Specifications for New PC Build? For Video Capture & Rendering on Windows

[Neil-Betamax]

Hi,

I'm paying a guy who builds PCs for a living, to build me one suitable for video.

I'd like it to perform well for rendering videos with FFMPEG & Davinci Resolve, whilst also being great for Video Capture - the main reason I'm seeking a better PC. I'm capturing analogue VHS & Betamax.
My 8th Gen i7 Thinkpad vPro functions ok for these purposes, so it doesn't need to cost a fortune as I won't be doing anything like pixar animation on it, not that level anyway. But it'd be a bonus to pay a little more for something which performs well enough, without breaking the bank.

The guy building the PC doesn't know a great deal about Video creation in general, but knows a lot about building game PCs.

I'm thinking a 4TB SSD - this will be the greater part of the cost.

After reading posts on reddit I've seen the following advice on a similar post regards Davinci Specs:

"At least 32GB RAM - 8 Gigs of Vram"

"32 gigs of ram and a Nvidia GPU from the 20 series or above"

"50/Core i7 desktop. You're going to want an NVidia GPU. AMD works, but it can be flaky."

I guess everything else will be pretty standard, I hope what I want will run on Windows 10 as that's compatible with my current software.
Hopefully I can hack it to prevent updates as I have done with my current PC, since I've experienced updates conflicting with software compatibility in the past.

Any comments on this would be very appreciated, just so I have a good idea at what I'm aiming for in terms of hardware.

[Alwyn]

Best to ask the users of your intended software for the optimum setup.

Consider an iGPU in the CPU to help things along. Intel "i" processors come in both flavours; some with an iGPU and some without.

I probably don't have my system setup up optimally for AVISynth, but my CPU (i7-13700K) gets hammered during some filter runs and gets hot (the RTX-3060 isn't being used); a really good cooling setup is essential. I have an NZXT Kraken liquid setup.

For programs that are optimised for the GPU though (eg Magix Video Deluxe) the CPU isn't worked hard at all.

None of this is relevant for capture; any recent, even basic, machine can handle lossless capture easily.

[Neil-Betamax]

Best to ask the users of your intended software for the optimum setup.

Consider an iGPU in the CPU to help things along. Intel "i" processors come in both flavours; some with an iGPU and some without.

I probably don't have my system setup up optimally for AVISynth, but my CPU (i7-13700K) gets hammered during some filter runs and gets hot (the RTX-3060 isn't being used); a really good cooling setup is essential. I have an NZXT Kraken liquid setup.

For programs that are optimised for the GPU though (eg Magix Video Deluxe) the CPU isn't worked hard at all.

None of this is relevant for capture; any recent, even basic, machine can handle lossless capture easily.

Thanks for your thoughts on this, very helpful.

I also chatted with my mate who works in video production for a living just yesterday. He's selling his RTX 3060ti for £175, it hasn't been used much, & hasn't been hammered with crypto mining or anything like that. He won an RTX 5060 so doesn't need it any more, he enters competitions all the time so always ends up winning cool stuff - but then I do know someone who works for SCAN who's the guy building this PC for me, so I think he can get a good staff discount on brand new parts.

He says NVIDIA GPUs have CUDA, which is a big help in rendering so I hear. & from what I understand, the ti has CUDA & more cores.

I guess really, for what I need I can't go too wrong.

If I go with an RTX 3060ti, I've read that since it's a dedicated card, you won't need a separate iGPU for basic display output.
I think I'll need to take some time to digest this, but thats some good info to work on from here.

[hydra3333]

I'm capturing analogue VHS & Betamax.

Good luck with that.
There's threads on the issues around that (including the need for time base correcting and the need for a good video player ... and none of that is "cheap").

IIRC lordsmurf had a professional website around that type of stuff
https://www.digitalfaq.com/
https://www.digitalfaq.com/editorials/digital-video/professional-analog-workflow.htm

[Alwyn]

Good luck with that.

Pardon the French, Hydra, but that is ridiculous. The hysteria around digitisation is reaching fever pitch and I shake my head at how hard this apparently is. It's not.

[Alwyn]

If I go with an RTX 3060ti, I've read that since it's a dedicated card, you won't need a separate iGPU for basic display output.

Here's an interesting titbit: when I export a lossless AVI to H264 in Video Deluxe, the UHD770 runs the export at 200% play speed. The 3060ti runs the export at only 20% play speed.

Whereas when I'm exporting H264 from H264, I get 1200% with the 3060 and only ~200% from the UHD770, so how your particular software uses each GPU will be a factor in what you buy.

[Darryl In Canada]

[QUOTE=Neil-Betamax;2778115]

If I go with an RTX 3060ti, I've read that since it's a dedicated card, you won't need a separate iGPU for basic display output. I think I'll need to take some time to digest this, but thats some good info to work on from here.

Correct, the RTX 3060ti is a GPU or what used to be called graphic cards or video cards in the past. It has an HDMI port (and maybe DVI) that connects to your monitor. I have the same one, by the way. Some software relies more on a CPU with many threads and/or lots of RAM. The trick to building any computer system is to avoid a bottleneck. The CPU, GPU, and RAM should be equivalently good so that none of them bring the others down, so to speak. For gamers, one set of hardware will be best. For video editors, another. Lurk around PcBuild on Reddit for a while and you will get some good guidance.

Regardng video capture of analog sources, any modern computer is more than enough. For context, I built a Windows XP computer with a motherboard circa 2004 in order to use an older, preferred AGP capture card. And that computer fast enough for analog video capture. My only recommendation is to not do anything else on your new computer when capturing video. And make sure you have at least two hard drives, one for the OS and one for data capture.

Depending on your space and budget, you could buy an old computer with a hard drive for your OS, and another hard drive for your data. And then use that computer for capturing. Then copy the data onto a USB flash drive and copy to your modern computer to do your post work.

[hydra3333]

Pardon the French, Hydra, but that is ridiculous. The hysteria around digitisation is reaching fever pitch and I shake my head at how hard this apparently is. It's not.

work once sent me to France for a few months. I'm not great with human languages... my new colleages there(wonderful people) only ever managed to teach me to swear in french
Cheers

PS
That's not a go, just an anecdote about my French comprehension !
I am hoping to learn something here as we have about 200 20-30yo vhs-c tapes to capture/transcode and the only thing I found about 10 years ago was a vhs->DVD recorder which produces blocky DVDs with no filtering like deinterlacing denoising and dehaloing and sharpening and whatnot.