Best CPU and Motherboard for dv editing

[tchambers]

Money is not a real problem but I don't want to go crazy. I have built my last 3 computers and are very comfortable doing so. I have always been an Intel advocate, but I see alot of attention being given to the AMD processer. Is it cost, or just plain better for the requirements of downloading and editing dv? I am looking for suggestions for a mid to high level system. I also do alot of photo editing with Adobe CS.

[erdons]

Well from what ive experienced, intels are alot faster than amd's when it comes to video editing.

[stiltman]

Dual Zeons

Least that is what they are happy with at the TV station

[tchambers]

Dual Zeons, can you elaborate, what motherboard??

[rallynavvie]

Xeons? Yeah, and 4x the cost of a single P4. Then the board is generally twice as expensive as the single CPU board. And you only really see about 1.5x the performance with SMP aware applications over the similar single Pentium. If you want to milk a system for all its worth then I can certainly recommend some parts to get you started on a Xeon rig, I'm pretty good with SMP workstations.

Otherwise it will depend on the apps you're using for video. AMDs are cutting into the lead Intel has had on the multimedia market more and more. Chipsets are becoming a more important factor when trying to get a little more performance out of a CPU. If you're doing professional video work, as in doing it for production sake for DVDs and high-end video, then stick with the faster Intels as they still have that corner. If you're pirating, I mean backing up, DVDs to DivX or similar or using silly apps like DVD Shrink or whatever it's called these days then some of those engines are favoring AMD processors.

[tchambers]

I am using the latest Pinnacle and am capturing dv and converting old Hi-8 to dv. I capture to a dedicated hard drive and do my editing there. I then finalize my video and bring that into pro show gold and add stills and music. I put out some pretty good home dvd for the entire family. I do however, get some hickups when editing. Some hesistation now and then, that makes me feel it is time to step up. I am currently using a pent4 2.4 with 1 gig of ram and an ati 8500 all in wonder. I do enough of this that I don't mind the expense of going to the next level. What do you reccomend?????

[rallynavvie]

Probably just get the fastest Pentium you can afford and build a PC around it. Unless you want to spend a LOT more for an SMP workstation. For instance:

Pentium D 3.0 (actual results may vary with the Pentium Ds): $320
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819116212

Asus P5WD2: $210
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131534

Cost for Pentium D combo: $530

Versus the cost of the Xeon basics:

Xeon 3.0 (Irwindale core): $360 x2
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819117034

Iwill DN800: $415
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813129133

Cost for the dual Xeon combo: $1135

You gotta justify if it's really worth paying that much more for a system that doesn't give you quite twice the performance of a single processor. And then remember that the dual processors are only going to combine forces on apps that are written to take advantage of that. The ones I use that do are all the Adobe apps I use and TMPGEnc. For me it was worth it since I multitask the crap out of my workstations so I need something I can continue to work on while something is being chewed on by the other processor.

[tchambers]

rallynavvie
internal affairs
Thanks for the advice. I have always been an Intel freak and feel more comfortable staying with what I feel has been good to me. I am surely not a professional nor do I want to be. I just want to archive work with equipment that puts out a fine end product with the stuff I put in it. I have been with this equipment now for about 3 years and I have not had a problem one with it. The only thing I believe is, that as the software becomes more cpu demanding, my equipment starts lacking in efficiency. This fastest pentium ought to last me another 3-4 years. What would you choice for a video card be?????

[rhegedus]

What would you choice for a video card be?????

Doesn't really matter - it's the CPU that will be doing the work.

I've had the same system for the past three years - in that time I've gone from an ATI 64Mb card to an NVidia 128Mb Ti4400 card to my present NVidia 256Mb GeForece 6 card..... hasn't made a shred of difference to my video editing and rendering.

