Computer for editing purposes...

[FUZZIE100]

I've been looking to buy a computer solely for editing purposes. I use Adobe première pro, encore dvd and AE. I've been looking to build my own so I went to see an expert who suggested the following computer:

Pentium 4 940 3.0 G 800 mgh (2 x 2 MB)
ASUS P5WD2 PREMUIN 955X
2 Gigs of RAM
2 hard drives ( 80 Gig + 300 Gig)
ATI x1600 PRO 512 MB PCI-x
Power supply: Turbo Link 500 w sli

+ burner, firewire etc...

I've been receiving contracts for video editing and I wanted to make sure that this computer meets my needs...


Thanks for the help!!!

[kissvid]

If you had to ask......then.........

[BJ_M]

if you are doing this to make money -- and not that familiar with building one yourself .... buy a preconfigured machine from a reputable company that specializes in NLE systems

otherwise the parts listed above look good -- get good quality memory, not generic

[classfour]

I'm with BJ-M on the memory - nothing worse than being in the middle of an edit and crashing or locking up.

[rallynavvie]

And you can certainly get by with a cheaper video card. Despite its name it doesn't really help you all that much with video. All you need is the cheapest card that can run your desired display layout (be it one or two displays and the resolution for each). If you go the ATi route then an X300 maybe? Money could be better spent elsewhere.

Otherwise give us your budget for such a rig and we should be able to part a system to build that would be just right for that sort of work. I started out in the same way and soon learned I had to spend some $$$ in order to make the big $$$.

[pijetro]

Encore, AE and Photoshop use gobs of ram...

rallynavvie wrote:

If you go the ATi route then an X300 maybe? Money could be better spent elsewhere.

Yep..
If you're gonna be jumping back and forth with the Creative Bundle, then i'd suggest to get all the ram you can afford..

[FUZZIE100]

And you can certainly get by with a cheaper video card. Despite its name it doesn't really help you all that much with video. All you need is the cheapest card that can run your desired display layout (be it one or two displays and the resolution for each). If you go the ATi route then an X300 maybe? Money could be better spent elsewhere.

Otherwise give us your budget for such a rig and we should be able to part a system to build that would be just right for that sort of work. I started out in the same way and soon learned I had to spend some $$$ in order to make the big $$$.

Thank you for your help. The quote that I received for this system is approximately $1800.00 Canadian (around $1500 US). For the moment, I'm ready to invest up to $2200 US (more or less)

[throwingks]

If you want to avoid crashes, DO NOT get an ATi. Go with a cheap nVidia. You dont need the best card, just one that doesnt crash. nVidia updates their drivers a lot better than ATi does.

[pijetro]

throwingks wrote:

If you want to avoid crashes, DO NOT get an ATi.

Which ATI card in specific?? How can you possibly throw a blanket statement like that?

[throwingks]

Do not get ANY ATI card.

ATI does not keep there drivers as updated as nVidia. nVidia has a unified driver solution. What that means is everytime they update their driver every video card can use the update. ATI needs to update each card individually. ATI has had many many driver issues in the past.

For video editing you do not need raw power. Yes, many ATI cards have more power than nVidia, but that isnt the discussion. The best solution for an editing machine is getting the most stable card. any nVidia card is more stable than any ATI card.

It is in the drivers, not the hardware. I will post links if you like, but there are many out there. Search for "ATI drivers suck" or something like that.

The smae can be said for the CPU. Intel chips are more stable than AMD. AMD has more RAW power a lot of generations. But for stability Intel is the way to go.

For stability get an Intel chip, nVidia video card, and top notch quality RAM. A good motherboard helps too. You don't want a crash a few hours into your encode.

For gaming go with AMD, ATI or nVidia (it flip-flops each generation), and a ton of RAM. That is not the discussion though. Your encode may finish 10 minutes faster, but with the possibity of crashing a few hours in, it isn't worth it.

[rallynavvie]

Wow, those are some great generalizations.

ATi is a lot better now than what they were with driver support. I still prefer nVidia's unified driver structure but both camps have equally wonderful and powerful workstation cards (the Fire and Quadro).

As for Intel being more stable than AMD you've obviously never used a fast Prescott P4 on a VIA chipset have you?
They're both fantastic chips, just video and multimedia still seems to favor the Intel CPUs. It seems that the chipset/platform you're using is becoming more and more important as the line dividing Intel and AMD narrows.

However I'd keep any ATi AIW, or for that matter any VIVO card, away from your video system. Your video card should be dedicated as an output card only. Always use a seperate, dedicated capture card/unit.

[edDV]

Agree with minimal output card for Premiere Pro. either Nvidia or ATI. You will be replacing this card later if MPeg4 decoding or HDCP become important to you.

Also Premiere Pro nearly requires SSE2 support so that means P4 unless you want to try AMD FX but consider that the risky path since Adobe is now so P4 centric.

You didn't say what kind of video you intend to edit. Normal DV and HDV formats can use generic HDD systems. Uncompressed editing may need more for productivity. "Realtime" hardware paths require still more.

[Tom Saurus]

FUZZIE100: Perhaps it would be wise to have 3 or 4 hard drives, instead of just two. Perhaps you might also download a trial version of Mpeg Video Wizard. Mpeg Video Wizard is easy on the computer's resources and it does a great job at editing video. It is quite frightning how fast a hard drive can get filled up with video files. Mpeg Video Wizard also doesn't re-encode your video when you are editing it, which preserves the original quality of the video.

Those Adobe Programs, probably are really powerhouse programs, and I would imagine you can do some pretty fancy things with them. I have been tempted to download a trial version, just to see what one can do with them.

Do some thorough research before you get your computer built. There may be other programs other than Adobe worth checking out. This is a great place to do this research, and it looks like you have gotten some great advice so far. Check out Lordsmurf's website, you can learn so many things from reading the information he has available there. If you get a chance, give Mpeg Video Wizard a try. It takes a little while to learn how to use it, but when you do learn how to use it, you can easily become a fan of what that program can do.

Another program to check out, would be Blufftitler. I downloaded a demo version of that program, and it just blows one's socks off. Atleast download the tutorial which is in WMV format over at the Blufftitler Website, to see what you can do with it. Blufftitler is a pretty interesting program, and I believe your clients would be really impressed with some of the work that you could do with it. Titles may not seem important, but sometimes, they can add a dash of pizzaz to a project. Also consider, looking around for some "neat fonts", there are free fonts availabe on the internet. Sometimes fonts can add a little pizzaz as well.

I think you will find that sometimes things as simple as fonts, and what backgrounds you use for menus can add some additional appeal to your projects. Also ease of use with working with video is important as well. I hope I was of some help to you.