) for OS and apps
GF2 32MB GTS (old) for 2d/3d
Pinnacle Deluxe, come with capture card and software, $199 after $100 rebate
2.4G P4
512MB PC2700
Case w/ 350W PS
Sony 500AX DVD burner
Installed XP

So far the system works great, I made a best of porn from old VHS I think the whole thing ran around $1400.

 

[privatebreyer]

Originally posted by: Scuzz
I just built a simular system for my wife. We wanted to capture DV and analog from a VCR and make DVDs.

Asus P4 MB wiith Gigabit and 6.1 sound.
80GB 7200RPM Maxtor for video
20GB (old) for OS and apps
GF2 32MB GTS (old) for 2d/3d
Pinnacle Deluxe, come with capture card and software, $199 after $100 rebate
2.4G P4
512MB PC2700
Case w/ 350W PS
Sony 500AX DVD burner
Installed XP

So far the system works great, I made a best of porn from old VHS I think the whole thing ran around $1400.

How does the DVD burner work? I want one, but I've heard there has been a lot of trouble with anything lest than expensive disks.
Hows the video card? Do I need anything really strong to do this?

 

[RyanM]

Originally posted by: Scuzz
I just built a simular system for my wife. We wanted to capture DV and analog from a VCR and make DVDs.

Asus P4 MB wiith Gigabit and 6.1 sound.
80GB 7200RPM Maxtor for video
20GB (old) for OS and apps
GF2 32MB GTS (old) for 2d/3d
Pinnacle Deluxe, come with capture card and software, $199 after $100 rebate
2.4G P4
512MB PC2700
Case w/ 350W PS
Sony 500AX DVD burner
Installed XP

So far the system works great, I made a best of porn from old VHS I think the whole thing ran around $1400.

Are you selling copies of this "Best of" collection? Or are they already listed in the "Hot Deals" section? rofl

 

[Scuzz]

Take about 10 VHS and make one yummy DVD, The software even sets up a menu with preview boxes like a real movie. Works in my standalone and computer DVD player. I used a TDK DVDR+.

 

[SViscusi]

I'd skip the Pinnacle and just get the Canopus ADVC100.

User reviews here: Canopus ADVC100