sailor

OK, I have a friend who wants a machine for video editing. She is a local photographer, and does a good bit of digital work in that realm, but neither of us do any video. She would like to start working with video, both out of a digital video camera and especially exploring combining the mediums of still and motion photography. She wants a Mac, but doesnt think she can afford it.

What kind of specs would you look for in a video editing machine? I built a quick one out on Newegg:

p4 2.8
1 Gig pc2700
200Gb HDD
Abit IC7 mobo
ATI All-In-Wonder 9600
350w Antec PSU
8x DVD +/- R/W
Windows XP Pro
19" Samsung LCD screen

Any suggestions? Am I going overkill? Not enough? What about software? I know diddly about movie editing, and dont even know where to look... Specifically, software wise, I need a good editing program (adobe premier maybe?), a good way for her to capture the data off of her camera, and a good way for her to burn the data to DVD.

Also, keep in mind this machine has to be used by someone relatively computer illiterate. Read: when her machine doesnt do what she wants it to, I am getting a phone call. So it needs to be reliable. No overclocking, nothing like that.

Thanks for any input.

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Kllr Wolf

switch the ram from the DDR 2700 to DDR 3200 the speed differnce would be a big jump. I would also recommend a second harddrive. it doesnt have to be tha same size but would be good. If money is the issue go with 2 160 gig drives. It might also be good to have a second optical drive.

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sailor

I chose 2700 because I dont want the system to run out of its standard bus for stability issues. I suppose I could, but given the price of RAM right now...

And yeah, the machine would also have a DVD player drive in it as well. Forgot to add that, but those are cheap.

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saltfish

You'd be wise to put the OS and the software on one drive, and have the 2nd drive be the 'data dump.' I would also consider how the drives will be interfaced to the controller. SATA? ATA133?

Back in the days of the PII450 I designed a video editing box for a local cameraman, it involved a SCSI UW Raid5. Back then, trying to capture 640x480 streams was VERY combersome.

BTW, will she be using a capture card or FireWire? I know there are some mean analog capture cards out there that have some great DSP's and a good amount of buffering ram.

Honestly, try to find out what she wants to capture, first. Then you can more accuratly determine the kind of machine that you need to build.

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At home, my g/f does a lot of low-quality capture from a Hi8 videocam to 320x240 and 640x480 and reworks them with premier and combustion. She is still using a PII450 with 384MB of ram, and (1) 40GB drive. Yeah, things can be slow but it still works!

-SF

saltfish

After re-reading the inital post, I really have to ask what she intends to do with this machine? Is she going to remaster independant films? Does she want to convert VHS tapes to DVD? Does she want to film her own version of LOTR?

-SF

Dilbert1234567

get RAID, if you can do it, do it. it takes a bit or work but its so much better, i'd recomed a RAID 5, with 3, 120 gig drives,

raid 5 will give you extra speed boost and data redundancy. about twice the speed as well as if one drive fails you wont lose any data.

you need a raid controler (PCI card) and some setup, but i just got my raid set up and i love it, everything is faster on the load., it will hlep with large video files.

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sailor

Unfortunately, RAID is out of the question. Too expensive. I am considering dropping a Raptor in there for the OS though, but it unfortunately wont help her when she is moving around huge files.

As for what she wants to do with it, like I said, she will be filming stuff (it will be artistic or documentary... she shows her work at several local galleries, and has been wanting to explore integrating still and video for quite a while), and then editing what she has filmed, scanning, editing, and incorporating her still work, and then needing to get it back off (I am assuming DVD, though she hasnt clarified this yet).

This machine doesnt need to be as beefy as some of yall are thinking. This is mostly an experiment, and she can live with less speed for less money. She wont want to spend more than $2000 AT THE MOST, and preferably as much less than that as possible.

What I really need to know is how RAM intensive and how video intensive it will be. I know I need storage and processor power, but how much RAM? How fast? Is an All-In-Wonder enough? Too much? Is it even necessary?

Again, thanks for help...

