Building a comp for editing? « Videomaker Community Forums

poppa_bear42330
Member

Ok I'm talking to someone that has built comps for about 10 years now and I have seen their work. They are good. So we are talking about building a comp from scratch. I was wanting to get some input from those that have upgraded or built for this same reason. I'm basically wanting types and maybe brands of hardware to install as well and case choices and anything else you think might be helpful.

There are a few musts that I know of for the full effect to work. I'll need a sound card, video card w/as much video memory as possible, LOTS of hard drive space, more fans then Jessica Alba, a DVD burner, at least a Gig of ram, second DVD rom/burner for faster copying,...um....what am I leaving out and what else can you suggest?

Posted 5 years ago #
jcschild
Member

HI,
550W good power supply
Intel Core 2 Duo
Intel 975 mobo
2 Gig DDR 2 800
small OS drive
Capture drive (320G Seagate)
Render drive (320G Seagate)
Nvidia 7600 GT 256

that should take care of the basics.

SCott
ADK

Posted 5 years ago #
poppa_bear42330
Member

I'll pass that info along to my tech person. Thanks a bunch.

Anyone else got anything to add?

Posted 5 years ago #
compusolver
Member

Well, not so fast. I'd go along with 80% of that, but let's slow down and review the motherboard, drives and video card. Also, where are the optical drives?

OK, first thing is the mobo. Motherboards come in a variety of configurations. The cheaper models (within the chipset you've decided upon) will have fewer slots for memory, PCI, etc. Be sure it supports 4 SATA connectors internally and having an external SATA or eSATA isn't a bad idea. I'd want at least three PCI slots, so I could add extra goodies that I might not be thinking of today. Also, you want extra slots to increase memory to 4 gigs, because you never know what you'll need tomorrow. I've seen some motherboards with only a single IDE slot. Not good for video guys - you want to run up to four IDE burners, so you need two IDE slots.

I've been out of the computer biz for nearly a decade, so feel free to jump in here if I've overlooked anything.

For drives - they are so cheap now, don't scrimp here. All drives should be SATA 3.0 or better (do they have better than 3.0 yet?). Your OS drive will also hold your programs and you'll want many and they'll be huge. The smallest I'd consider is 160 gigs and I'd really prefer 250 because whatever we need today - we'll need double that tomorrow.

As for video drives - you have to decide whether to run a RAID system or JBOD. (If you're not familiar with these terms, Google them and get familiar before you reach for your wallet.) If you're only doing family videos, then 500 gigs is enough storage. That means one 500gig drive for JBOD or two 500gig drives for RAID. For best results, use same make & model of drives. (Almost said "year, make and model")!

If you're doing weddings, or other types of biz shoots, then you want at least a terrabyte of storage space. Be sure you have firewire and plenty of USB 2.0 so you can use external drives also. (Plus you'll need firewire for video capture and perhaps USB for downloading from digital recorders, etc.)

Video card - your NLE and perhaps other video software, will depend a lot on you getting the right video card. Check your NLE's support page for recommendations. Generally, NVIDIA and ATI are the only two choices. Be sure you can run multiple monitors and have GPU support.

You'll want at least two DVD burners for spitting out those videos. If doing video as a business, you may want four burners. By using all SATA harddrives, you've left all four IDE drive support open for burners. Nero will let you use four burners at once.

I'm not sure if they've been keeping it up to date, but the VideoGuys website (www.videoguys.com) has a section with component recommendations for DIY system builders for video editing. Check 'em out.

Posted 5 years ago #
jcschild
Member

HI Hank,
i am guessing you are a bit outdated :D

the intel 975 chipset board will have 8 sata ports! NOT a MATX board. i would never recommend a POS like that for video.
FYI almost NO new mobos have 3 PCI slots, and what in the world would you need them for?
PCIe has taken over.

all new mobos have 4 Memory slots (except for Matx POS's and even most of them do) and we can now buy 4Gig single sticks!

optical drive is a given i said "the basics"!

here we totally disagree. only 1 internally if you are burning mulitple disks professionally then buy a Primera or other sort of duplication tower.
FYI the more DVDs you try to burn at once the slower it burns....

drives i completely disagree as well.

