Help me spend $5K on a video editing system

[puddlejmpr]

I'm currently using a Dell 8200 w/ 2GHz P4 w/ 1 Gig Ram, XP Pro, NVidia GeForce 3 w/64meg, two 7200rpm HDDs, Sony DRU DVD burner and Adobe Premiere 6.5 for video editing. I want to upgrade to Premiere Pro & Video Suite, but before I do, I want to build a dual processor system with lots of fast storage, RAM and a top of the line graphics card. I've shopped around at most of the big vendors for a turn key workstation, but have been very disappointed in my available options. I'm thinking about using the Xeon 3.06GHz w/ 1Meg of L2 cache, but I want to use a top of the line motherboard, perhaps with onboard RAID and all the trimmings. Should I use 1Gig of ECC RAM or 2Gig? I've looked at the Antec P160 case. Which graphics card? I'd like at system HDD and separate HDD for video file storage, at least 100 Gig and 250 Gig respectively. Are the new 10K rpm ATA drives good or should I go with SCSI? While I'm at it, could you explain the meaning of life and the nature of the universe? Thanks for sharing your thoughts and experience.

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

Hrmm... well, how much video editing do you do?

 

[Goosemaster]

Originally posted by: AgaBooga
Hrmm... well, how much video editing do you do?

BIngo.

Also look into an AMD solution.

 

[Peter D]

It's fun making up lists at NewEgg!

Here's what I'd get personally if I were in your situation.. so here it is

1 - Cooler Master Wave Master
1 - Antec 550W Power Supply
1 - Plextor Black 8X DVD-RW/+RW Drive
1 - Samsung Black 1.44Mb Floppy
1 - Adaptec Serial ATA Raid Card 2410SA
2 - Western Digital 250GB 7200RPM SATA
2 - Western Digital Raptor 74GB 10,000RPM SATA
4 - Mushkin 184Pin 512MB ECC Registered DDR PC-3200
1 - MSI K8T Master2-FAR
2 - AMD Opteron Model 244 1.8 GHz
1 - Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS Platinum Pro Sound Card
1 - ATI RADEON 9800XT
1 - NEC/Mitsubishi ASLCD9V-bk 19" TFT LCD Monitor
1 - Logitech Cordless MX Duo
1 - Klipsch Promedia GMX D-5.1

Hopefully that provides you with some options

 

[puddlejmpr]

I don't do video editing as a profession, but I crank out a couple of instructional projects a month. I'm lucky enough to use a three chip camera to record interesting surgical cases. I'm sure I spend more time on it than I should. I get a big kick out of spiffing them up and passing them on...

AMD is an option, but I've had no experience with them. I keep hoping Intel will come out with an 800MHz FSB Xeon.

 

[GonzoDaGr8]

I'm sure I will get flamed for this, But the G5 Dual 2.0 with Final Cut Pro Might be a viable option to peiceing out a system.

BTW..Welcome to AT!!

 

[AFB]

Originally posted by: puddlejmpr
I don't do video editing as a profession, but I crank out a couple of instructional projects a month. I'm lucky enough to use a three chip camera to record interesting surgical cases. I'm sure I spend more time on it than I should. I get a big kick out of spiffing them up and passing them on...

AMD is an option, but I've had no experience with them. I keep hoping Intel will come out with an 800MHz FSB Xeon.

You can get alot more with AMD than with Intel. I would recomend an AMD, either Athlon 64 or Opteron.(dual) When 64bit takes off and has OS support(no-trial), you will have it.

 

[Goosemaster]

Originally posted by: GonzoDaGr8
I'm sure I will get flamed for this, But the G5 Dual 2.0 with Final Cut Pro Might be a viable option to peiceing out a system.

BTW..Welcome to AT!!

Yeah, if you are willing to spend quite a bit of money(it looks like you are), the G5 will offer a very you a fast and streamlined solution.


The Opteron may be faster, but the G5 is ready to work out of the box. Depends on what you want

 

[Yoshi]

Another vote for a DP PowerMac G5. I'm sorry, but for video editing there is nothing on the x86 side that touches the system you can put together around a Mac...especially on the software side. I have both platforms in my home and feel qualified to make this statement!

