major help needed- 'building an editing machine'

hauntedHOSPITAL · #1 (**permalink**) 09-13-2004, 05:12 PM

hi,
i need every single bit of help i can get here,
im going to borrow some cash of a friend of mine, and i'll proberlly be able to get at the most £1000 to get my self a decent editing machine to edit DV...

but i dont know anything about computers at all, i've been posting on other forums, i've been told to just get a mac.

i need a computer to do editing/ capturing/ burning DVD & CD. only.

is it cheaper to build a machine? 'cause i could get another friend to help me out with that,
any way i need to convince my rich friend that i know what im doing with the money,
what would be the best machine i could get/build for £1000?

give me loads of advise i really need it,
i need to be able to just give a list to my computer building friend, so
he can sort it all out.

thanks loads for your help

-lee

Marc Peters · #2 (**permalink**) 09-13-2004, 05:51 PM

With a budget of £1,000, your best bet is to:

1) Goto WH Smiths (aka the library

) and take a look at all the PC mags on the shelves - chances are one of them will be doing a group test of PCs on or around that price. Now these will be THE cheapest way of buying a PC from a vendor.

2) Take a look at the specs of these PCs. Go online and search out the same components. See if you can do it for less (I bet you won't be able to - remember to include ALL components including the OS

)

At £1,000, you'll get a piece of kit that's more than up to the job of video editing.

Building your own PC is recommended if:

1) You're a PC geek and love solving your own problems - you're happy to claim any RMAs yourself seperately

2) You're using components from a previous build

3) You want to source THE best components and you know about conflitcs etc.

Good luck

p4ocer · #3 (**permalink**) 09-13-2004, 07:48 PM

Id suggest going to a more hardware based forum if u decide to build...It's actually quite easy to do, assuming everything goes well...

Marc Peters · #4 (**permalink**) 09-13-2004, 07:54 PM

Yep, best bet is to browse a few hardware forums. There IS nothing to it... just be open to what can happen

Alan Mills · #5 (**permalink**) 09-13-2004, 07:56 PM

does that budget include getting a camcorder too?

Assuming not and you have a Min-DV camcorder to play with then pretty much any new PC will work for you.

You'll need the following to be able to edit.

A firewire port for transferring from your camera
As much disk space as possible
As much RAM as possible. Bare min of 512Mb
A DVD writer

And leave some budget for your s/w of choice.

p4ocer · #6 (**permalink**) 09-13-2004, 07:57 PM

yup...just cross ur fingers and hold ur breath until u hear the post beep...

Keep sledge hammer and drink ready for when smoke pours out

Marc Peters · #7 (**permalink**) 09-13-2004, 08:01 PM

... and who in the hell designed the stoooopid way of connecting the case electronics to the motherboard? Talk about fiddly! And don't get me started on cheap cases with razor sharp edges inside *looks at the big scar on his knuckle*... :-(