Any PC users here?
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From personal experience:
*At least a single 3GHz CPU, or at least dual 1GHz CPUs.
*1GB RAM works for me -- lo lag.
*A decent sound card, I recommend Creative Labs Audigy 2.
*I've edited on the cheapest of cheap video cards so I dont think this matters much, although I did splurge recently and get a Geforce 6800.
*Lots of disk space, I bought a 120GB recently and boy, was that a mistake. I filled it in a month. I've seen 300GB drives for $160. That's the best deal I've seen on the market. Get one. Or two. Or three. Believe me, you'll fill it up fast. (On this note, you'll want to get an external USB HD to backup on. If your PC crashes, you don't want to lose all of that data!)
*ONLY use Plextor DVDRW drives. By personal experience, they're the only truly reliable burners on the market. Don't buy Sony (like I did), the drives are so bad they can't even read what it just burned. (Dropouts, CRC errors... Sonys just make coasters) Spend the extra cash on Plextor. It's a good investment.
I hope this helps.
*At least a single 3GHz CPU, or at least dual 1GHz CPUs.
*1GB RAM works for me -- lo lag.
*A decent sound card, I recommend Creative Labs Audigy 2.
*I've edited on the cheapest of cheap video cards so I dont think this matters much, although I did splurge recently and get a Geforce 6800.
*Lots of disk space, I bought a 120GB recently and boy, was that a mistake. I filled it in a month. I've seen 300GB drives for $160. That's the best deal I've seen on the market. Get one. Or two. Or three. Believe me, you'll fill it up fast. (On this note, you'll want to get an external USB HD to backup on. If your PC crashes, you don't want to lose all of that data!)
*ONLY use Plextor DVDRW drives. By personal experience, they're the only truly reliable burners on the market. Don't buy Sony (like I did), the drives are so bad they can't even read what it just burned. (Dropouts, CRC errors... Sonys just make coasters) Spend the extra cash on Plextor. It's a good investment.
I hope this helps.
A word about the drive space...
Since video editing is both processor and storage intensive, consider putting a pair of drives in a RAID configuration with the drives striped. It really cuts down on the I/O time.
That being said, and with Windows (assuming that's what you're running on the PC) being rather sloppy about file fragmentation and cleanup, you might want to consider a large external drive (USB 2.0 or Firewire.)
When the external drive gets fragmented, it's a lot easier to simply format it and start with (literally) a clean slate. Defragging a Windows system drive seems to carry undue risk and it can take forever. That's what makes the external drive so appealing.
A note about multi-processor machines: I've got an aging dual Athlon 2400 machine I use for editing. The second processor really does come in handy, especially when rendering.
Since video editing is both processor and storage intensive, consider putting a pair of drives in a RAID configuration with the drives striped. It really cuts down on the I/O time.
That being said, and with Windows (assuming that's what you're running on the PC) being rather sloppy about file fragmentation and cleanup, you might want to consider a large external drive (USB 2.0 or Firewire.)
When the external drive gets fragmented, it's a lot easier to simply format it and start with (literally) a clean slate. Defragging a Windows system drive seems to carry undue risk and it can take forever. That's what makes the external drive so appealing.
A note about multi-processor machines: I've got an aging dual Athlon 2400 machine I use for editing. The second processor really does come in handy, especially when rendering.
Instead of a dual processor, I opted for a computer (from Tiger Direct) with a 64 bit AMD chip and I'm glad I did...
I basically had Tiger Direct build it for me... I got a bare bones system.
64 bit chip
one gig memory
250 Gig internal hard drive
512 meg graphics/video card
Windows XP Pro
Then I installed Sony Vegas -- bought another 4 250 gig internal hard drives. Installed one in the system and bought three external firewire/USB enclosures.
Added another gig of memory to the system and I really love it. I never have a crash. In fact, I can have Vegas and Liquid Edition open at the same time, surf the web, etc. and still not have a crash...
I highly recommend the 64 bit system.
filmy
I basically had Tiger Direct build it for me... I got a bare bones system.
64 bit chip
one gig memory
250 Gig internal hard drive
512 meg graphics/video card
Windows XP Pro
Then I installed Sony Vegas -- bought another 4 250 gig internal hard drives. Installed one in the system and bought three external firewire/USB enclosures.
