Media Center 2005 or Vista Premium for HD Video Editing/HTPC?

[emartin]

I am planning to put together a Video Editing/HTPC w/the following:

Core 2 Quad w/4G Memory, 2-320SATAII, 2-750SATAII, PCIx16 512M Video, Creative Sound Blaster Live PCI in an HTPC case.

What is the smart OS move for now, Windows Media Center 2005 or Vista Premium?

I have not made a decision on the TV Card yet and am open to suggestions also.

Thanks in advance.

[edDV]

An HTPC is basically a playback machine with tuner PVR recording.

What do you mean by "editing"?

As for MCE, I'm finding the Vista version to be more functional but the overall OS decision should be made based on the software you want to run. MCE is only one of several PVR solutions. MCE generally requires specific versions of hardware. SageTV and BeyondTV4 work better with older tuners and computers. Also check out GBPVR.

[Video Head]

I would consider an HTPC and a video editing workstation to be seperate boxes. Your HTPC should be small and quiet. Looking at your proposed build I gather you are not going with passive cooling

All those drives, a quad core and big video card are gonna need some serious fans. What case are you planning on using? Is this going into an entertainment centre?

I use XP Pro with Media Portal on my HTPC's.

[me-eyes]

Don't forget you'll need a 64-bit version of the OS in order to use the 4GB of RAM, otherwise Windows won't be able to use more than 3/4 of it. Trouble is, most people have difficulty getting compatible drivers with their existing hardware.

My HTPC also has a quad core (95nm) and the stock fan is pretty quiet - but I'd agree with previous posters, if this is going to sit in your front room you don't want to use it for editing, having the HDDs thrashing about etc...

[emartin]

The box does consist of very quiet fans and hard disks. Eventhough, the noise is not a big deal in our media room. All SLI ready with SLI fans etc. Biggest issue is MCE2005 or Vista Premium?

[edDV]

The box does consist of very quiet fans and hard disks. Eventhough, the noise is not a big deal in our media room. All SLI ready with SLI fans etc. Biggest issue is MCE2005 or Vista Premium?

You bought a gaming machine. Can you return it? SLI has nothing to due with video editing or MCE. The video card needs to be selected for MPeg4/VC-1/WMV decompression rather than gaming framerate. 512MB VidRAM is for game textures in some future games. By then the rest of the card will need replacement.

If you have some other need let us know.

If MCE is the only issue, go with Vista.

[JohnnyMalaria]

I am planning to put together a Video Editing/HTPC w/the following:

Core 2 Quad w/4G Memory, 2-320SATAII, 2-750SATAII, PCIx16 512M Video, Creative Sound Blaster Live PCI in an HTPC case.

What is the smart OS move for now, Windows Media Center 2005 or Vista Premium?

I have not made a decision on the TV Card yet and am open to suggestions also.

Thanks in advance.

Windows Media Center 2005 is XP Pro SP2 without a couple of non-important features + the HTPC stuff. So the question now is XP Pro SP2 vs. Vista Premium.

Answer: Not Vista.

I don't understand edDV's comment about being a gaming machine, though. I think you've got yourself a pretty hard core machine (I'd be happy with it).

[edDV]

The Vista Premium vs. XP Media Center 2005 decision rests with other software you intend to use. Isolating the choice to MCE alone, I find the Vista MCE version more useful and stable than the XP version. Actually it is running very reliably in the background on my Core2Duo desktop and AMD X2 laptop.

I have BeyondTV 4 running on my other XP Core2Duo desktop for QAM cable recording from my Hauppauge HVR-1600 card. Although MCE now supports some ATSC HD tuners, it does not yet support QAM tuning for cable.

My gaming machine comment meant that it seems overkill for the MCE requirement for CPU and RAM but the unidentified SLI video card may be weak for HTPC application where I/O and AVC/VC-1 decoding dominate the requirements.

[rallynavvie]

If it's only going to be used as an HTPC then I'd also recommend Vista MCE over MCE 2005. The reason being that the interface is a little better and Vista MCE is supposed to work with open QAM whereas MCE 2005 requires something the HDHomeRun to pull in open QAM channels. However most of us don't want to dedicate a HTPC but use it for more than just video playback so then I'd say MCE 2005.

