Need Quick Advice! Video Editing System

[adam08]

Good day everyone!

I'm looking to buy this Video Editing System.
very soon, in a day or two.


Are these System Specs good? >>> http://images.creativecow.net/105165/videoeditingsystem.jpg
Am I missing anything? Scratch drive, etc? (prices are in $ Canadian Dollars)

I do a lot of 1080p video Editing, Rendering and Encoding (Conversion) of heavy MOV and MPEG files.


Software I'll be running:

OS: Windows 7 Pro

Adobe Premiere, After Effects and Suite CS3 or later
Sony Vegas
Avid Media Composer 6
Future: 3D Studio Max / Cinema 4D



Please help!

[DB83]

"Am I missing something ?" - well a monitor (or two) may help;

I am concerned about a couple of things.

1. The video card. This really comes over as a high-spec gamer's card. Most of its facilities IMHO would be wasted for video editing.

2. Warranties are a waste of money. What is the builder guaranteeing ?. Surely all the components come with a guarantee. And if this system builder is not in business 3 years down the line, the guarantee is worthless. And more than that he could have a raft of excuses not to honour it. Better to negotiate a short-term, and free, say 3-6 months guarantee.

Just my 2 cents (Canadian or US)

[sanlyn]

A gaming setup. I echo the question, what will you do for monitors? How will the monitor(s) be calibrated? Surely you'd put at least $500 into a decent IPS display and $400 into calibration gear and software? I'm also asking myself the question, what will you do with the 3 NLE's you listed? Can two of these do editing tricks that can't be done by the other, and so forth? All four of these high-end packages have advanced color correction features, but only one of them has the kind that most pro colorists would go for.

Have you ever tried to defragment a 3-TB hard drive partition? What if it blows up? (Don't think that it won't). I'd go for three 1-TB's over one biggie that could cost you everything. What kind of color accuracy can you expect from a gaming video card? I've always seen NVIDIA as being built for speed first, accuracy and black color depth second. From your software list and future plans I'd guess you're into special effects over content, so I'd drop the AVID software.

Yes, there's something missing. Extremely important. Your gear will burn up inside that PC case within a year, if it lasts that long. This builder doesn't use case cooling fans on a $3K computer expected to do heavy video processing for hours at a time? I'd shop around.

[Nelson37]

You have been spec'd a "video editing system" with a single hard drive. All by itself, that tells you that the person doing the proposal does not know what they are doing.

A single drive is just silly. As stated above, 2 or more 1TB drives would be much smarter. Not just for potential data loss but performance during work flow.

A $400 video card, a GAMING card, and a 1200 watt power supply? Really?

A system meant for professional use with no battery back-up? W T F?

Don't like either Asus boards or Seagate drives. Gigabyte and WD caviar black is what I would recommend for a customer. For myself, I would not purchase any other brand.

[ranchhand]

If you decide to go with this setup, I suggest using three single TB drives instead of one huge 3-TB drive. Use #1 for your main C:\ drive, use #2 for finished data/video storage, and use #3 for regular backups. As an alternative, you can split #3 into two partitions, one for your C:\ drive and one for #2 storage drive. Good backup software such as Macrium Reflect will compress the image smaller than the original drive so you should get at least two images on each partition. That way you also have a backup of your finished product. It's possible to use an external drive for backup, but backing up a 3 TB drive to an external will be agonizingly slow.

[jagabo]

What are you guys talking about? The invoice shows a 256 GB SSD and two 3 TB hard drives. He's fine on the drive front.

[sanlyn]

Yeah, I just noticed after my post that there are (2) drives, not (1). I get tired just thinking about maintaining 2 biggies, but it'll certainly work. I have 3 PC's, 8 working drives, 5 more archive drives in external boxes (with fans on 'em, of course). It's all documented in Excel, but sometimes I think I need an accountant to help keep track.

That doesn't even count the (7) 100-disc spools of archived stuff and the (14) 140-disc storage albums. I'm competing in storage with the Library of Congress! At least the family will have something to watch when we can't afford cable any more.

[dragonkeeper]

First off find another builder, I don't like the fact he is not listing specific model numbers for the parts, judging by the fact that he has given a you a single* hard drive to work on as well as a gaming card tells me the builder knows nothing of video encoding. Add to this there are no case cooling fans this is a melt down waiting to happen. Including his labor and the mark up the builder is pocketing somewhere in the neighborhood of $500. When you add dual monitors this set up will cost you close to 4K I think that is really step for what you are getting.

At a minimum i would use a different video card, nix the 3TB drive in favor of 2 1TB drives (encodes can be speed up by as much as 10% by using different source and destination drives), use 3TB only for storage not a working drive.

*I'm assuming the SSD will be used for the OS and installed programs and the 3TB for a video editing\encoding.

[adam08]

Hello everyone,

Thank you dragonkeeper, sanlyn, Nelson37, jagabo, ranchhand, and DB83
These are very good suggestions.

This is in fact from a major Canadian/US retailer (TigerDirect.com).

- HD: Yes, 1 x 256 GB SSD drive. Then there are 2 x 3TB drives = 6TB (Seagate). But I guess I should opt for 3 x 2 TBs (I have enough bays and Power (1000w).


Yes, I have to still buy Dual Monitors... I've heard at the Apple Store sometimes they will throw in a monitor if you buy a similarly-priced ($3.5k) system.

