Advice RE professional AV/Multimedia PC, graphics important.

[bigboy529]

Advice RE PC for professional AV/Multimedia use, graphics important.

Hi all
It's been a couple of years since I've built my own machines so saying I'm a bit out of touch is putting it mildly.

I need advice on a pc which will be used in a professional AV / Multimedia environment so speed and graphics will be quite important. I want to buy something already configured / built off the shelf, or custom configured but professionally built for me. This shouldn't be too far off from a proper gaming PC, so I hope to get good advice here.

What I require or at least what I think so far
* Chassis nothing fancy, can be a plain black box, strong and built to last will be a bonus.
* PSU don't really know, as long as it can comfortably power everything.
* Motherboard, USB 3 obviously, do you get boards with thunderbolt?
* Drives, I think a SSD 256 GB or so and then one or two HDD's, 2 TB 7200 RPM.
* RAM 8 or 16 GB.
* CPU, don't really know, i5, i7?
* GPU, something quite solid, it must have at least 2 - 3 even 4 outputs which it must be able to handle at the same time, nothing more than full HD needed at this stage per output, but if it's able to do higher resolution for future expantion it will be a bonus.
* A video input / capture card, is this seprit or part of the GPU?

Do you alternatively think I should rather go for a fast machine with a average GPU but then get a high spec external professional video card with inputs and outputs?

Don't really have a budget at this stage, don't want to skimp but also don't want to go crazy.

 

[Foxhound5366]

No offense, but the fact that you have to ask this question is an indicator that maybe you shouldn't be looking at doing this (it could turn into a very expensive mistake). It's like somebody saying "Hi, I need a professional racing car ... oh, and what kind of wheels do you think I should get?" The word 'professional' implies that YOU are the professional, not the machine. True professionals can do remarkable things with very entry-level pieces of kit, while the most high-end PC in the world isn't going to help your videos look any better if you lack the rest of the software-editing skills.

That's a long way to say that I'd suggest you take a bigger picture look at this, and ask yourself if a high-end PC is really something you're able to use right now. If not, then I suggest you first start with making a friend or two already in the industry doing whatever it is you want to do, and speak to them about their kit recommendations. There's no substitute for real-world experience.

 

[bigboy529]

No offense, but the fact that you have to ask this question is an indicator that maybe you shouldn't be looking at doing this (it could turn into a very expensive mistake). It's like somebody saying "Hi, I need a professional racing car ... oh, and what kind of wheels do you think I should get?" The word 'professional' implies that YOU are the professional, not the machine. True professionals can do remarkable things with very entry-level pieces of kit, while the most high-end PC in the world isn't going to help your videos look any better if you lack the rest of the software-editing skills.

That's a long way to say that I'd suggest you take a bigger picture look at this, and ask yourself if a high-end PC is really something you're able to use right now. If not, then I suggest you first start with making a friend or two already in the industry doing whatever it is you want to do, and speak to them about their kit recommendations. There's no substitute for real-world experience.

No offence taken and thanks for your reply. I'm not a video professional and I'm certainly not going to try be one in future. I already asked video pros in the industry for recommendations as well, but I'm trying to get as many opinions as possible since there are users here on MyBB doing pretty graphic intensive things.

I'm not the person who will be using the machine, that's what video pros are for, I just have to research it and make recommendations. I'm by no means qualified to have the final say on something like this and as said I'm getting true professional opinions as well from people with experience.

 

[Foxhound5366]

Aah ok then, you hadn't clarified that in your original post ... I think you'll want to find a LOT more ram (e.g. 32GB), and an i7 processor (that's assuming you want things to happen in a reasonable amount of time). 4TB of hard drive space also won't last you long if you're into video editing: you'll want to think of some cost-effective video archiving solution, because there's nothing that takes up space like 4K video.

To give you a good baseline of recommended specs, check out this link from Adobe Premiere (including a list of recommended graphics cards): https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/system-requirements.html

 

[bin3]

Not looking for a flame war, and can see both sides of the story, but to be honest, I would just get a Mac. There is a reason it is the go to machine in Multimedia ... Those dustbins might be expensive but they are awesome.

99.9% of all our post production work is done on a Mac ...

 

[Foxhound5366]

Not looking for a flame war, and can see both sides of the story, but to be honest, I would just get a Mac. There is a reason it is the go to machine in Multimedia ... Those dustbins might be expensive but they are awesome.

99.9% of all our post production work is done on a Mac ...

The reason it's the 'go-to' machine is good marketing By all accounts, current Macs on sale are old technology and cannot compete with far cheaper PCs. Stop drinking the kool aid, Steve's not around anymore.