I really do have to emphatically agree with edDV and his assumption that this is a gaming rig. We're seeing it more and more on these forums. The smart ones ask first but I think some people buy first, banking on the marketing ploys for things like SLi and RAID as being "extreme", and then post their rig here for bragging rights. Now if the OP were talking up a gaming rig I'd say that aside from the C2Q that is a killer gaming rig and I would love to have something like that for gaming myself. However SLi, and high-end consumer video cards in general, are going to be wasted money for video and video editing. Again I will highlight the reasons why:

- High-end consumer video cards are high-end because they have the ability to render 3D objects and textures rather than have the CPU handle it. They also have hardware to help them do this. Video is 2D and thus you can get away with any video card that supports your display preference (one or two LCD with DVI out for instance, or perhaps component video out). I'm using a 7600GT with 256MB of VRAM to drive two DVI displays: one at 1920x1200 and the other at 1920x1080. I use this workstation for HTPC duties and multimedia editing with the Adobe Master suite (which I paid a small fortune to upgrade to). Even when using some of the 3D effects in AE my video card doesn't put up a fight and it's running objects on both displays. And since it supports HD MPEG2 hardware decoding from apps that use the nVidia codec I don't see any CPU utilization during playback within MCE, another bonus when I'm running encoding in the background.

- Professional video cards, such as the Quadros, cost as much as they do because they implement different hardware aimed more at professional applications that can take advantage of it. Usually these are 3D apps like Lightwave and Max but they do also interface with video applications such as Premiere and AfterEffects. I had a Quadro 1100 and I think I prefer the 7600GT to it as I didn't see a marked improvement on video work. And since I do game on this machine the driver support for games on the Quadro was a little awkward.

- My SLi rant remains the same. SLi is a marketing ploy to put the burden of underdeveloped game code on us, the consumers. Game developers can spend more money to optimize their code to run on cheaper hardware but they'd rather rush games out the door to make money faster. Unfortunately they were running at the bleeding edge of the current tech. We all know certain gaming companies prefer certain video card chips and I'm sure they both saw an opportunity to bleed us of more money. Twice as much hardware sold and gaming companies could continue to put out sketchy code in their games. I mean I'm hearing people talk about framerates in games of over 80fps! I'm pretty sure the human eye can't see much beyond something far less than that. And by the time that SLi system is getting close to proper utilization it's chipset is probably no longer supported with the latest DirectX or shader or something. Thus you have to buy two more GPUs...

In conclusion just look at a single mid-grade video card for your system. If you are gaming a lot with it, and I do my share on my simple 7600GT, then maybe invest in an 8800 of some sort and add a second later if you really, really need it.

As for the HDDs you better not run those drives in RAID 0. Run them separately or in JBOD. Keep one drive alone for your OS and application and map everything else to other drives. Honestly I'd keep the two smaller ones for your boot volume and then your documents on the other. Then run the two larger in JBOD for your recorded TV and video projects. At least if one drive takes a dump it won't take the rest with it.

That much memory won't be utilized as an HTPC and really only prosumer applications are going to need more than 2GB. But the C2Q platforms are generally pretty good at addressing all that memory so it isn't going to hurt you to have that much.

The most important part of your system is the PSU. Please don't cheap out on a PSU and get a good unit that fits your system. Don't just look at rated power outputs and assume more is better.

The Hauppauge HVR-1600 is a pretty great tuner. I have in installed next to my Hauppauge PVR-250 which has worked well for 2 years for me. If you're running MCE 2005 then the 1600 will only net you OTA HD programming so make sure you have a good antenna and a good place to point it. Otherwise the analog tuner it also has onboard works just fine for regular cable. If you have digital cable with HD then the HDHomerun has worked well for a lot of people, just check to make sure it's compatible with your carrier.

Enough rant. We need to pin a HTPC build notes thread in the HTPC forum. My fingers are getting tired beating this dead horse.

[emartin]

Fantastic Responses.

Here is some other data. Yes, I know about the SLI, however, this is becoming the standard with most new Motherboards. Second, the video card is one of the few that has an HDMI connector on the card itself. The card is only $90.00, yet has the memory and ability to run a DVI monitor and preview via HDMI for video editing, that is the primary reason for the purchase vs. using a dongle. Of course, the respective editing software must also support this.

Yes, I plan to Hardware Mirror the 2 320G Drives for the OS & Programs. 1) 750G for Data Only and 1) for backup and/or production editing temp files.

Sounds like Your input would suggest either Vista Home Premium or Ultimate for the OS, if the needed software applications support Vista.

Excellent information.

[edDV]

What kind of editing? That determines the XP vs Vista decision.

[emartin]

HDV & DV Pre & Post Production Editing. Have not decided on Software either Sony Vegas or Acid 7.

[edDV]

HDV & DV Pre & Post Production Editing. Have not decided on Software either Sony Vegas or Acid 7.

Sony Vegas Pro 8 is running fine on Vista but I keep a second machine running XP for other and older programs. If I had to have one machine it would run XP for now. Vista audio is different and not friendly to legacy applications.