Thread: Newbie: advice on Video/Editing system

Another newbie would appreciate some advice on specs for new video editing computer, mainly for home use. I would like to grow in the future.

The system I am planning to buy has the following specs:

Motherboard: Asus P5WD2
case: Antec Sonata II Mid tower ATX black power supply 450 Watt ( ATX12V 2.01 )
graphics card: ATI Radeon X700
processor: Intel Pentium D 830, 3.0GHz
ram: Kingmax 1024MB PC4300 DDR2 533MHz 240-pin Unbuffered DIMM
hard disk: Western Digital Raptor Enterprise SATA (WD360GD) 36GB 10,000 RPM 8MB Buffer for system
video capturing and editing: Seagate 300GB ST-3300831AS Barracuda 7200.8 SATA w/NCQ Hard Disk
Sound card: Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS w/ 24-bit Advanced HD, 7.1-channel, 108dB SNR
dvd witer: Plextor PX-716SA Internal Serial ATA 16X DVD+/- 6X Dual Layer DVD-Writer Retail Box
o/s: Microsoft Windows XP Professional (OEM)
capture card: canopus dvstorm2
Monitor: Samsung SyncMaster 915N 19" TFT (Black) 8ms 700:1 1280x1024

Or should I simply buy HP 7170N ?

Please provide your feedback,

Thanks

If you can build the above system for around the same or less than the HP one - get that one.

Because:

- Asus motherboards are the most reliable IMHO. Not the best for overclocking, but I doubt that you're going to want to be OCing on a video editing system anyway.

- 2 hard drives in the above system. 2 HDDs are best for video editing. Plus the one video drive i the system above is bigger anyway.

- The graphics card is a higher spec (not that this really matters if all you're using it for is editing)

Also bear in mind the HP one doesn't come with a monitor or a capture card (especially one of canopus quality)

Are you building it yourself or getting someone to build it for you?

With that board I'd buy 2 of the 10kraptor drives and raid them together as a stipe -us as your OS drive the buy another 2 drives and stipe them together as your media raid - results in super fast disks which is one of the biggets areas of good performance.

Also go for 2gig of ram if you can - will jhelp on render speeds.

Hi Mike,

I'm getting the system built by someone. You mention the video card is an overkill, what do you suggest?

AT the same time, I have an alternative system below, is it better than the first?


Intel 945P chipset, LGA775 Pentium 4 CPU, Dual-Core CPU Ready, FSB 1066/800/533, DDR2 667/533/400, Marvell PCIe Gbit LAN.
Intel 540 (3.2 GHz)
OCZ / Kingston 1GB DDR2 RAM @400MHz
ATI FIRE GL V3200 128DDR PCIx16
Western Digital two WD2500SD (250MB SATA 8MB)
Pioneer DVR-109 (Black) 16x DVD+/-R/RW DL
ThermalTake Tsunami Silver w/ Window
Windows XP Pro SP2
canopus dvstorm2

Thanks...

You didn't mention what video editing software you were considering and so I will say for completeness that if you are considering Pinnacle Liquid Edition on the short list of contenders then the graphics card is important too as LE can and will use the GPU to render some effects in realtime, freeing up the CPU for other tasks.

However, for the PC, this is the only editing software which does this and so if you are looking to use Premiere Elements/Pro, Sony's Vegas, Ulead, etc then this is less of a consideration.

If this system will be a dedicated video editing station then you may wish to consider an Apple Mac and with Final Cut Express or Pro too.

Hi irishmark...great idea, I'llmake sure they set up the raid as you suggested.

The software I'll be suing is adobe premiere. Are there other software I should consider, Lloyd?

Thanks...

In the mid to high end range of software:

Premiere is fine. Certainly widely used and plenty of support and forums for it. I think you can get a demo for this

I use Liquid Edition. It's immensely powerful with great performance (background rendering, or render on the fly) and resilience (saves 90 times a sec) so you pretty much cannot lose any work. Has a vast wealth of features but some are not keen on it's interface (I quite like it). Downloadable demo available

There is also Final Cut Pro, very accomplished and easy to use video editing suite. Has probably the best titler package of any of the standalone editing suites and is full of top end features and functionality. However, can only run on Apple Macs. No demo available

Vegas is another popular package with a staunchly loyal following. It's interface is a bit confusing (imo) but it has the best audio manipulation tools of any of the editing suites (as it was based originally on a sound editing solution). You can download a demo of this.

The lower, more consumer end has about a billion editing choices. Some more widely known than others. I can't comment on them really as I haven't used them for a long time and they have all come on a long way since then. In fact if the consumer packages were what they are now when I moved up to the semi-pro solutions then I possibly would never have upgraded. Here are some to consider:

Premiere Elements 1.x
Pinnacle Studio 9.4.x
Ulead's Videostudio 9
Final Studio Express HD (Apple Mac Only)
Magix Movie Edit Pro 2005

there are more of course. I think practically all the consumer packages have demos you can download (except of course Final Cut Express HD)