a new computer, what requirements?

[jdizzy40]

Great Post. No such thing as easy and painless (You must shop at WALMART). Don't make Michael Dell any richer buying his crappy computers. Number # 1 Computer in repair shops around the United States. They gloat about their 24 hour service center, know why? It gets used a lot. Off the shelf, buy a Sony Vaio, but custom building results in what you want and pro parts.

[mpack]

Ok, other than the fact that it is impossible as stated, I'm sure we all know you meant XP

Oops! I conflated NT and XP... oh well, it was late...

[mpack]

I also disagree with the 256 MB being enough memory. I guess it all depends on what you are doing with your PC, but I know if I am rendering a 3D animation for a video I'm working on, 512 MB of RAM is iffy and if I don't close down all other apps, the system will stick and eventually crash. It doesn't do that with 1 GB of RAM.

I would say that rendering a 3D animation for your video is a pretty unusual requirement: for normal video capture, filtering, editing, DVD authoring etc, 256MB is more than enough. However, for all the difference it probably makes to the price these days this isn't something I would get too bothered about.

On the Intel v Athlon debate: IMHO the debate is rather pointless. Many if not most video operations are I/O bound (a function of RAM and hard disk bus bandwidth), so comparisons between similarly specced CPUs are barely relevant IMHO.

[triphop]

The question is somewhat academic without placing budget constraints... Are you buying or building?

The best suggestion here is the A64 3400+.

As for the P4 beating Athlons for encoding - thats true if thats **ALL** you do. The P4 netburst architecture is well suited to encoding with its deep pipeline, however in almost every benchmark, the Athlon beats it hands down at the most important measure performance/price.

[rkr1958]

I built an entirely new system...P4 box, 160 GB HD, ATI Radeon 9800 Video card, 2.666 Ghz CPU, D865GLC Intel MoBo...all for $75. But I doubt you have a friend like I do

Good God ... I'll take one of those for $75 ... I'll even throw in $75 for shipping!!

[EvilWizardGlick]

I have a lot of digital video, captured with my canon optura xi. I will buy a new computer soon, but have a few questions...

1. What are the hardware requirements that would make editing DV painless? How much hard drive, processor, memory, etc. should I get?

2. I am strongly considering dell, but may consider apple as well, any ideas?

Thanks!

This is kind of basic.
http://www.videoguys.com/DIY.html
"Back in January of 2004 we first had the idea for this article. Since then it has become one of the most popular articles on our website. Videographers all over the world have come to use it as a starting point for putting together their own DIY computer for NLE. As promised, we are updating the article. Jon & I decided it was time for him to update the machine he was using at home to edit video. What better time then to see just how powerful a system we could put together for the same $1,000 budget."

That will give you a fairly decent idea of what you can do with very little.
Read the article and go from there.

[HatchetMan]

May I also add that a custom built set up is almost always the best way to go. Even if you don't want the headache, mwave.com has a selection as good as newegg, pick and choose what ever you eventually decide your requirements are and they will assemble and test it for only $79. I did it, couldn't be happier either.

[funkguy4]

encoding is running simple calculations a buttload of times. this is why raw ghz is what counts. celeron @ 3ghz will beat a p4 @ 2.4 ghz in mpeg encoding w/ same frontside bus. it's memory bandwidth and ghz. all.

and for the "evidence" or whatever:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/athlon64-fx51_12.html

unless you're going for an FX, which has amazing memory bandwidth, stick w/ the pentium 4

[maek]

You can build a great system for way cheaper than 2 grand

Everything is cheaper when you build it yourself. I, however, don't have the patience. I was able to get my system for just a hair over $1,400 - which I thought was a pretty good deal back in 2003.

[triphop]

encoding is running simple calculations a buttload of times. this is why raw ghz is what counts. celeron @ 3ghz will beat a p4 @ 2.4 ghz in mpeg encoding w/ same frontside bus. it's memory bandwidth and ghz. all.

Be careful not to buy anything other than a D version. Anandtech had some rather scathing things to say about the non-D celerons.

I still stand with my previous recommendation: A64 3400+ with gobs of RAM and a NF3 or SIS755 MB and a couple of those Raptor drives represents a inexpensive and quick machine. Throw in a NV6600GT and you're set.

You can keep your Pentium 4 to warm your room when the central heat is out.

[nelson133]

The best reason to buy AMD is the price/preformance ratio. The AMD will give a lot more bang for the buck. I have built my own for many years and switched to AMD because it leaves me more money for ram, drives, etc. Nyah Levi

[funkguy4]

i've got an AMD also (currently) Athlon XP 1900+.....this thing isn't exactly the coolest-running CPU out there...i know Pentiums run HOTT tho, my friend has a 2.6D. That is a downside. intel's sure taking their time to come out w/ their 64-bit cpu. i guess they're milkin' the P$ 32-bit line for all it's worth. and why did they make the P4 worse clock for clcok than the P3? whatever, some twisted marketing strategy.

[jimmalenko]

encoding is running simple calculations a buttload of times. this is why raw ghz is what counts. celeron @ 3ghz will beat a p4 @ 2.4 ghz in mpeg encoding w/ same frontside bus. it's memory bandwidth and ghz. all.