[deadrats]

just to throw some more fuel into the fire:

1) 400 bucks for a warranty on a pc? that's a ripoff no matter which way you slice it.

2) 2600K for a supposed "high end" video editing system? judging by the software you listed, all your workflow will benefit from as many cores as you can throw at it. i would recommend skipping the $400 warranty and applying that dough to the cost of the 2600k and going with a 6 core/12 thread i7 3930k which retails for $500 here in the u.s.

3) like a few others have already said, i don't see the point of that video card in a video editing pc, i would go with a mid range ati/amd card and save a couple of hundred bucks.

[edDV]

Some food for thought on monitors. I like to use an HDTV as monitor #2 or #3 to view the result as will be seen. If you are doing broadcast work, monitor #4 should be an old interlace CRT TV that keeps you honest for overscan and legal NTSC colors. Best to use one with a notch, not comb filter. All need calibration.

[DB83]

Yes, I have to still buy Dual Monitors... I've heard at the Apple Store sometimes they will throw in a monitor if you buy a similarly-priced ($3.5k) system.

And such a monitor will be good enough to throw out. Hardly suitable for your purpose.

[stiltman]

To be honest, Just go out and get a HP Z800, add (3) 1Tb drives, Quadro 4000 video card
You can get by with one processor, but get 2 if you have the budget.
Get (2) 22" monitors, and (1) 24" LCD TV

[sanlyn]

This is in fact from a major Canadian/US retailer (TigerDirect.com).

No questioning TigerDirect, PC techs have been buying from TD in droves for years (me included). But you have to accept a certain amount of, well, sales hype -- no matter whom you deal with.

- HD: Yes, 1 x 256 GB SSD drive. Then there are 2 x 3TB drives = 6TB (Seagate). But I guess I should opt for 3 x 2 TBs (I have enough bays and Power (1000w).

Yeah, I noticed that after I posted, and especially noticed after jagabo reminded me. My error.

Yes, I have to still buy Dual Monitors... I've heard at the Apple Store sometimes they will throw in a monitor if you buy a similarly-priced ($3.5k) system.

Likely you can use those free monitors as spares, one in your kitchen, maybe another hooked up to a car battery, but for video you need better. Try an ISP display or better, avoid Samsung, store brands, the Dell display panel lottery, and look up reviews at tftcentral.com to get an idea what you're in for. My $400 figure was for a bigger-than 23-inch monitor, but many use 21.5" and like it really well. Up to you. HP, NEC, Viewsonic, LG, others have some nice ISP's in the $250-$450 range, depending on size. Ignore hype about in-monitor speakers and other gadgets. Use the cables that come with the monitor; take a tip from gamers and use DSub VGA, not slowpoke DVI. Don't let some sales kid sucker you into $125 for silver-coated wire; it sucks. Get yourself an XRite/Eye-One Display2 calibration kit and calibrate everything except your toaster and microwave. Find some free internet tutorials on how to use the Color Finesse plugin for AfterEffects and get a taste of what's ahead.

Otherwise, consider yourself luckier than many members here; they can hardly afford what you're looking at.

[bendixG15]

Talk to another seller so you can compare.

[ranchhand]

Adam08... sorry, I must have had a blond moment. Yep, you got 2-3TB and 1-256SSD. However, the basic setup I suggested is still valid. Sorry for the mis-read.

[ranchhand]

>double post-mistake<

[DB83]

I do wonder if the builder took a look at the videoguys site, threw the suggestions in the air and came up with a compromise.

Take a look at the latest recc

http://www.videoguys.com/Guide/E/Videoguys+DIY9+Sneak+Peek+Its+Time+for+Sandy+Bridge+E...434e88de7.aspx

Certainly some similarities. You would have to add the additional storage to this.

I have not checked the latest cost of the individual parts but videoguys also source from tigerdirect so it would be quite easy to compare.

[sanlyn]

I'd have to say the original design submitted by the O.P. is overkill for video. Even some hard-core gamers might debate some of the choices. In any case, all these designs are overkill for using consumer software, even if the software is at the high end of the scale. Most videophiles are spending $1500 - $2000 for their custom video PC's. Many don't even go that far: I'm envious of an acquaintance who has Adobe high-end stuff all over the place with a $1200 quadcore AMD PC, XP Pro, and 4GB of RAM. Puts out BluRay that looks better than many retail issues. This doesn't mean that a red hot machine won't get the job done, it certainly will. But monitors, calibration, some rather essential Adobe plugins, etc., could be more affordable with more reasonably priced hardware. Don't forget case cooling; three big HDD's and high-powered graphics running high throttle for several hours of video processing need two-fan high speed cooling or better, not to mention opening that case and cleaning at least twice a year.

Did I see a 2.6 GHz chip in that last design? I'd stick with 3 GHz or better. Including Premiere Pro with Vegas seems like duplication of effort, with Adobe looking like the better choice - but that's another debatable item. AfterEffects ought to stay in the mix, since it can do things the other two packages can't and is difficult to beat for color and other image correction features.

It wouldn't take much effort or research to rethink some of these items, but I'd delve a little farther into what you want to do. If all that high-end software is there just to edit video clips, there are cheaper ways to just "edit", as the software choices can be used for a great deal more than that. There's no reason to spend that much cash $$$ just for "editing", since a lot of good edit-only and rendering software is free. But, then, I know people who spend $$$ for Premiere Pro or Vegas strictly for cutting, joining, and rendering clips, and nothing else. An absurd waste of good software.