thanks

I'm trying to put together an inexpensive editing system. Could someone tell me what the minimum system requirements are for 1080i editing?

You've created an oxymoron there. ;o)

You've created an oxymoron there. ;o)

Hey - that's what I was gonna say!

:)

Dave

are the recommendations here for 1080i absolutely necessary?

http://www.videoguys.com/HDV.html#system

they're decent for good performance. I'm building a dual Xeon workstation with 3.0Ghz. From what I've heard from multiple sources is that the performance difference between the 3.0's up to the 3.6's isn't very much. So more money for a little boost.

So recommended for good performance, absolutely necessary? No, but you're not gonna want to play with anything much slower. Depending on video cards (which make little difference in Vegas but are good for any 3D apps or screen captures), and raid boards, you can have a decent single proc machine for around $2k, perhaps a bit higher. The duals can run from $3000 up to $8000 depending on the bells and whistles.

Okay, here goes. This is based on the results from my Sony Vegas benchmark page, 4 years of running a MSP benchmark page, LOTS of my own testing, and lots of reading.

Looking at price points, there's really no reason to go below 3.0GHz for Intel cpus or about 2.2GHz for AMD.

The more CPU power you can buy the better. Really. All high-end cpus today are paired with motherboards supporting fast memory so scaling won't be 1:1 but it will be close to that.

Get at least a GB of RAM or you risk starving the OS during multitasking.

Unless you are working with uncompressed streams RAID is not necessary and I have not seen 1 benchmark test submitted in 4 years where HD speed had an influence on rendering. Edit on your secondary drive. All newer driver can sustain 30MB/sec, way more than enough for HDV or even CFHD at lowest compression ratio. I know there are guys in here that need RAID and there are cases where you will but not for most editing. Do a search if you want furthe info on that.

Video cards don't affect video editing performance AT ALL. Buy a video card based on display quality and features, i.e. dual head, DVI, etc...

The future is definitely going to be parallel "threadism" i.e. multithreading. If you can wait then you might want to consider holding off for a dual core solution.

Finally, the Pentium-M does in fact do a great job with Vegas, but from my tests it is only as efficient per clock as the A64, which can be had at higher clock speeds for less money.

- Mark

The guy wanst a cheap system not a dual xenon. The "cheap" system Ii just got works great - will edit HDV nayivly at 6fpr- and intermediate codexs at full fram rate, without going above the now cheap standard P4s. I just got a PowerSpec P4 3.4GHz HT, IGB ddr-400 (pc3200) on a P915 Intel board, PCIe geForce video and dual HDs, WD 160/250 for under $1300. The next jump in price for dual Athlons or a A64FX/55 will take you to at least $2200. If you want to spend at this level then do as Spot said and wait for the dual core chips up soon.