Video Editing PC

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XCalibre

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Right so I've decided on the following so far:

[P5B-Plus] - ASUS Intel P965 LGA775, 1333FSB, 4xDual DDR2, 1xPCI-x16, 3xPCI-x1, 3xPCI, 1xATA133, 6xSATAII(Raid 0,1,5,10), Gbe Lan, 8ch-Sound, Max 10xUSB, 2xIEEE1394, ATX

4X 1GB DDRII-800 (Kingston - KVR800D2N5/1G)

2X 500GB-7200RPM 16MB Cache SATA II (samsung)

2X [226BW] - 22 WIDE TFT, 1680 X 1050, 2 Millisecond, .282mm dot pitch, 3000:1 Contrast Ratio, Analogue & DVI, Tilt & Swivel Stand, Windows Vista Cert.

Geforce 8800GTX 600M 768MB 384Bit DDR3 DUAL-DVI SLi - XFX XXX Edition


What processor would you guys suggest and how much is it?
With all the MS issues with 4gb of ram do you guys suggest only installing 2gb?
The pc will be used for video editing purposes

Thanks in advance
 
Video editing? Get a MacPro. This is a field that they excel in.

EOS.
 
Sorry forgot to mention they want to do the occasional gaming on it as well
 
You may also want to check out a WD raptor drive as your system disk.
 
XCalibre said:
Sorry forgot to mention they want to do the occasional gaming on it as well
Click to expand...
That doesnt make any difference - you can still boot windows natively if you want to game. ;)

Check out the specs for the MacPro - thrown in final cut pro and you've got a certain winner on your hands. :)
 
painful as it may be to admit, the Macpro will kick any windows pc into yesterday when it comes to video editing.

bwana, what will a monster like that cost around here?
 
Local Cost: http://www.zastore.co.za/macpro.php UK cost may differ

If you have the money then obviously the mac will be the best, but for an intel cpu i would go for the C2Q6600 @ R2 700

You don't get too much storage included in a R37 000 mac, therefore you need to factor in the cost of more hdd's.

If it is for pro use and you will make money out of it then i'm sure you would want the faster encoding on the mac
 
Hi XCalibre,

Video editing computer? mmm... You will have to elaborate a bit.
I'm looking at your post and it looks like you forgot to include a system drive. Remember that the system drive should not be the video drive. Put the video drives in RAID 0 for max performance.

Here is a display card for graphics pros: Matrox Parhelia APVe - It has great pro video features like, WYSIWYG video output plug-ins for: Premiere, After Effects, Photoshop, Combustion, 3ds max and LightWave. It also has YPbPr component output at all HD & SD resolutions and frame rates. I have a friend with one of these and it really is the video pros display card.

You will also need a video monitor to go with the setup you mentioned. If you can't afford a proper CRT video monitor, you can turn a 1920x1200 LCD screen into a video monitor by using one of these: HDLink

Last, but most certainly not least, you will need a video capture card. Well, which one to get depends on what format you are editing. If you are only editing HDV, then all you need is a simple firewire card and a program like Aspect HD that piggybacks your editing application. The eqauvalent program for the Mac is called: Lumière HD.
If you are editing in a more pro format, you really can't go wrong with the DeckLink HD Extreme card from Blackmagic Design. The Blackmagic cards offer the best bang for buck.

OR

Get that Mac that bwana was talking about. :D


56kMan

Over and out. ;)
 
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Get the bottom of the range Mac Pro. I have the Quad model and it only uses 60% or the resources at most, usually sits at 50% of the 4 cores. With the 8 cores the computer idles even more. It's a great machine but you can save some money now
and later upgrade to the 8 core as the motherboard will recognise the 2 dual cores or
the 2 quad cores. :)

The eqauvalent program for the Mac is called: Lumière HD.
Click to expand...

You only need video capture card on Mac if you're doing analog capture from VHS/Hi8/etc. If you're
capturing HD/HDV you can link up Final Cut Pro via firewire to the camcorder (eg the AG-HVX200E). :)
 
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PeterCH said:
You only need video capture card on Mac if you're doing analog capture from VHS/Hi8/etc.
Click to expand...
Not only analog. Also uncompressed digital like SDI/HDSDI. The max you can capture over firewire is DVCPro HD, I think.
 
dotVIBE said:
painful as it may be to admit, the Macpro will kick any windows pc into yesterday when it comes to video editing.

bwana, what will a monster like that cost around here?
Click to expand...
Bottom of the range here is R20,053.00 which is actually less than the £1,509.01 (r21,725) he would pay in the UK.

However if he jetted across the pond for a weekend getaway he'd pick it up for $2,200.00 (r15,622 or £1,085.08).

A cheap ticket and the weekend is almost paid for :)
 
There is quite a lot more to consider than just the normal hardware when it comes to video editing systems.

What will be edited? HD / SD? Will they need to capture Analogue (component/composite) Digital (DV/HDV/SDI/HDSDI) How much video drive space do they need? Is speed the only factor when it comes to storage (Raid0) is reliability also a factor? (Raid5)

And obviously certain video capture hardware has some compatibility issues with certain hardware, so the actual computer is not always the best place to start, might have to start with capture card first to determine your hardware options.

You can get away with a normal sort of midrange system with no bells and whistles if you are only doing DV. But need a bit more if you want to do uncompressed SD and then even more if you want to do HD and a lot more if you want to do uncompressed HD.
 
bwana does mac not use your core 2 now?

is it the OS that make mac excel?

im sure mac's are using the same cpu's as pc's now? stand to corrected though

would raptor raid not work well for video editing?

i would say q6600 cpu
3 gig memory
raid 0 config raptors i think would kick some serious ass
 
killadoob said:
bwana does mac not use your core 2 now?
Click to expand...
The big boys (MacPro's) use quad or 8 core intel xeons
killadoob said:
is it the OS that make mac excel?
Click to expand...
the OS and the application software - in this case final cut pro. The OS is solid.
killadoob said:
im sure mac's are using the same cpu's as pc's now? stand to corrected though
Click to expand...
if you mean intel chips then yeah. The 8 core machines run clovertowns while the quads run woodcrest xeons.
 
MAC OS is the kicker when it comes to video editing, always has been.
 
Your system drive does not need to be Raided (sounds funny, but sure thats the word).

Its all about the video storage drives.

To edit uncompressed HD you would need a 8 drive Raid0 setup.

And no need for Raptors in that, just your average SATA2 HDD would suffice.

Have a look at these products for an example http://www.caldigit.com
 
dotVIBE said:
MAC OS is the kicker when it comes to video editing, always has been.
Click to expand...

Not so much these days.

With the proper hardware, a pc can compete quite well with any MAC setup.

For me PC versus MAC in the video editing world has become more of a software choice issue than performance issue. i.e. AVID versus FINAL CUT PRO versus PREMIERE PRO versus OTHER VIDEO EDITING APPS.
 
WonderBob said:
Not so much these days.

With the proper hardware, a pc can compete quite well with any MAC setup.

For me PC versus MAC in the video editing world has become more of a software choice issue than performance issue. i.e. AVID versus FINAL CUT PRO versus PREMIERE PRO versus OTHER VIDEO EDITING APPS.
Click to expand...
I dont know, in my experience windows doesnt compare, at least favourably, with OsX for heavy lifting. I use both operating systems on a daily basis and each seems to have its own niche in which they excel. The Mac OS is solid - of course that [-]might[/-] will change at the end of the year with 10.5 and the usual teething pains new releases suffer from but the same holds true when you're talking about Vista.
 
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