Idvice needed on spec for new system

[6024KE1]

Hi

I want to put together a new PC with the main objective being video capture, editing and burning.

I obviously need a fairly high end machine, but don't want to have to spend a shed load of money.

Can anyone advise what I should be looking at please?

 

[vacunita]

You should probably look into a lot of ram, 1 or 2GB. and a fairly fast cpu. 3Ghz or so. Then a really large Hard Drive, at least 120GB. Beacuse encoding video can consume hard drive space really quickly.

you'll want a DVD+-RW, to burn all that encoded video. Sony's DRU series, are fast and reliable.

Hope this helps you start out.






----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[pmonett]

Video is traditionally an Intel area, you'll probably be better off with a Pentium. On the other hand, the X2 from AMD is quite a performer - but not really less expensive.
You'll need a video card with video in capability, or an add-on card that can do it.
Loads of RAM is obviously important, and high-performance bandwidth is also a must. That means the 800Mhz FSB of Pentium motherboards is a better choice.
You'll also need high-performance disks, and lots of capacity. Two disks is a minimum.
Finally, you'll need a robust video package if you are really interested in spending your time on this kind of stuff.

I have used Pinnacle Studio 8 and 9, and I can tell you that it takes weeks to get a project together. Video editing is not a passtime, it is a full-blown project. Don't start this kind of expenditure if you're not fully intent on committing yourself to it - otherwise you'll just be wasting money.

Pascal.

 

[6024KE1]

Thanks both of you for your advice. I currently have an older PC with an Asus K7V board and slowish processor, which is around 6 years old. I run Pinnacle 9 on it but its capture rate is right on the limit, and it takes hours sometimes to render a project. I have 2 quite high capacity disks which I can use in a new system.

I am going to build my own system as I did 6 years ago, and just wanted some pointers on reasonable specs for video use, as I am a realtive novice with video, but enjoying it!

Regards
Shirley

 

[pmonett]

Well, if you're really into vid editing and are capable of building your own PC, then I suggest you get yourself an X2 4200, with 2GB of DDR RAM on an ASUS motherboard.

If you check here, you'll see that in March of this year, the P4 570 (prescott) was the leader in video performance. Since AMD launched the X2, you can check the time difference here and believe me, there is one !

With such a setup, and the capture card you already have, you should find yourself waiting a lot less during video compilation (not to mention the added quality of your digitizations).

Pascal.

 

[felixc]

I don't think that today's best machine will be able to render a full project within an hour with Studio 9 but you will have a noticeable increase in speed. As Pascal says, if your video capture card has enough quality, keep it in the new system. I use Studio 9 for my editing, but for capturing the data, I use the utilities supplied with my AIW9600XT. As you said, Studio is too borderline when it captures (my system is an AthlonXP 2600). With the ATI utilities, I can capture at max resolution without a frame drop.
Felixc

 

[InterlinkModule]

I want to put together a new PC with the main objective being video capture, editing and burning.

I obviously need a fairly high end machine, but don't want to have to spend a shed load of money.

Can anyone advise what I should be looking at please?

Someone mentioned a large hard drive. They are very cheap these days, I say go for a 250 or 300 gig. I've seen 300+ gig SATA150 drives for less than $150. I highly recommend this and a Western Digital or Seagate brand wise. Trust me, when you start saving and editing large video files you will love the extra space. Western Digital also now has a 400 gig SATA 3.0 gigabit hard drive. This will enhance the overall performance but this is a next gen drive and will cost a lot more.....

-=<>=-

 

[paparazi]

InterlinkModule
"Western Digital also now has a 400 gig SATA 3.0 gigabit hard drive"
Sounds good tell me more, I'm interested lol


Martin

We like members to GIVE and not just TAKE.
Participate and help others.

 

[InterlinkModule]

Western Digital also now has a 400 gig SATA 3.0 gigabit hard drive"
Sounds good tell me more, I'm interested

Well I SWEAR it was SATA300 but now it seems that the drive is SATA150...very strange...anyway, 16 meg cache, 1.2 million hours MTBF and has a 5 year full warranty. It's packed with features such as advanced vibration protection for server and raid configurations and lots more! Check it out on westerndigital.com, it's the 400 gig SE16. It is sweet!

-=<>=-

 

[paparazi]

Arh! I know where you are coming from now.

You mean SATA II which has a "theoretical" bus speed of 300MB/s.
Unfortunately in practice these drives have shown to offer little, if any, performance gain over SATA 1 150MB/s spec drives (thus far) performance will undoubtedly improve in time.
Like the 16mb cache though!
Martin

We like members to GIVE and not just TAKE.
Participate and help others.

 

[InterlinkModule]

Arh! I know where you are coming from now.

You mean SATA II which has a "theoretical" bus speed of 300MB/s.
Unfortunately in practice these drives have shown to offer little, if any, performance gain over SATA 1 150MB/s spec drives (thus far) performance will undoubtedly improve in time.
Like the 16mb cache though!

Well for right now I'm happy with my SATA150 Raptor and Seagate 300 gig.

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