NEVER read and write to the same drive.
a minimum prosummer set up is a 3 drive setup like i listed above.
where a "pro" DV/HDV(not uncompressed HD) would be
1) small OS/programs drive
2) 2 drives in raid 0 for capture/work
3) 2 drives in raid 0 for render to/storage
4) Ext storage

Video cards. a 7600 wil be dual head in fact only very low budget cards are not anymore.
a 7600 will allow for multiple overlays, 3d lower thirds etc.
for Pro use a Quadro 1500.

FYI i didnt go overboard on my recommendations for him as if you have read a few of his posts he is not doing this professionally (making money)
if he was i would be recommending a professionally built system.

thanks
scott
ADK

Posted 5 years ago #
compusolver
Member

This isn't the first time I've been called "outdated". X-D

It looks like you're doing a good job for your client. I especially like 8 SATA!

I go along with almost everything through your "optical drives" line. There are still some cool stuff you can get on PCI cards, but perhaps three slots is overkill nowadays.

As one who has a system with four burners, I can assure you that they burn as fast as when I had only two. Further - four burners is MUCH cheaper than a dedicated replication system, cheaper to maintain and leaves the option of software to the owner.

As far as "never read and write to the same drive" - well, I'm scratching my head over that one! Your app has to read and then update those same files (project files, etc.) Any file that get's written, is likely to need to be read - else, why write it? If you write it to one drive, surely you must read it from that same drive.

Premiere Pro uses temporary files that get read and written (updated) throughout the session. This is reading and writing on the same drive.

Windows must read its registry (and other) files and update on the fly throughout your session. This is reading and writing on the same drive. Reading and writing on the same drive(s) is unavoidable.

It is a good idea though to have OS and programs on one drive, temp and virtual files on another and video/project files on yet another.

Say, what kind of video card/TV monitor combo would you suggest for editing? I want to view and hear my video on a real TV (not computer monitor), preferably one that has HDMI for my FX1. I figure I could mount it on the wall over and behind my two current monitors, giving me a viewing distance of about thirty inches. I'm using two monitors now and want PP2.0 to send only the project's video signal to the TV.

Currently, although my ATI Radeon 1300/1550 card has S-Video output, the only way I've gotten a signal to a TV is via firewire through my camera.

Posted 5 years ago #
poppa_bear42330
Member

Not doing it professionally at all. I'm wanting to basically shoot and edit including digital effects of all kinds for me, my family and friends and I do hope to start making full length films for the local theater one day but that is at least 15 or so minutes from now.

So I want to build, as I can, a video editing computer with enough power and hardware to edit and store for a short time several 15 to 20 minute movies as well as maybe a series I hope to do online. I know I will need a lot of HD space and I plan to buy as many and as big as I can.

I'm not sure what you mean by optical drive. I assumed that was the video card but then again the last comp I built was a state of the art comp complete with the newest Windows OS "Chicago" or as most people called it...Windows 95.

Posted 5 years ago #
compusolver
Member

I'm not sure what you mean by optical drive.

In this case, it refers to DVD drives/burners. Can also mean CD.

Posted 5 years ago #
jcschild
Member

HI Compusolver,

ok lets clarify a few things...

read and write to the same drive....
i should rephrease that to mean
do not RENDER to the same drive as you work (capture) from.... thus why i recommend a seperate render drive.
2 things are most important in final render (format change EG: DV to AVI/Mpeg) times.
CPU power
HDD thruput.

if you render to the same drive your raw files are on its terrribly slow compared to having 2 drives (or 2 raid arrays)
for a home hobbiest its fine. for a weekend warrior or worse a Pro its not acceptable as time is money!.

as to Video card i would use the Quadro 1500 Pro it has a breakout for composite/component/Svideo and does HD.
it does not have HDMI...

the other option is tho get Decklinks new HDMI card. it will allow capture and output its like $299 this can be used with your existing video card (assuming you have a PCIe slot)

Scott
ADK

Posted 5 years ago #