A semi-prof vid editing PC that can edit uncompressed HD

[nogwiat]

Hi, I am sort of into the video making business but am running on a tight budget so basically I am trying to build a good PC that can edit HD uncompressed that is worth its cost. I believe Xeon is the best choice but the prices are a little high these days.

Basically these are my choices

Motherboard - Gigabyte A-965P-DS4 /w E6400 Core 2 Duo
RAM - 2 Gig PDP PC2-6400 DDR2-800
A few Hard Disks for main OS and storage purposes

GPU- Sapphire Raeon X1600XT 256MB GDDR3

Any comments on the choices? Also, like to find out if the DS4 chipset supports dual OS (Mac OS X & Windows XP).

 

[yourmothersanastronaut]

Not bad choices. The e6400 is nice. Don't worry about the Xeon, no real benefit over the Core 2 Duo. The Conroe-based Xeons, maybe, but they're more expensive and you don't get much more out of them, especially if you're not overclocking.

I'd recommend a 3-drive setup:

Use a large hard drive (~500GB) for your main OS, and a pair of hard drives (~250GB each) in a RAID 0 array for your workspace. At the end of the day, just move whatever project you worked on using the array over to the main hard drive. Then when it's time to work again, move the project onto the RAID array and keep working. That way, you'll have the performance of RAID 0 and the safety of using a single drive.

 

[mrmez]

Do a search... may help

As far as i know, unless u do 3d rendering and stuff, video editing is 99.9% cpu based. Hence spend ALL u can on a good C2D cpu and mobo like P5B-Deluxe, get good cooling and oc a bit if u want.
Onboard graphics is fine. Loads of ram will help, so 2gb will serve well. Obviously will need tons of hdd space for HD:!:

No idea abt DS4 :? But IMHO, the only reason Macs were known for video editing was their s/ware, and i think win s/ware has caught up, leaving it a little difficult to justify a (sh)mac.

 

[TabrisDarkPeace]

Mac OS X only officially runs on Apple produced main-boards.

These boards use EMI, not BIOS.

Thus it is very difficult to run Mac OS X on an IBM PC clone, but it is easy to run Windows XP on a Mac.

Even I am considering buying a Mac system in 2007, to be able to run a wider variety of Operating Systems.

Mac OS X is BSD based, but it has a far nicer GUI than most BSD solutions, however it retains a fine grain on time-slices and uses the GPU more.

For example in Windows 3.x, 95, 98, ME, 2K, XP, and likely Vista too, the fonts are stored in system memory, and rendered to video memory this is a slow process.

Under Max OS X the fonts are actually cached in video memory (which often has 4 times the throughput of system memory), and as such far less I/O overheads are involved.

Here are some links of use:

http://www.apple.com
http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/index.html
http://www.parallels.com
http://www.openoffice.org - Has Mac OS X binaries, Linux, Windows, etc - Sure there is a MS Office Mac suite, but why pay money when I get get document portability for free ?

On a site note: MSN Messenger is available for OS X too

I've am 70% PC User, 30% 'Systems Wanderer'


For video editing you'll want both Mac OS X and Windows XP, with a Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad, or Xeon 5100 / 5300 series system, with at least 2 GB of RAM. 500GB+ of storage in RAID-0/1/5 would be highly desirable.

Any questions feel free to MSN, PM & e-mail me - See links below for contact details, or post back here and I should be e-mailed the update.

8) - TabrisarkPeace

 

[TabrisDarkPeace]

Oh, and Adobe Premiere can offload some tasks to the GPU, so look towards at least a GeForce 7600 GT (not the 7600 GS though), or equiv ATI card.

8) TabrisarkPeace

 

[nogwiat]

Even I am considering buying a Mac system in 2007, to be able to run a wider variety of Operating Systems.

8) - TabrisarkPeace

Yeah Macs are good because they cause lesser problems. But Macs are also quite expensive in my country, that is why i am considering the cheaper alternative. But now i am getting a deal for a G4 at a good price. so i'm considering...

 

[TabrisDarkPeace]

What is your budget, and where is your country ?

I'll see what I can dig up, you may be better off with a PC (price / functionality wise).

The lowest spec Apple machine recommended for video work these days would: (1) have to be able to run Mac OS X 10.5, (2) support Mac OS X 10.6 (when it comes out in 2007), and (3) be based on the Core 2 Duo (or at the very least Core Duo - whichs lacks x64 support, unlike its big brother). With at least 1 GB of RAM, but 2 GB highly desirable.

Are you getting a good offer on this G4 system though ?, They are a very old CPU (even an older Pentium 4 with HT could give one a run for its money).

I've recently upgraded to an Apple Cinema HD (23", 1920 x 1200, 16:10) display, and I've rearranged my desktop to mirror the Mac OS X interface a little more. The display is plugged into a Windows XP PC.

For watching Wallpaper Overlays of videos this layout works far better than any other:

I use VideoLAN (VLC) - http://www.videolan.org - a fair bit. Highly recommended.

 

[cptblackeye]

What software are you running? I mainly use my rig to render 12GB avi files to mpeg with Pinnacle Studio 9 Plus and it works great for me. I came from a 1.5 Ghz P4with 1GB pc 133 ram and a single Maxtor 120 Gb HDD and my rendering time for a 12 GB avi went from 6 hours on old to 48 minutes on new system. Worth every penny for my new rig. I have Pinnacle and OS on 150 GB Raptor and avi files on 1 Seagate 320Gb and render mpeg to 2nd Seagate. I'm still working on tweaking my system without overclocking to squeeze out more performance. Besides the faster render time, I like how it doesn't tie up my computer while rendering so I can do other things. Hope this helps.