Best PC for DV Editing? (EXPERT advise needed!)

GeoffCampbell wrote on 2/9/2003, 2:08 AM
Let me start with this basic premise. The final product of anything, will only be as good as it's weakest component. With that said, let's take a very high end PC.
MS XP-Pro OS, 3.2GHz processor, 533MHz FSB, 3GB DDR RAM, and then the Hard Drive. Let's just deal with the following two for now. ATA133, 7200RPM/8MB Cache, or when they come out, the new ATA150. (I'm going with the opinion that the 7200RPM drives, with the 8MB Cache, are just as efficient as the SCSI 10,000/15,000RPM drives with only a 2MB Cache buffer) So, here you have a good OS, super fast processor, and FSB, lots of RAM, only to get comparatively bogged down when reading, or writing to the HD. It seems to me, that until the efficiency of Hard Drives catches up, a lot of what comes before is overkill. Therefore, the big question for me is this, using VV4, what would be a good, and efficient, PC configuration, without overkill regarding both specs, and $,$$$.$$? ? ?
Thanks in advance for any opinions, advice, or suggestions.
All replies will be greatly appreciated, and taken into consideration.
I_Need_Help (and don't have money to burn)
Tony

Comments

mikkie wrote on 2/9/2003, 11:37 AM
Choose your motherboard carefully - read everything you can about prospective choices online as there really is a bit of variance in how fast they can pass data to and from over the ide channels. This will also let you avoid stuff like the problems with via chipsets and audio recording in the past.

As you mentioned, there is a point where you can get into overkill - waiting for or paying a premium for ata 150 might just fit that description. The hard drive cache should be of little concern IMO as you generally want to avoid all caches when working with video streams in favor of a constant flow. SCSI can be faster, but then you can get into issues of how much data your motherboard can pass to the SCSI interface, especially if it's on the pci card bus.

For video editing itself, if you're doing a render to avi it's faster to have the source on one drive, and the destination on another, even more so if the drives are on separate channels. IOW, there's something to be said for buying a couple of drives rather then one huge one. And if you got something like 2 80 gigs in addition to your system drive, you could experiment with Raid0.
pb wrote on 2/9/2003, 4:21 PM
The Western Digital 120 gig 7200 rpm with 8 meg cache is a great media drive and only 250 CAD = 165 USD or less. You are right about SCSI: you don't need it for Vegas. One PC I sue with Vegas has a 36 gig 7200 SCSI and an 80 gig Lacie external IDE; I have yet to notice any difference between the drives. When editing Betacam in MJPEG using a Pinnacle DC50 there was a difference though.

A tech told me it is a good idea to reformat external firewire drives after every project, going to try that with the Lacie to see if it speeds up rendering.
SeanC wrote on 2/11/2003, 4:11 PM
I think you may also find that if you have two hard drives, you may have them on the same chain. You want them on different cables going to the motherboard. If you have one hard drive (or partitioned), add a second hard drive on the other chain.

If you have one drive, or have two on the same chain, all the data has to come in and out on the same channel. This can be solved by separating them.

Read tons of good info about drives and the like at www.storagereview.com
Jay Gladwell wrote on 2/11/2003, 5:54 PM
Just one thing--if it comes down to XP home or pro, by all means go pro. It is far more robust in too many ways to mention here.

Just my two cents.
wcoxe1 wrote on 2/11/2003, 8:17 PM
Currently, you should look for a 533MHz front side bus. Determines the speed (and bottleneck) with which data is moved around on the motherboard.

Within 6 months, the 800MHz busses and faster RAM to match will be commonplace. May not be worth the wait, though. Don't know. Tech support, what think you?
pjprod wrote on 2/11/2003, 10:33 PM
Motherboard choice is very critical. You should stick with a board with an intel chipset like the 845 or 850 chipset. Gigabyte makes an excellent board called the GA8PE667. This board retails for under a hundred dollars and is very stable and reliable. Also purchase name brand memory like Crucial, Micron, Samsung, Kingston, it will save you headaches in the long run. Any hardrive in the 7200 RPM range will do just fine. Good Luck and Vegas rocks!!!!

John
PJ Productions