how about graphics card?

[AlejandroCP]

Is the quality of the graphic card of a computer plays a big part in building a good system for video editing. The reason i ask is that i am planning on building a pc from scratch and thinking if i should get the latest video card from ATI, the 9700 pro and couple it with a good capture card like the ADVC 1394 from Canopus. I wonder if this is a good plan of should i just get me a decent video card and spend the money i will save on something else? Thanks for any advice.

[LanceSteel]

I don't think the graphics card play any role in video editing. The only thing the does matter is the capture device and the capacity/speed of the hard drive. I have a fairly high end video card now but I use to do video editing on a Geforce 2MX and saw no noticable difference when i upgraded to a Geforce 4 4400. Come to think of it I used to have a Diamond 16MB video card that I started doing video editing with and that worked just great.

I guess what I'm trying to say is save your money and don't buy a top-of-the-line video card for video editing and spend the money you save on a 120MB/180MB HD (since you are getting the canopus DV cap device where captures are like 17GB/hr.)

[BJ_M]

lancesteel is right - the graphics card doesnt play much of a roll at all in video editing .. 2 of the most popular cards are the matrox 550 dual head and the geforce4 mx440 because both have good 2D and stable drivers ...

i like the Matrox Parhelia as it has superb color and plays back mpeg at just about any bit rate extremly well .

[vhelp]

AlejandroCP,

in addition to above post response.

It's ben my experience that an AGP card will help in minimizing
the frame drops when capturing. So, what I'm trying to say
or advise is, vear to an AGP boad vs. an PCI.
This will help in the capturing department

As for which GC improving your editing. Well, it wont, BUT, because
AGP is a faster I/O board, your display will be a little bit more
quicker at updating.

My Experience:
With my old ATI-Rage 128 PCI card and using my ATW capture card:
* my captures would drop many frames at even 352x480
* display was slower (when compared to my ATIRFP AGP CG)
But, when I inserted my ATIRFP card and use my ATW capture card:
* my captures would drop very few (or fewer) frames at even 352x480
. or even 720x480 (frame drops are the same throughout resolutions)
* display was faster then ATIR128

If there is anything else I can remember, I'll add to it here.
Good luck w/ your new HOME-MADE system.

-vhelp
acrynoms (spelling)
CG - Graphics Card
ATW - ati-tv wonder pci
ATIRFP - ati rage fury pro agp (a graphics and captures card in one)
ATIR128 - ati rage 128 pci

[AlejandroCP]

Thanks guys, in that case i could just go for the Radeon 9000 pro for the video card and then add the capture card and then buy me a very big and fast hard disk like the ones from Western Digital or perhaps the latest IBM disks. I guess with the video card i have in mind, i would get some good looking playback when viewing my videos. I guess Athlon XP's for cpu would be more than able to power the processing department. Once again, thanks for the advice. And how about my choice of capture card, how does it compare to let's say one's from Pinnacle? One thing though, the one i have in mind (advc 1394) is cheaper than the Pinnacle Studio de Luxe package.