 

[Markfw]

Well, my vote (with your budget) goes to the fastest Operons available (2x246??) 4 gig memory, raid5 SCSI (4 drives or more) 15k rpm, and (not sure on the video card, but 9800pro would probably be fine, can't remember the nonmenclature on the real #D pro cards right now...) I don't think anything under 5k could touch it, not even the dual G5 system.

 

[skateis2s]

i do tons of video editig, get as much RAM as possible and the fastest cpu you can afford, i recommend the 3.2 ee, $900 but 2megs of l2... get big hdd's serial ATA or SCSI if you can afford. and of course a good video card, ATI 9600xt or 9800xt

 

[Jincuteguy]

I dont know why you guys recommend 9800XT for a video editing system? if it's a video editing system, you should get Nvidia Geforce FX 3000 (or lower like 1000), that's that kick ass for video editing.

 

[NFactor]

I would go with 2 Opteron 248's with as much RAM as you can afford plus a couple of 15K SCSI drives and 250 GB SATA drives. I've heard that the Thunder K8W is a nice motherboard for Opterons. Throw in a Canopus DVStorm 2 or Raptor and a Radeon 9800XT and nothing will be able to dream about touching that computer Not even the mac, its not really a requirement to have a mac these days with video editing, unless you have a crush on Final Cut Pro. Hell even the Lotr movies were made on avid, and I have used Premiere Pro a lot and it is a very capable editor.

 

[AFB]

I see your point now about the G5. GET THE G5.
Besides,you can't top apple's style.

 

[NFactor]

And the reason i didn't recommend the Quadro FX series was that even 5 grand is not that much for a excellent video editing system and the remaining money would be better spent on extra monitors or a good capture card rather than a card that provides the most benefit for CAD/3D Design artists. Although a FX 1000 or 1100 would be a very nice addition. Sorry for the second post.

 

[mrgoblin]

G5 2 1.8 ghz's, 250 mb hds, premium hds, 2 gb ram and mac video software. Mac is just better than pc right now in the video suites. The best and easiest to use software. And im a pc zealot!

 

[stevty2889]

I would go with an Asus PC-DL Deluxe motherboard, with dual 3.06Ghz Xeons, 2-4 Gig of PC2700 DDR, 2x74 Gig WD raptors in Raid 0, and a 250GB wd SATA drive. and an NVIDIA Quadro FX 3000 graphics card.

 

[Goosemaster]

Originally posted by: mrgoblin
G5 2 1.8 ghz's, 250 mb hds, premium hds, 2 gb ram and mac video software. Mac is just better than pc right now in the video suites. The best and easiest to use software. And im a pc zealot!

It's not "better" per say.


KEEP IN MIND HE IS NOT A VIDEO EDITOR PROFESSIONAL. HE seems to need something that JUST WORKS.NO RAID 5 NO GIBAEXABPENTABIT CRAP>


Get an Opteron a few big SATA DRIVES, amore than a gig of ram, premeire and that's it.


OR


Get a G5, some big drives, more than 1GB of RAM, and the included Final Cut pro.

crank out a couple of instructional projects a month. I'm lucky enough to use a three chip camera to record interesting surgical cases. I'm sure I spend more time on it than I should. I get a big kick out of spiffing them up and passing them on

Stop recommending HD-video capable equipment people. He doesn't need it, and it will be a waste of his $$.



puddlejmpr,


Keep it simple. YOu need RAM, you neeed a lot of storage, and you need processing power for filter/effects.

A G5 with normal SATA drives and enough RAM will be FINE. EVEN 7200rpm PATA drivs will work.

Hell, my mom makes here mpeg2 DVD's on a 1Ghz AMD thunderbird.


Please don't take my antagonism the wrong way. People here have a habit of recommending THE BEST, without actually realizing and confronting what you actually need.