[rallynavvie]

I agree. My rule of thumb for a video card for someone doing plain video work (no 3D effects or any of that) and not using it for gaming or 3D design and CAD work is: get one that supports what you want to run for resolution on your monitors. The Asus board I posted for the Pentium D is PCI-E so a great entry-level card would be the GeForce 6200 or the ATi X300. I know the latest gen nVidia cards have some onboard hardware decoders for MPEG2 and such but I can't recall if it is on the entire line (all GeForce 6xxx cards) or stops at a certain level. That may be worth it for you to take that little bit of load off your CPU, but not necessary. The older nVidia cards required you to use their software player in order to "unlock" the hardware decoding, now they just require you to use their MPEG2 codec. My 6600GT works like this for a lot of different video formats.

The other reason to get a nicer card would be to support multiple displays, but I think even the entry-level cards I posted support at least two analog displays. For video it's nice to have a TV attached for a good preview monitor if the video program you're using supports it. Sometimes you don't realize two colors aren't going to react well together on a TV screen.

[tchambers]

So if I hear you guys correctly, a top of the line ATI Radeon super stealth with 500,000 mgs of ram, won't make any difference in dv editing? How about editing photos on Adobe? Would a high end card be of any difference there? I do some analog conversion to dv and at this time I run the hi-8 into the dv and on to the computers fire wire port. Is there any advantage to having a card that will allow the analog to be introduced directly to the system rather than running through the dv camcorder??

[rhegedus]

No differenece whatsoever.

[rallynavvie]

All the expensive consumer cards are aimed at is gamers. Period.

The high-end professional cards like Fires and Quadros will help certain applications that take advantage of the extra hardware on them such as CAD and 3D design applications.

Video is 2D so pretty much any video card to be had on the market today will do just as good as the next so long as it supports the monitor(s) and resolutions you want from them. I'd still get a decent brand name card just so you don't have problems with it, but otherwise they all work pretty much the same. As I said before if you're using a lot of 3D effects in your video productions you may want to get a better card to take some of the load off of playback/preview of the effects but you'd be using prosumer or better apps to actually utilize any hardware acceleration from the video card.

Oh and for those that say certain cards make video look better or whatnot I'm almost certain that has nothing to do with the card itself but more with tweaking your color settings on both your monitor and video card for it to look the best.

[vhelp]

Although I've spent over 20 years under the hood of computers and
built every one of them, I am no guru in this dept. With that said..

IMHO, everything that was said above is good. But, as was indicated,
CPU is the major, but also more RAM.

RAM won't increase (or will it) speed, but will de-crease HDD
swapping; reading; writing; and writing to the swap file; (which might
help in the speed dept in terms of less HDD accesses) ..so far, so good.
The thing about RAM is that those Editing apps will use whatever you
have, to point of running out, to point of using your HDD for the rest.
Thus, a 64MB setup would grind your HDD in most of your Editing processes,
while a 256MB will lessen that, and 512MB will even lesson that, and a
1GIG even lessor. My motherboard (mobo) allows for 3GIG's of RAM, but
unfortunately, I am not able to test this (inside my Video and Encoding
processes) because I damaged it some time back a few months, where I
damanged TWO memory banks - sheesh.
Most operations that exhaust RAM are those that your drain with Filters
and Encoding setups. TMPGenc will use all of your RAM (based on my
own observations/tests) ..especially when you mess around with strange
GOP settings, where, if your RAM is low, it (TMPGenc) will start using
your HDD for the remaining RAM-swapping requirements.. thus, decrease
speed/performance, etc.
So, filling your mobo with lots of RAM is the 2nd best thing you can
do for Editing and Encoding processes.

With that note above, perhaps you can find a mobo that supports more
than 1GIG of ram memory. Find one with 3GIG support, if you can.

Graphics cards ...

Will do nothing much for impact. But, just be sure it's an AGP type.
I am using an ATI Rage Furo Pro (AGP) card, a Graphics and Capture
card in one.. though not an All In Wonder.
Find one that is a good 2D type. 3D is nothing but Bells and Whistles
attached for gaming and may also steal (hidding) resources and possibly
cause additional IRQ wows.

To recap..

** consentrate on a fast CPU
** and motherboard that supports greater than 1GIG of RAM
** and, add lots of RAM (fill her up)
** and, a 2D AGP type graphics card as a minimum.

-vhelp 3555