Added another gig of memory to the system and I really love it. I never have a crash. In fact, I can have Vegas and Liquid Edition open at the same time, surf the web, etc. and still not have a crash...
I highly recommend the 64 bit system.
filmy
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No matter what you do -- do NOT import video from your camera onto the SAME drive that runs your program files and operating system (presumably drive c: ). You should always import onto either a slave/secondary drive or to an external. Importing to your c: drive will likely result in dropped frames and stuttering video...too much for the system to handle. A super performering PC might overcome this, but better to play it safe if you can.
Very true...
This is definitely TRUE. Use the "C" drive specifically for your operating system and program files... Save all your video to another drive.
filmy
John@Bophe said:
This is definitely TRUE. Use the "C" drive specifically for your operating system and program files... Save all your video to another drive.
filmy
You don't technically NEED a 3 GHz processor, although the faster the better, particularly with rendering. I use a 2.0 Ghz with no lag or any problems at all with video editing.
Beeblebrox said:
Agreed. I've been able to import, edit, and render movie clips with a P4 1.7Ghz and 640 MB RAM. It works okay, but I do get ocassional dropped frames when importing. Charles (Bophe co-writer/director) has a P4 3.something Ghz and 1 GB RAM. He does not get any dropped frames that I know of.
I boughts a notebook recently (PM/1.7, 768MB RAM, Firewire) and I've found video editing on that is excellent. Now I've bought an Athlon64/3500 with 2GB RAM, I'm more happy with that! Now I'm trying to sell my new notebook. 
FilmJumper said:
From what I understand, the 64 bit processor is being wasted without a 64 bit OS and software. Wasted probably isn't the word, but it's not being utilized to its fullest potential yet.....but maybe I'm misinformed. I have yet to fully grasp how 64 bit is playing out with the PCs. I thought in order to get the full power of 64 bit processing, an OS is needed that is programmed for 64 bit processing.
PhountainHead said:
Neither does XP. I have two XP machines and a Mac and they're all extremely stable. None crashes any more than the other. But the guy didn't really ask about Macs, so maybe a Mac isn't an option. It's a considerably greater expense if he doesn't already have one.
FCP is a great software package that is quickly becoming the defacto standard among indie filmmakers. And if anyone is willing to get a Mac (and many aren't), then it's definitely worth it if you're going to be doing a lot of editing.
The best thing about PC's are the competitive pricing - I haven't had any problems with freeze-ups for several years, hardware is so damned powerful now and XP is pretty stable.
Get a hardware-based capture card (one that doesn't use the computer's CPU). Matrox RTX100 or the Canopus Edius Pro 3 bundles include editing software but the pro versions run $1000 or so. Still, the capture card makes a big difference, I've NEVER dropped a frame and had to use a much older PC when my editing maching went down (mechanical failure).
Hard drive, hard drive, hard drive - there is no such thing as enough storage space. SCSI ata can be set up for speed or reduncancy, backing up is crucial. External USB drives are a great backup solution because you'll fill up 4 gig dvd disks in a heartbeat. I'd say you can get moderate CPU and memory (even 2 ghz and 1gig of memory will do the trick) but go hog wild on storage. CPU and memory are used most during rendering/effects so if you don't have a lot of that going on, most $1000 system specs have what you need with another $1000 spent on capture hardware/software and then all the extra storage you can afford. I'd say a $3000 budget is realistic, less is possible but you'll be adding on to lesser systems as you go.
Get a hardware-based capture card (one that doesn't use the computer's CPU). Matrox RTX100 or the Canopus Edius Pro 3 bundles include editing software but the pro versions run $1000 or so. Still, the capture card makes a big difference, I've NEVER dropped a frame and had to use a much older PC when my editing maching went down (mechanical failure).
Hard drive, hard drive, hard drive - there is no such thing as enough storage space. SCSI ata can be set up for speed or reduncancy, backing up is crucial. External USB drives are a great backup solution because you'll fill up 4 gig dvd disks in a heartbeat. I'd say you can get moderate CPU and memory (even 2 ghz and 1gig of memory will do the trick) but go hog wild on storage. CPU and memory are used most during rendering/effects so if you don't have a lot of that going on, most $1000 system specs have what you need with another $1000 spent on capture hardware/software and then all the extra storage you can afford. I'd say a $3000 budget is realistic, less is possible but you'll be adding on to lesser systems as you go.