Has that P4 got HT enabled ?

[budz]

HatchetMan wrote:

Even if you don't want the headache, mwave.com has a selection as good as newegg, pick and choose what ever you eventually decide your requirements are and they will assemble and test it for only $79. I did it, couldn't be happier either.

Yikes! @mwave.com.....they have shady business practices....do a search at the local better business bureau website in the city mwave.com does business in....you'll see tons of complaints filed against them..... i use to purchase most of my computer components from them until i found out they were sending me replacement motherboards that i had originally shipped back to them because they were defective.....i know of this because i copied the serial numbers off the motherboards before shipping it back to them.....mwave also puts on their own motherboard serial number sticker over the factory serial numbers....the numbers are not the same....i'd never purchase anything from them again.....i filed my complaint with the BBB in their city and got refunds for all the farking shipping costs i had to pay when mailing them back the defective motherboards and got refunded for the motherboards as well.....i had shipped back to them 4 times in a 1 month span.

regarding this thread.....it's best to build your own pc for video encoding and editing....dell sucks......do yourself a favor and get someone to build the pc for you.....get your components from NEWEGG.COM because they are just the best when it comes to customer service and great prices.......

[burnman99]

regarding this thread.....it's best to build your own pc for video encoding and editing....dell sucks......do yourself a favor and get someone to build the pc for you.....get your components from NEWEGG.COM because they are just the best when it comes to customer service and great prices.......

I couldn't agree more...i'd say get a 2GHZ AMD CPU (XP2400) on a good m/b with plenty of features, 512 MB DDR Ram & a large HD. And I also recommend newegg although zipzoomfly & monarch are also good online sites.

Hope this helps.

Have fun stormin' the castle!

Rog

[funkguy4]

ai'nt....athlon xp 2400 kinda....old....i got my 1900 back in 2002 i think...since h'es buying new he really ought to get something that will last him longer and work faster....just MY HUMBLE OPINION :P

[Josef K]

Whatever the original poster decides on (RE: intel vs. AMD), if you're going to custom build your system - remember to get a big enough case. My case measures H26in x W8in x D17in and I'm still going to have to attach an extra cage to house more hard drives. Besides, the more space inside the better chance you have to cool it and there's nothing encoding likes better than to make things run hot. You'll have more space to install extra fans or other type of cooling. I have nine fans in mine and it lives in the next room to where I am it's that loud.

Name me one Dell or off-the-shelf system that has enough space left inside after they cram in all their crap for you to do anything else. They may look all pretty on the outside but wait till you want to get inside. Pretty much everything is strapped down and all the cables will only be as long as they need to be. Pre-built systems are notorious for not being upgrade happy. Proprietary crap. It's the reason I hate laptops - you can't whack in a cheapo stick of generic RAM because it'll complain unless you pay way inflated prices for system-specific hardware. If laptops were as easy to build using cheap part as desktops are then I'd be in my back yard through WiFi typing this right now. (Actually, no. It's the middle of the night right now but you get my meaning.)

So I'd recommend sticking to separate, brand name chipset components and check the manufacturer gives good support regarding driver downloads. Ever hear the phrase 'contents may change without notice'? At least you'll know what you're getting.

[funkguy4]

my case has four wide bays and is the "Mid-Tower" kind. What you really wanna stay away fromis those cases where the PSU is mounted sideways (right above the CPU!) because those are terrible.

[burnman99]

ai'nt....athlon xp 2400 kinda....old....i got my 1900 back in 2002 i think...since h'es buying new he really ought to get something that will last him longer and work faster....just MY HUMBLE OPINION :P

Not when he can get it for dirt cheap. combined m/b + 2400 $200 is a great deal period. IMHO it's better to by below the cutting edge & save $$$$$ but if he's got money to throw away, then go for the faster machine.

Later!

Rog

[BroganMc]

My first real video editing computer was a Compaq Athlon-M laptop with 768mb RAM and shared video. I used an external firewire hard drive (7200 rpm) for capture and editing destination as the internal HD was a small 60gb 4200 rpm.

I never had a dropped frame or audio synch problems during capture. Windows Movie Maker (I'm too cheap to buy Premier) did crash on me a couple times, but that's software related.

Now I use another Compaq Athlon-64 processor +3200 with only the bundled 512mb RAM and the same external HDD (ok I added another 200gb HDD for more space). Only frames I ever dropped were when the screen shut off for the Screen Saver (I learned to put the system into "ALWAYS ON").

I edit with Movie Maker, save to DV-AVI, encode with TMPGEnc, author with Ulead and burn with RecordNow. I think the longest it took me to produce a movie was with a 2 hour vacation extravanga project. (Most of the time spent editing.) I also regularly rip and transcode to WMV. All with laptops.

I'd ignore the AMD vs. Intel debate and DIY recommendations, unless you go for that sort of thing. Just concentrate on the fastest processor, most RAM, and biggest HDD you can afford. It's a good idea to splurge on a secondary HDD just for video. You'll find it easier to maintain over time (i.e. defragmenting) and leave your everyday data for the main HDD.