Video Editing PC

[1st_petrolhead]

Anyone any suggestions on a good spec for a pc that will be doing video editing using Studio 8

ie 1 or 2 processors

Ram

Graphics Card

Hard DRive size

[GetCarter]

I'm running an earlier version on two computers.

The slow one is 1.6 ghz with 256 mb ram & 80 gb HD

The fast one is 3.4 ghz 1024 mb ram and 250 gb HD

The slow one struggles in every way. The fast one flys.

BIG HD is essential.

Hope that's of some help.

[1st_petrolhead]

What video card should I use or is it not as important as CPU

What if I use 2 x CPU

[docevi1]

The CPU is the important one, and if you are doing Video Editing, get the top of the range Pentium chip - there HyperThreading kills the current crop of AMD chips in that area.

The Video Card as far as I'm aware has little effect on the encoding - thats is all CPU, but make sure you get a decent ish one to handle your screen nicely

[1st_petrolhead]

So how about 2 x Xeon processors

[pug406]

Why not get a PC with Hyper Threading on. My Dell 8400 with 1.5 gig of ram flys. Or am I talking B0ll0X

>> Edited by pug406 on Wednesday 13th October 19:55

[1st_petrolhead]

Pug, what the exact spec plz

[roop]

I've just bought a Dell Dimension 8400 with a 3.0GHz P4HT, 1GB RAM, Radeon GPU and a 400GB SATA HDD. Rips through video using Adobe Premier Pro like nobody's business. Good value too. Speeced a 19" TFT, DVD+RW/DL and CD-RW plus the Logitech wireless keyboard and mouse (excellent). Can't fault it so far...

[Bodo]

1st_petrolhead said:

So how about 2 x Xeon processors

Depends if your application supports dual CPU or if it will only use one CPU and lets the other one unused or for other processes at the same time.

[ThatPhilBrettGuy]

1st_petrolhead said:

So how about 2 x Xeon processors

Nice. All the Xeon's for the last year or more have Hyperthreading as standard, so it looks like you have 4 processors then

Hyperthreading for general apps makes 1 processor about the speed of 1.3. Video encoding will not do as well but you still get a bit more go.

1GB RAM+ and at least a couple of speedy SATA drives and you're away.

[ErnestM]

HT processor helps out quite a bit (especially with Premier Pro which is HT enabled).

Also, as stated, buy RAM until it hurts. SATA are good drives for processing but I would buy two or three externals as "holding tanks" for completed edits (getting them off your "processing" drive will free up valuable space).

ErnestM

[meeja]

ErnestM said:

I would buy two or three externals as "holding tanks" for completed edits (getting them off your "processing" drive will free up valuable space). ErnestM

agreed.....

Also, get into the habit of backing up completed edits to DVD (as data as well as video)

Also, utilise good practice when capturing video (particularly when using IEEE1394 - firewire) by naming your tapes correctly, and using a machine that can handle timecode. That way, if you lost valuable video data from a drive, providing you have the timelines, you can batch digitize stuff back in.

This is also helpful when you have completed a project.... once you have mastered it, you can delete the video footage from the drives, but if you retain the timeline and bin data (takes up a few Kb rather than a few Mb) you can re-digitize (and in effect) recreate your entire project, allowing easy re-edits and updating.