A Fresh Start in HD Need Opinion on components

1. Robert_Brown
   Member

   

   Greetings,

   Awesome site!I am about to upgrade my entire setup to HD and after many hours of research, most here, I have come up with my three main components and would like opinions before I pull the trigger. This is just a hobby but I am willing to invest 2500.00-3000.00. I am currently using a 3-chip panasonic prosumer MiniDV Camera and an older Hi-8 to capture footage.  I import and edit using pinnacle studio 8 with firewire from both cameras in mpeg2. My PC is pretty old but was a nice machine in it's day.  Vaio 2.4ghz pentium 4 running XP SP3. I will probably try and turn this unit into an HTPC so any knowledge on that would be awesome too!

    

   Ok now for the new stuff I think I want

    

    

   PC:

   Dell Studio XPS 9000�  1699.00

   Intel Core i7-920 processor(8MB L3 Cache, 2.66GHz)

   Windows 7 Home Premium, 64bit, English

   8GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1066MHz - 4 DIMMs

   500GB 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive

   Dual Drives: Blu-ray Disc (BD) Burner (Writes to DVD/CD/BD) and DVD+/-RW

   nVidia GeForce GTS 240 1024MB

   Soundblaster Titanium

    

   Camera: Canon HV 40 HD MiniDV�???�??�?�  699.00

   Software: Pinnacle Studio 14 ( I am used to using pinnacle) 100.00

    

   Opinions greatly appreciated.

   Thanks!

    

   Posted 2 years ago #

2. birdcat
   Moderator

   

   Looks like a great setup - FYI, I was reading last week how the I7-860 is faster than the 920.

   http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/266392-28-tomshardware

   Bruce Paul
   7Squared Productions
   http://www.7squared.com

   Posted 2 years ago #

3. Robert_Brown
   Member

   

    thanks man.  After a few days I am reconsidering the dell selection.  I am thinking about trying to buy a base core I7 machine and adding the components myself becsue I need multiple monitor outputs preferably at least three or 4 with at least one vgi the rest hdmi and or dvi.  any suggestions on where to look about how to build it would be great!

   Posted 2 years ago #

4. lolinger
   Staff

   

   If you want an editing computer with multiple monitors you'll need a motherboard that supports multiple graphics cards.
   Since you are planning on editing you may want to consider an editing card. ATI has some cheap ones that perform well. The Ati FireGl V7700 performs well in editing while costing around $300. Two of them together would support 4 monitors. If you don't care about how long it takes your computer to render you could go the cheaper route and just get a gaming card. I'd suggest the ATI HD5770 over the Nvidia 240 GTS. It's a little more expensive but it has much better performance and supports 3 monitors per card.
   If you are going to build your own, you may want to get all the components on newegg.com. They have a good return policy and it's easy to sort their products to make sure you get the right thing.
   Here's an example of a good motherboard for your setup.
   http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188051

   IT Department
   lolinger@videomaker.com
   VM Customer Support: 1-800-284-3226

   Posted 2 years ago #

5. wilqen
   Member

   

   Get at last 2 hard drives. One for OS and Programs (including Studio) and 2cd fast drive for video files. a 7200 rpm drive should work fine, some people insist on the velocorapter drives - expensive and not much storage. I would get at least i TB for video. You can get a smaller 120 or 160GB 7200rpm drive for the OS for around $50 and it would be plenty. can I ask - what do you need 4 monitors for? In an editing machine? 2 would be more than fine, and you could always add a further 3rd monitor later if you still felt the need. Stay with the 920 CPU. the chipset (intel x58)allows for 24GB ram on motherboards that support it. that will be a huge help and benefit in an editing machine. Also machines bought from Dell or HP or whatever are full of junk bloatware, you'll never get rid of it all. do yourself a favor and build your own, or get a bare-bones kit. NewEgg is a great site to buy computer parts to build your own.

   Posted 2 years ago #

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