More PC advice

whr wrote on 3/5/2004, 10:11 AM
I started the new PC advice thread and really appreciate everyones comments. I am getting ready to go forward. I had picked out my hardware and was ready to order when I got to reading another thread.

I agree with softy that there are probably several of us out here that utilize Vegas for both audio and video. My priority is audio but I will be getting more into video with the new machine.

My confusion right now is mobo and processor. I was all ready to go with the ASUS K8V and athlon 64 3400+ but after reading softy's thread I'm wondering if I should go with P4c.

I generally use 20 plus tracks of audio with FX.

With video I have done primarily still picture productions with lots of FX. I get pretty jammed up on both so I want to get it as right as I can this time.

I need mobo, processor and video card advice.

whr

Comments

GlennChan wrote on 3/5/2004, 12:16 PM
The video card should make no difference in Vegas' performance. 32MB of video RAM is fine, and smaller amounts probably makes no difference at all. Things to look for would be dual monitor support (check that the card will do the right outputs) and a card that's fanless (no noise).

A Canterwood Pentium seems to slightly edge out Athlons in video performance, but it also depends on a number of factors. Pentiums have hyperthreading so you'll see the Pentium take a bit more of the lead when you are processing a lot of audio at the same time and encoding a lot of DV (those are tasks the second processor has to do... most of the time the second processor is idle so hyperthreading isn't benefitting you). Both processors (3.2C and AMD64 processors) run neck to neck so any difference between them is not that big, but it also seems to me like a Pentium 3.2C could be more bang for the buck. You can search around for the rendertest.veg posts. You don't see hyperthreading kick in from that test, but on projects with lots of stills and lots of audio FX then hyperthreading can give up to a ~20% boost (more like 10-15% when both "processors" of a Pentium CPU are loaded about equally).
cosmo wrote on 3/5/2004, 12:23 PM
I can't advise on the mobo and proc, but glennchan is absolutely right about the video card. I do a lot of video as well as audio and I have a Radeon 9700 I think...anyways, it has an RGB out, a DVI out and an S-Video out. It makes it really convenient to hook up to a tv and see what your video work will look like in real like on a tv. very handy.
GlennChan wrote on 3/5/2004, 12:37 PM
Well by dual monitors my idea of the setup would be to hook up two *computer* monitors to the video card, and your NTSC monitor (or TV set) to your deck (or camera). Hooking up your NTSC monitor that way is the best setup I think, since you see what you're getting and you don't have to move cables around.

>>> Radeon 9700 <<<
That should be more video card than you need... unless you play games :)
Rednroll wrote on 3/5/2004, 1:21 PM
I was looking at the Radeon 8500 and 9700, couldn't tell what the major difference was between these 2 cards except the price. My thought, for my video card needs, was that I wanted to have dual monitor support so I could have more screen space to put Vegas and Sound Forge windows on and also an analog video out, for connecting that to an external TV to monitor the video as you guys described. So basically I'ld want to be able to have Vegas elements spread across the dual monitors, then in the video preview window, if I pressed the external monitor button then the video would goto the external TV. Has anyone done this type of setup with Vegas and which of ATI Radeon cards would you recommend?
GlennChan wrote on 3/5/2004, 8:45 PM
You might want to try a GeForce card. According to Tech Report's multimonitor shootout, they are slightly better at dual monitor support.
http://tech-report.com/reviews/2002q4/multimon/index.x?pg=2

That being said, I have a Radeon 9200SE because that's the cheapest card I could find in local computer shops. You can't get the taskbar onto the second monitor, which might be useful for non-Vegas usage. The cheapest video cards at newegg.com seem to be ATI 7000s and Geforce4s so you might want to get those instead if 3d performance doesn't matter to you. I don't have those cards but I don't see why they wouldn't work. Make sure you check they have the right outputs before you buy though (DVI/VGA).

If gaming is important, check out http://users.erols.com/chare/video.htm and the audio/video forum at arstechnica.com
JL wrote on 3/5/2004, 10:19 PM
Rednroll, I have a rather inexpensive Radeon VE with 32MB. Works fine and I really like the dual monitors. I use IEEE 1394 for external preview (which is the Vegas prescribed method) where toggling the external monitor button does exactly what you want.

JL
Rednroll wrote on 3/6/2004, 8:40 AM
Thanks everyone for the advice. This is pretty helpful. I'll probably stick with an ATI card, because every PC I've built so far has had one, and I've never had any problems with them for my audio performance. My main objective of the system I'm building is for Audio work. Video wise, I'll probably be doing some family stuff for editing family videos and photographs and maybe adding some music behind it.

One question:
" I use IEEE 1394 for external preview (which is the Vegas prescribed method)"

So for that, I would need a video camera with an IEEE 1394 input right? Then I would run the analog video signal out of that and connect to the video input of my monitor? Am I understanding this right? I'm strictly an audio guy, so I have to appologize for my lack of knowledge on the video side. I'm not sure if I want to have a camera sitting there all the time, just being used as a conversion box, so that's why I originally thought of getting a video card with the standard Composit out, that will connect directly to a monitor. I've heard of cards where, I could buy a seperate IEEE 1394 card, so I was thinking of maybe taking that route where I could get the video card with the analog composit video output to get me by, then when I buy a new video camera with the IEEE 1394, connection I could add the IEEE 1394 in my PC at that time. Does this sound like it's doable?
JL wrote on 3/6/2004, 10:46 AM
Vegas uses IEEE 1394 for vid capture, external preview and PTT. The IEEE 1394 needs to be OHCI compliant for proper functioning with Vegas. You also need D/A and A/D conversion, which can be provided by a DV camcorder with pass-through. Some use an external box like one of the Canopus ADVC series as an alternative to the camcorder; and there are also some IEEE 1394 cards available with on-board D/A and A/D conversion. Lots of discussion on this subject over on the video forum.

Also, S-video or component (depending on your options) would generally be better than composite for getting the analog video signal from D/A to external monitor. HTH

JL