 

[ponder]

No offence taken and thanks for your reply. I'm not a video professional and I'm certainly not going to try be one in future. I already asked video pros in the industry for recommendations as well, but I'm trying to get as many opinions as possible since there are users here on MyBB doing pretty graphic intensive things.

I'm not the person who will be using the machine, that's what video pros are for, I just have to research it and make recommendations. I'm by no means qualified to have the final say on something like this and as said I'm getting true professional opinions as well from people with experience.

Can you elaborate on what exactly you are going to be doing with the PC and which apps you will be using?

 

[bin3]

As I said, not going for a flame war, I respect your view, and my home PC is just a high end PC. But when you start looking at Final Cut, DaVinci Resolve, Nuke, Flame, etc: Apple is just better

 

[bigboy529]

Not looking for a flame war, and can see both sides of the story, but to be honest, I would just get a Mac. There is a reason it is the go to machine in Multimedia ... Those dustbins might be expensive but they are awesome.

99.9% of all our post production work is done on a Mac ...

Personally I'm a Mac guy so also looking at that option. A iMac is a consideration, haven't looked as far as a Mac Pro though. Maybe a iMac with a external capture card will do the trick.

 

[Foxhound5366]

As I said, not going for a flame war, I respect your view, and my home PC is just a high end PC. But when you start looking at Final Cut, DaVinci Resolve, Nuke, Flame, etc: Apple is just better

Haha no harm man, I respect Apple for what they do, and those retina screens really do run rings around what the average PC user gets stuck with, but I think Apple's superiority is to be expected given the cost. Business owners who pay under R10 000 on some cheap-and-nasty PC will always think that their R30 000 Mac looks amazing by comparison, because that money is going *somewhere*. Not many people would spend R30 000 on a PC though, but if they did things would look different.

 

[ponder]

Not looking for a flame war, and can see both sides of the story, but to be honest, I would just get a Mac. There is a reason it is the go to machine in Multimedia ... Those dustbins might be expensive but they are awesome.

99.9% of all our post production work is done on a Mac ...

Or you could get two VERY cheap 8C/16T xeons (total 16C/32T) on ebay and do something like this for cheap which kicks ass when it comes to rendering video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RS2dEEn9-dI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tony8dGupKA

 

[bigboy529]

Can you elaborate on what exactly you are going to be doing with the PC and which apps you will be using?

Sorry should have put this in the OP.
It will be used as a media server feading video and graphic content to anything from projection screens to LED walls. Currently looking at using Arkaos Media Master pro, it comes highly recommended for the type stuff we are doing.

 

[bin3]

Sorry should have put this in the OP.
It will be used as a media server feading video and graphic content to anything from projection screens to LED walls. Currently looking at using Arkaos Media Master pro, it comes highly recommended for the type stuff we are doing.

This seems to be a different spec than for example, an editing workstation. Would the server need to do encodes on the fly, or do you just wish to stream multiple streams at the same time.

If multiple stream, how many and what resolutions, with or without audio, do you want to be able to seek (fast forward and rewind), embed streams within one another ?

 

[bigboy529]

This seems to be a different spec than for example, an editing workstation. Would the server need to do encodes on the fly, or do you just wish to stream multiple streams at the same time.

If multiple stream, how many and what resolutions, with or without audio, do you want to be able to seek (fast forward and rewind), embed streams within one another ?

Usually all editing and encoding are done before hand so not on the fly, we'll need 2 - 3 streams hense the 2 - 3 outputs, max will be 1920 x 1080 HD.

 

[bin3]

Usually all editing and encoding are done before hand so not on the fly, we'll need 2 - 3 streams hense the 2 - 3 outputs, max will be 1020 x 1080 HD.

Don't need a massive GPU for that, get one that runs cool is probably the most important. Fast disks and loads of RAM. I would probably build 4 - 8 disk RAID so you have loads of spindles, and maybe look for a dual GPU box.

You are streaming via display, not network ? Either way, dual network is maybe not a bad idea.

(Assume you meant 1920x1080) - so DP, DVI or HDMI. Try to get 3 or more of the same display outputs, just easier managing colour space)

 

[bigboy529]

Don't need a massive GPU for that, get one that runs cool is probably the most important. Fast disks and loads of RAM. I would probably build 4 - 8 disk RAID so you have loads of spindles, and maybe look for a dual GPU box.

You are streaming via display, not network ? Either way, dual network is maybe not a bad idea.

(Assume you meant 1920x1080) - so DP, DVI or HDMI. Try to get 3 or more of the same display outputs, just easier managing colour space)

Yes sorry 1920 x 1080 edited above. I know between DVI and HDMI the oaks usually prefer using DVI, so will look for something with DVI only.