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"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws."
--Plato

saltfish

Well, as I had mentioned before, the g/f is using a PII450 with 384MB of PC133, capturing 640x480 through a ATI WonderVe, it's a crappy setup.

Nonetheless, the capturing takes up between 80-90% proc time.

The slow parts are loading clip indexes into ram so that you can preview the segments and determine your cuts and fades.

Other than that, the MOST CPU intensive parts of video production are the encoding and decoding. When you take a 2GB video file and encode it to DivX, it takes 100% proc time for the duration of the encoding. If you've ever taken an Divx file and recoded it to a MPEG you'll know what I'm talking about. On a P4 2.8Ghz, I've seen a DVD quality DivX file, with a runtime of 1.5 hours, take upwards of 35-40 minutes just to convert to a MPEG.

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Now, if she's using a FireWire capture, then you will not have to run the feed into a capture card at normal runtime. The data will come off of the camera faster than normal play.

If she hasn't already purchased the camera, consider one with FireWire. Encoding the video as it's being taken off of the camera would help with the large file sizes.

Oh, and the 19" LCD.. ..how much does that eat into the budget? How much of a difference is there in a 17"?

-SF

sailor

Well, I doubt she will be doing much encoding to DivX. Most of the stuff is going to be done to be burned off to show others.

The LCD is $669. A bit steep, but I think worth it. That is completely up to her though, if she wants a smaller one, thats all good.

The board does have three firewire ports on it. I made sure of this. I dont know if she has the video camera yet, I need to find that out.

__________________
"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws."
--Plato

saltfish

From what I have done in the past, the only real 'work' that the machine will do is take the RAW data that is captured and compress it so that it will fit on a DVD, unless she is going to display hours of work, only moderate compression will be necessary. Now, if you're looking into displaying videos at 'high' resolutions 1024x768, using proc intensive programs like Combustion, or using programs like 3d Studio, LightWave or Maya to do CG effects, the machine that you had quoted will do a whole lot more than necessary.

I know there will be someone out that that will tell you that an Athlon with a Gig of ram will do VERY well for this.

With the speeds of SATA and the speed of drives now adays I highly doubt that a RAID will be inorder. I could almost say that a 800$ computer off the shelf from Best Buy would do what she would need, though a hand built one would always be better.

From what I've heard so far, an average machine purchased today would do her well. Just make sure that you make this machine dummy-proof, figure out what she wants to do. Mainly, you will be looking for automated software that will allow her to join videos, and have fading/transitioning/wiping that will allow her to seam clips together. Same goes for the encoding and burning. Make sure that you can find some software that will do what she needs, without being overly techical.
Also, remember that the chain is only as strong as the weakest link; If she tries to get a $250 camcorder and edit clips together on a $1500 machine she won't get the quality that she is looking for.

Now, mind you, I have had a hard time saying this... ...and I only say this rarely. I have to bite my tongue when I say this to.

If she is not computer literate, wants to be able to do this easily and doesn't want to spend a great deal of money... ...Buy a Mac.

Yes, I said it. Laugh all you want! But if the person who will be doing a great deal of the work just doesn't want to learn, or is terminally computer illiterate, steer them toward a Mac.

< phew > Wasn't as hard as I thought it'd be.



-SF

sailor

No, I know the part about a Mac. She wants a Mac. I want her to have a Mac. The only reason I am even looking at PCs is price.

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"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws."
--Plato

mikec

not sure what you mean about the ram. p4 2.8 should be 400fsb, HT right? pc3200 ram runs at 800mhz which is a perfect match.

what parts did you choose for the price so far? like is it a plextor drive for 180, or a lite on which is just as good for 90? saving bucks here and there could get that 2nd hard drive for a raid setup, which would be a huge benefit and would help offset that she's not investing in a real time editing card like a pinnacle or matrox right now.

I might choose this Gigabyte board over the abit too. 1 less firewire and no spdif out, but has onboard sata raid and the same chipsets. 50 bucks less expensive too. just stuff to think about..

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