Sure you can get a RAID5 system, but with a 3CCD camera, you are hardly going high-def. I had a friend who ran a video-editing supply company, and he used RAID 5 in OVER THE AIR production AVID boxes where they used HD 720p streams

 

[Zinn2b]

Asus(PC-DL) based on 875P chipset-15% O/C on CPU&Memory-Multi-RAID Functions allows Raid 0 RAID1 co-exist 2 sata ports along with pata ports when 800 Xeon releases all you need is bios upgrade- 2-Xeon 2.66- Corsair PC3200LL (4x512)- Fire GL X2-256-LIAN LI PC6070 Silent Case-Plextor 8xDVD+-R/W-Sony 1.44 floppy-2 WD 250G PATA H/D-2 WD Raptor74G H/D-Audigy2 Zs-Microsoft cordless M/K-Klipsh Promedia 5.1- Samsung SyncMaster 213T I Think I may have broke the bank

 

[Jeff7]

Thing with RAID5 though, you get redundancy and increased read speed. In my experience, high read/write speed of a hard drive is very important with video editing. I only use Ulead's Videostudio 7, but it does the job for me; and if it's reading through a video file, my RAID 0 array provides a good boost over a single drive. Since money seems to be no object here, a RAID 5 array will provide a good amount of storage space, redundancy, and speed.

And for the graphics card - you don't need the latest and greatest, as they're mainly tailored for 3d gaming, which video editing is not. Matrox cards were said to have great 2d quality; maybe one of the Parhelia's predecessors would work; next to Matrox comes ATi then, but try for a built-by-ATi one.

 

[dexvx]

It depends on your application. Some perform very well on either 3 platforms (Mac, Intel, AMD).

But in general (for that kind of money), you want:

- Registered ECC Memory upwards of 2GB
- 15K SCSI subsystem for your main drives
- 7200 rpm IDE solution for mass storage
- Somewhere along the lines of a Radeon 9700 or FX5900 for video
- A motherboard with PCI-X slots to take advantage of the SCSI / GigE subsystem

 

[puddlejmpr]

Wow! Thanks for the guidance.

I've got lots to digest and research.

As for the Apple, I've heard they're very good right out of the box, but I have to confess that one of my motivations was to have FUN putting this thing together.

What a great set of forums. I'll keep learning by osmosis and will post my final decisions.

 

[Goosemaster]

Originally posted by: puddlejmpr
Wow! Thanks for the guidance.

I've got lots to digest and research.

As for the Apple, I've heard they're very good right out of the box, but I have to confess that one of my motivations was to have FUN putting this thing together.

What a great set of forums. I'll keep learning by osmosis and will post my final decisions.

good luck

 

[Lyfer]

Originally posted by: mrgoblin
G5 2 1.8 ghz's, 250 mb hds, premium hds, 2 gb ram and mac video software. Mac is just better than pc right now in the video suites. The best and easiest to use software. And im a pc zealot!

Same here, another vote for the DUAL CPU G5!

 

[Cerb]

Case:
Antec SLK3700-BQE or Sonata, IMO. The Sonata comes with a bit better PSU, but if you go with SCSI drives, it could turn out to be better than it otherwise appears.
The Plus 1080 (430w) would also be good option.
Single CPU:
P4 3.2 or Athlon64 3400+. From what I can find, the Athlon64 and AthlonFX are excellent for Premier.
Rather than spend extra on the FX, spend extra on storage. Video editing is as good of an excuse as any for it . If you want to save a bit there, you likely won't notice a difference going from 10K to 15K SCSI drives.
Dual-CPU:
Opterons and Xeons are evenly matched--depends on what software you use. But if you do it for fun, you might as well stick w/ single CPU, as nothing else will get a benefit from 2 CPUs right now.
Mobo:
i875-based mobo supporting ECC.
Asus K8V Deluxe, supports ECC on Socket 754 (Athlon64)
RAM:
1GB Registered ECC PC3200 is $299 at Newegg (single stick). Two will do you for awhile.
I just can't see going to 2GB or more than not using ECC. Maybe I'm paranoid, but...
Video:
Anything you want. Gaming cards don't do anything for video editing. A $70 Radeon 9100 w/ a DVI will be good.
Storage:
74GB Raptors for OS, page file and editing, or SCSI RAID. Raptors in RAID 0 would do OK, but not enough to matter if you care about the data. Any SCSI RAID 0 or 5 should be fast enough and RAID 5 gives redundancy. Also, you'll LOVE the fast boot times and program loads on a SCSI RAID array .
For SCSI RAID, I *think* this card should do OK, but am not 100% certain. Someone with a bit more SCSI experience might be able to decipher their special marketting-speak better.
For storage, just big 7200 RPM PATA or SATA drives.