Building a new Video machine, whats best.

I will be building a new dedicated video machine over the next couple of
months. However, I was hoping to receive some input from this group on
hardware choices.

First question is single vs. dual processor. I am considering the hottest
ASUS P4C800 Deluxe Mainboard for the Pentium version with the hottest P4
processor I can afford. (Not the extreme but probably an HT 3.2 gig or 3.06
gig. The counter boards I'm considering are the ASUS K8V-Deluxe AMD 64 with
a 64bit 3200 CPU. This is the best AMD single CPU system board I can find.
The third option is to go with a dual processor AMD running twin 2600 Athlon
processors. I am running all the "Cheap" video software, Pinnacle, Sonic,
Ulead, Roxio and a bunch of free programs from the web. I don't think any
of these will benefit from the dual processor machine but I just don't know.

I have the rest of the system specs listed below for comparison but most of
these I've researched and will most likely be using. Any comments would
still be appreciated.

Video: ATI AIW 9800 PRO (I've used many cards and I always fall back to the
ATI All in wonder line. They have been very, very good to me in the past.)

Memory: Probably 2 x 512 for 1 gig of PC3200 ram. (Or whatever is fastest
for the chosen motherboard).

HD: I have a kind of odd configuration for Hard Drives. I use 2 removable
drive cages and 1 internal HD. The internal HD is the backup/image and
Transfer drive. Then the two removable cages contain whatever OS's I'm
using or testing to go in bay 1, and then I drop the biggest fastest storage
drive in bay two. Normally I do this with IDE but there are now SATA cages
available.

Audio: Although imp no audiophile and rarely use my machine for music, I do
like the included software, options and external breakout box of the Sound
Blaster Audigy Platinum EX that I currently use. I don't know if I should
transfer it to the new machine or if I should splurge and get the latest
rendition of the SB Audigy Platinum external. (If I need to cut costs
anywhere, this is where I'll drop down to standard 5.1 onboard audio or a
cheaper SB card.)

DVD Drives. I have several fast 16X reader drives to choose from (My
preference is the Latest Samsung combo drives). For my burner I have my
internal HP DVD200I which is only a 2.4x burner but burn speed is minimal
compared to re-render speeds. I also have an external Plextor PX-708UP.
This thing is awesome. 8X on good +R media. (4x and 6x on the dirt cheap
crap also). I transfer this drive between computers all the time so I like
to keep the HP in the system in case the external is busy on another
machine.

Any other hints and tips would be appreciated.

Thanks gang.

Doc

 

What kind of editing, and how much, are you going to be doing?
Personally I wouldn't pay for the very fastest processor. I'd probably
get a 2.7 Ghz machine then spend some money going to a Gb or more or
RAM. I'd put the rest of the savings into a lot of hard disk space and
software. What kind of system are you running now?

 

The thing that's hot about the P4C800 MB is the overclocking abilities. If
you take advantage of theat, there is no need to buy the fastetst CPU. You
may actually get a faster system by building on a lesser CPU and overclock.
This is because you can increase FSB speed more that way.

 

I'm currently running a P4 2.0 gig Northwood on an Abit TH7II-RAID board.
512 MB ram. The system is still great but I'm looking to put only video
stuff on the new machine. No games, not PVR, no utilities and other stuff.
I want a completely clean machine for video work. HD space is not an issue
for me. (Using removable HD cages for unlimited HD space). I hadn't
considered the software aspect. I'm using Pinnacle 8, Ulead 7, sonic, Roxio
and Nero 6 ultra for all my current stuff. I'll have to see if there are
any professional level pieces of software that may be a better option. Only
one consideration I have, Almost all the video work I do is on video
captured through analog connection. I don't have a DV camcorder yet, and
the video work I do for others is generally from VHS tapes or their personal
camcorders, VHS-C or Hi-8.

 

You could just set up another user account in XP and have everything but
the bare essentials turned off. Of course the PVR would still be there,
but you wouldn't have to use it.

 

Not necessarily -m sometimes just installing a program can create havoc : for
instance some programs replace codecs (it's happened to me more than once, it's
even happened with PVR software).

Be careful about what you install.

--keith

 

Welllllll, then you could have a dual-boot system, with XP on each, maybe.

 

I have my current machine set up on a HD Switch with 2 HD's. So I can boot
to XP or Linux without using the same Hard Drive. This is great, The
problem is, When I'm home using the video machine the PVR is recording
television shows for 4 people. I can do most anything on the system short
of play 3D Games or video work. Thus the new machine as a stand alone video
machine. I have tried the user setup to create a clean user for doing video
work but have had too many problems with everything loading that shouldn't
be. ATI PVR software, antivirus, firewall etc. Everything that loads under
normal login. However, if I kill it under this login, some things don't
work under the main login again.

Thanks for the information. But I'm still in a quandary about which
hardware I should be looking at?

Thanks

Doc

 

i can respond on the dual cpu question -
imho, go with a single cpu, perhaps a p4 with hyperthreading. i've been running dual
cpu for several years, waiting for
multi-threading to become standard. Besides
Premiere Pro and TmpgEnc, I haven't really
seen that many MT'd media apps (TmpgEnc
milks every cpu cycle off my 2 cpu's, though
- hats off to them). With HT'ing, i see no
reason for a dual cpu system, anymore

 

Thanks so much that's what I was looking for.

Since I use the "Cheap" software, most of it isn't written for dual CPU and
I wondered if there would be a performance gain. I did read some
comparisons on extreme tech between an HT 3.2 gig processor and the AMD 64
bit and video was pretty even. I guess the next question is should I go for
the HT P4 or the 64 bit AMD.

Thanks again.

Doc

 

Hello all. If I might chime in here for a bit, I'd like to add that
I've also been tempted to upgrade to the fastest, bestest, most
expensivest machine to do video editing. When I seriously considered
this, however, I realized that I had perfectly adequate resources on
my existing machine to do everything I wanted to be able to do, -- and
I have a mere P3 1ghz machine, with a 133hmz bus and 1gb of ram. I can
capture and edit both high res analog video and DV, author and burn
DVDs, and all that fun stuff. I do realize, however, that the one area
where my system suffers is speed, like for rendering and exporting,
etc. But thankfully, I'm a very patient person, and when I weigh the
necessary cost and time investments I'd need for the upgrade against
how often I actually use my system for video editing -- I just opt to
let my projects render or export overnight. The end result still looks
and sounds excellent, and I still get paid handsomely by that
occassional freelance client.

Anyways, I guess my point is, if what you have is working for you the
way you want, then you might just want to wait until you hit an actual
bottleneck until you do your upgrade, or until some kind of crisis
occurs that leaves you no choice. Sooner or later, something will
break, you know. And won't you be psyked that you waited to upgrade,
because by then there'll be something even faster, better, and even
more expenisive to indulge in

Cheers,
- yvan