Will this video editing set-up suffice?

daire

I'm building a PC for editing DV (I'm putting together two pilot tv programs; Irish wildlife and a sketch show and also transfering a collection of analogue tapes onto dvd). It's on a small budget, around 800 euro, but I want to make sure I get the best bite for my buck. This is what I plan to buy, any thoughts would be much appreciated...

2 x Corsair PC2700 DDR-DIMM 512MB ECC REG 32Meg x 8, CAS 2.5 -- e232.32

AMD Athlon XP3000+ 2.167 GHz Socket A 333MHz, 512KB Barton -- e160.78

Asus A7V8X-MX mainboard Socket A DDR LAN KM400, ATA/133, VGA, ATX, USB2.0, 8X AGP -- e65.34

PowerColor Radeon 9200 256MB DDR AGP, ATI 9200, VIVO, DVI-I, Retail -- e90.75

MSI DVD-burner IDE DR4-A, Retail DVD+R/+RW and DVD-R/-RW -- e119.79

Pinnacle Studio AV/DV v9/PCI DV+Analog editing solution with Studio V9 s/w -- e185.13

I'm also purchasing Premier Pro 7 but that isn't included in budget.

Am I on the right track guys?

lodgepole

What size of a hard drive are you looking at? I have 40gigs set aside for my DV editing, and it will hold about 50 minutes of full quality footage.

Lump

What about computer monitors? I think all the non-linear editors would agree that it's near impossible to edit on one monitor, I use 2 19inch CRT monitors and I still run out of space. Also you've not commented on the harddrives, the case you'll put it all in, how long the programmes are going to be etc etc.

Seems decent enough if you have factored in all the other bits you'll have to buy, I wouldn't do anything major on it. Remeber you'll need 4 gigs space for every 20 minutes of finish quality.


John

Dustaz

Spec seems good although im not sure you really need registered ram. Youd probably be better off getting normal ddr ram and getting more. 1024megs seems fine, put the left over money into getting more hard drive space or a second monitor

daire

I've got an 80gig Barracuda HD, 17" monitor and an old super-tower Gateway case already so that's taken care of. I'm glad I posted, that's just what I was worried about - I don't know what registered RAM is. So would I be better off with one of these options:


Corsair Value S. PC2700 DDR-DIMM 1024MB Kit w/two matched Value Select 512MB -- €194.39
or
2 x Corsair Value S. PC2700 DDR-DIMM 512MB Unbuffered, Non-parity, 64Megx64, CL2.5 -- €164.56

And then I'd grab this :-

Samsung 17" CRT Syncmaster 753DFX TCO99 Monitor, DynaFlaX -- €156.14

Sound about right?

Thanks for your help so far. I'm assuming then with this set-up and a broadcast quality camera I could shoot, edit and output broadcast quality programs reasonably quickly and easily?

daire

On some advice I've changed the system specs slighty. I was advised that the graphics card was pointless unless I was doing 3D video effects etc. so I've got a different motherboard with onboard grphx card. I'm not 100% sure if this is the right idea. I'll be using Adobe After Effects for alot of 2D and coloration effects. Here's the new spec anyway... can you give it a thumbs up??


Spire CPU-Fan FridgeRock Socket A - 5U213C1H3G For AMD up to XP 3000+ -- e10.62

Abit NF7-M mainboard for Socket A, LAN - nForce2IGP/MCP/, ATX, VGA, USB2.0 -- e105.27

AMD Athlon XP2500+ 1.833 GHz - Socket A 333MHz, 512KB Barton, OEM -- e83.99

2X Corsair XMS2700 DDR-DIMM 512MB PC2700 - 32Meg x 8, CAS 2-3-3-6-T1, 333MHz -- e210.54


I'll be overclocking the cpu to 3000+. Any thoughts most welcome...

Lump

I'd stick with the graphics card tbh.


John

Wilbert

Just get a mac. I have used both for editing and there is no comparison. Hardly any problems with macs, loads with pcs.
Apple is the industry standard for editing.

Dustaz

Originally posted by Wilbert

Apple is the industry standard for editing.

Maybe 5 years ago, not any more.

The only reason to buy a mac now is FCP which is brilliant.

Every other mainstream package is optimised for the pc.

After using both I've found that macs, while being very easy to troubleshoot, are very unstable and tend to crash quite a lot. Avid running on win2k however is bulletproof and rarely crashes. If things go badly wrong however, it takes a degree in nuclear physics to troubleshoot them.

Lump

I run XP on my box, it's only crashed twice, once cause I tried to do something illegal, using virtual drive and the other time because I tried to "X Send" the sound from my project to protools. Something I was told wouldn't work.

That's twice in 6 months.


John

daire

I've bought the computer now (it's lovely) and I've got to say that when budgeting Apple simply wasn't an option. Bang for your buck, has to be PC. However much I'd love to be using FCP the Adobe range integrated is a powerful option (Premier, After Effects, Photoshop, Encore DVD).

Also, I've found editing on Apple's a strain before. When you're so used to the way a PC operates and acts/reacts to a user then I don't think you're going to have many problems or crashes.

Thanks for the advice anyway!

oneweb

Pinnacle Studio AV/DV v9/PCI DV+Analog editing solution with Studio V9 s/w -- e185.13

Sorry for hijacking but it's on topic, What're the diffs between Studio MovieBox DV and Studio AV/DV Deluxe - they both seem to do the same thing and both have breakout boxes. Any other recommendations for similar packages around that price range or is pinnacle teh win?