Video Editing Computer

[Tittles]

Hey OSNNers

Yesterday I went to my mom's bestfriends husbands shop to fix there computer. He owns a Music store and also has a weekly show on the local tv station for Muskegon. His computer he has now if just for him doing Ebay,surfing the net and what not. Very slow at the moment for some reason but I am going back today to mess with it. He forgot to call the Mouse House and tell them he don't need them to come look at the computer. Well he came and before the guy left Carter (the dude that owns the store) asked about building a computer for computer editing.

Anyway...after he left I was like ummmmm I could do it for you and it most likely will be cheaper then have them do it. So he told me to look for the best deals on parts to build a computer so he can edit his videos for his tv show.

Funny that the Mouse House was gonna charge $45 to get his printer working. It stopped working for some reason they said. About 20 min later I found out that some of the services got disabled. Didn't have much time to get his computer cleaned out of junk to speed it up. The webpages take a bit before they finally start loading and when they load its slow. He has DSL and I did a speed test and the speed is great but pages are slow.

His speed for DSL is the same as it is for my comcast and it seems slower then it use to be before all that crap happend. Think I am gonna call and see what package I have.

So yeah back to what my thread is about :laugh:. Anyone know of a good setup for video editing? Gonna need a motherboard,cpu,graphics,hard drive,ram. Not sure about a case as of yet but I can do that myself anyway.

Price range I am guessing is between 400-500 maybe? If you can make it lower but since its gonna need to be somewhat beffy I doubt you can.

Thanks

 

[muzikool]

A great video-editing machine probably can't be had for $400-$500. Speed, memory and hard drive space are key, as well as the correct hardware to connect a camera.

 

[Tittles]

A great video-editing machine probably can't be had for $400-$500. Speed, memory and hard drive space are key, as well as the correct hardware to connect a camera.

Well I will ask how much he is willing to spend.

It doesn't need to be top of the line like omfg but I'll ask today

 

[Grandmaster]

You are going to want a ton of RAM. At least 1GB. A ton of hard drive space. At least 80GB. A fast processor. At least (insert high end processor here).

I don't think $400-$500 will let you get all of that.

 

[lancer]

Ok Tittles,

Seeming i do this as a living, i'll give you the specs of my machine, that i had custom made just for this kind of thing.

3.2ghz p4
1.5gb 3200 mem
1x 70gb drive
1x250gb drive (7200rpm is fine for both)
sony dvd-r/rw drive (just an 8x is what i have)
Liteon dvd-rom
x700 pci-e
pinnicle capture card with external s-video composite box
not sure of the mobo

The cost for this machine was about $1500.

You need to know that in order to capture video you need at min, 768mb on a machine at min. whats more important is the fastest p4 or amd 64 cpu you can get as burning the finished product (which usually includes some rendering) and capturing the video whether from analogue tape or a dv cam, it'll need all the cpu power it can get.

 

[muzikool]

You are going to want a ton of RAM. At least 1GB. A ton of hard drive space. At least 80GB. A fast processor. At least (insert high end processor here).

I don't think $400-$500 will let you get all of that.

You don't think 80GB is a bit low? I figure if you do enough video and you want to archive it, 300GB is more realistic.

 

[NetRyder]

You don't think 80GB is a bit low? I figure if you do enough video and you want to archive it, 300GB is more realistic.

I agree.

 

[sean.ferguson]

Your going to want a min 160Gb Drive, min 1GB DDR, and a minimum of a 2.6GHz Proc. Getting all that for 4/500 is going to be very tough.

 

[muzikool]

A dual-processor setup would help a lot. It's all about the power for rendering.

 

[Yharn]

why not have him get a quote from the other place, then take those specs and see if you can spec it out for cheaper?

 

[mlakrid]

very true it doesnt hurt to get a quote, but I doubt he could get it cheaper...

close maybe, but cheaper is doubtful, unless it is a BIG retailer... like Interex..

 

[Tittles]

Yeah I figured it would be more

I am here right now but he is in Grand Rapids and will be here soon.

I'll ask him to go get quote

Well the only place that will do it around here is Mouse House and they charge way to much for things. Plus how much the charge to build it.

 

[Tittles]

Alright talked to him about it and he said he don't care that it cost $1500. He just wants it lol.

I'll shall be back sometime when he wants to do this. It will be soon. I'll most likely pick the parts and then ask what you all think of the setup.

Thanks for the info guys

 

[melon]

If you want to know what professionals use, I run an Avid PC with a dual 3.2 GHz Xeon, two 160 GB SCSI drives, 3 GB of RAM, a Quadro FX 1400 PCIx card, and Windows XP Pro.

You can probably get away with SATA drives at 7200 RPM (10,000 RPM would probably be better for the editing drive, if you can afford it) and 2 GB of RAM. A video card that supports OpenGL is a must.

And if you still qualify for educational pricing, here's some Avid products that are reasonably affordable:

http://www.avid.com/solutions/education/products.asp

Melon

 

[muzikool]

SATA drives will be fine. I have a 7200 RPM SATA drive and I've got no problem doing video editing.

Does this guy understand that $1500 does not include the software he will need? Windows Movie Maker probably isn't going to cut it for him.

If he can spend $1500 then why not have him look at an iMac G5?

My suggestions (for a PC):
3GHZ+ processor (dual is even better)
1.5GB+ RAM
300GB+ SATA HD (7200 RPM+)
Firewire 400/800 ports
128MB+ Video card with RCA input in case he wants to capture analog
19"+ monitor

 

[Tittles]

SATA drives will be fine. I have a 7200 RPM SATA drive and I've got no problem doing video editing.

Does this guy understand that $1500 does not include the software he will need? Windows Movie Maker probably isn't going to cut it for him.

If he can spend $1500 then why not have him look at an iMac G5?

My suggestions (for a PC):
3GHZ+ processor (dual is even better)
1.5GB+ RAM
300GB+ SATA HD (7200 RPM+)
Firewire 400/800 ports
128MB+ Video card with RCA input in case he wants to capture analog
19"+ monitor

He has software already so no biggy.

He does not like Mac so thats out of the question.

Really gotta talk to him about it more and see what exactly what he wants.

Not sure if he is to worried about a big hard drive since he doesn't really care to much about keeping old videos.

Will get back with you all

 

[lancer]

tittles either muzikools or my setup if more than adaquate i think melon's setup would be total overkill for a video editing computer unless he is a producer making his own block-buster movies perhaps you are staring in them:
"Tittles does titties"

 

[Grandmaster]

You don't think 80GB is a bit low? I figure if you do enough video and you want to archive it, 300GB is more realistic.

If he gets a DVD burner I don't see why he would need 300GB, and I think it would be cheaper to get the burner than get the 300GB hard drive. But you make a good point as well.

 

[Tittles]

tittles either muzikools or my setup if more than adaquate i think melon's setup would be total overkill for a video editing computer unless he is a producer making his own block-buster movies perhaps you are staring in them:
"Tittles does titties"

LOL

Tittles does titties

He is just going to start making shows again for the local tv channel. The quailty of the station sucks. All the shows shown on it suck for quailty.

Still will get a decent setup though.

He gets alot of people saying they love his show and would like it to be back on. So I am sure he will want to do this soon.

 

[muzikool]

If he gets a DVD burner I don't see why he would need 300GB, and I think it would be cheaper to get the burner than get the 300GB hard drive. But you make a good point as well.

Yeah, either way will work. It all depends on how he wants to archive his data.