PC spec for digital video editing

[e_g_r]

Anybody out their have dedicated workstations (PC or MAC) that they use for digital video editing. If so can they recommend a spec and what editing software do you use.

Any advice much appreciated

[starscream]

If it were me I would go for lots of memory and a decent graphics card. Obviously firewire is a must.

There are graphics cards out there that are specifically designed for video editing rather than gaming so I would bare this in mind.

Oh and lots of fast hard drive space.

I would have said video editing can be one of the most intensive jobs asked of a computer. I think a lot of them perform the same during the editing side of things. Where you get benefits from size and speed is during the mixdown stage where effects are generated quicker, this I think is where the mac wins). I have done lots of editing with poor computers and managed to edit fine until th mixdown took hours and hours to complete for a 20 min vid.

I heard macs are better for video editing, more efficient etc. What software would you be running? I get good quick results with pinnacle, but if you're looking for some more industry standard then you would need something like Adobe Premiere or something better still.

I think some macs come with video editing software as standard. I have never owned a mac or used one much but I have drooled over them on several occasions!

[kerrymoralee9280]

We use pinnacle studio and windows movie maker. the movie maker laptops are pretty average.

1.5Ghz Celerons
512 RAM
40 Gb HDD

The ones we use for the flashier stuff are stone computers with much higher spec. Will check out what it is exactly for you.

[e_g_r]

Cheers, keep it comeing.

How much storage space on your network do you give or do you store it localy ?

[starscream]

We use pinnacle studio and windows movie maker. the movie maker laptops are pretty average.

1.5Ghz Celerons
512 RAM
40 Gb HDD

The ones we use for the flashier stuff are stone computers with much higher spec. Will check out what it is exactly for you.

Bet you have long mixdown times though. Movie maker is very limited and I doubt you would have a dedicated machine for it. Pinnacle is good but too simple for my liking. If it is for projects then I think something more beefy would be better like Premiere but if it is for whole classes then move maker is good, but I think the best quality is something like 2.1mbps or something.

[starscream]

Cheers, keep it comeing.

How much storage space on your network do you give or do you store it localy ?

Again, when mixing down I would try to keep it to the local machine to keep the compilation time down. Nothing worse than waiting hours to see your results then finding you have to do it again!

[dave.81]

Our media studies pc is a p4 3ghz, 2gb ram and 250gb HDD running pinnacle. To be honest i have no idea how it runs as i stay well clear of Media Studies or they'll have me teaching it lol...

[limbo]

We do a lot of video editing and we use Adobe Premiere - very intuative for layering and things like Chroma Key (blue / green screen).

It also has the advantage that you can drop Photoshop images straight in either as a title or a backdrop.

We have Premiere Elements and the full verison but tend to just use elements - it is easier and has pretty much all the features you are likely to need.

As for a machine - I use a HP workstation (XW Range) - the highest spec you can afford.

If you are going to do a lot then a big hard disk with some sort of archive solution (you will always run out of disk space - the size of drive just determines how soon). Storage has to be local during the actual editing stage - it could always be archived to a server but always drag it back when you are actually working on it.

Firewire for sure.

Premiere is not always brilliant at creating WMV's for a website though - its focus is top quality AVI's so we do sometimes resort to Windows Movie Maker to convert the AVI to a WMV.

[bazuk]

Mine is a fast Dell precision workstation 470 with oodles of memory running Premier Pro 1.5


i recommend it

baz

[ChrisC]

Have a dual core machine seriously improves the speed of video editing, it's a very cpu intensive task, so 1 core can look after the operating system, while the other processes the editing etc.

Plenty of ram is also essential, the higher speed and lower latency, the better.

And if you're getting a new machine and have the money, 10-15000 rpm drives would do very well worth it!
Or sata 300 drives anyway!

A decent gfx card is a good bet, although not as vital as good cpu and memory)

Chris

[mrphil]

Try this bad boy for video editing

Dual 3.6 Xeon
2Gb Ram - Corsiar dominator
1 striped Raid array with 2 10k RPM 320GB HDD for OS
1 Raid 5 array with 4 7.2kRPM 500GB HDD for Storage
Nvidia Quadro FX1500 Graphics Card
Liquid Cooled
4* SATA Dual Layer DVD Burners
Adobe Video Production Suite
Dual 21" dell screens

we are currently making videos to accompany all our courses and this bad boy is flying through them..


Best Piece of advice..... Get the best money can buy you wont have it again

[Halfmad]

Personally I'd have more than 2Gb of RAM for video editing, 4Gb would be more appropriate.

[mrphil]

yeah i looked at getting more RAM but thought best to buy matched pair ram than some no name rubbish

[clangfu]

hi guys! newbie here from the philippines. just came across this site when i was going through google directories. anyhoot, i jst signed up coz me thinks you guys are talking about some real interesting stuff around here

let me share some of the stuff i experienced with working on video/film projects on mac and pc

on a pc, you only need 512mb of ram, a fast-enough harddrive (72000rpm ide) and a firewire connected (if you need to output to tape, camera, etc). if you're gonna be working with SD (standard broadcast quality), this setup is fine for DV work. started out on one and been using that to do corporate videos, a few commercials, and some animations and it didn't slow me down at all.

i upgraded now, of course

adobe premiere 2.0 (and the new cs3) is excellent to work with. having more ram gives u more realtime preview. altohugh personally, i find Canopus EDIUS workflow very intuitive and fast. http://www.trustedreviews.com/multim...EDIUS-Pro-4/p1

edited my first full-length feature on a g5 using final cut pro. personally, mac's aren't that fast and responsive compared to beefed up pcs -- but i admit they are very reliable.

a mac system almost never lets me down.

when it says it need 20hours to render, give it 20hours and its done.
unlike with the pc, you get all sorts of problems especially during crunchtime.

i prefer working on a mac now. i've a 1.33 powerbook and i do a lot of editing here (recently just finished a full-length feature film shot in in HD) and it hasn't slowed me down.

my advice is, jst get a machine that can meet the bare minimum (a lot of ram and SATA harddrives wouldn't hurt). dual-core processors and high-end graphics cards are no use if you only edit videos.

dual-core processors and grpahics cards come in if you're into a lot of compositing (after effects, 3ds max, maya, combustion).

hth!

[DavyE]

I use the following

Corel Video Studio pro x2 , Windows7 ultimate (64bit), Asus p5n-e sli mainboard, 2 x 2gb matched corsair ddr2 ram, 2 x 1gb XFX nvidea 8600gt cards in SLI mode ( would prefer Nvidea Quadro if reviews are true) Core 2duo 2.66 (6750) 160gb 7200 sata 2 system drive wit 2 x 320gb 7200 sata 2 for storage.

Put the swap file on the storage drive you use least & make it twice the size of your RAM.

Put your working folder on the other storage drive & disable write behind caching on this drive.

This works well for me, even on big projects such as weddings with loads of rendering involved.

On average a 1 hour dvd takes about 2hrs 20 mins to complete.

I use JVC hdd cameras which have their own file extension (.TOD) Video studio is the only programme I have found that handles these files well without converting them to another format.

This system also works well in vista and XP.

Hope this helps, Bye