PC requirements for edit HD

[Alan James]

Hi all. I edit only DV video right now but soon I would like to move into editing wide screen HD from Sony F950s or any other HD cinema camera. I will mostly be editing video shot with 4:2:2 color timing, at 1920X1080, 23.976p. The one thing is that I am using a PC. :-( Right now I have an AMD 3200+, a Radion 9800 pro with 256mbs memory, 1 gig of memory and loads of other stuff that dosnt really apply to video editing. Now to my question. What do I need to upgrade and how much do I need to upgrade it to be able to preview HD in real-time? I use adobe premiere pro 2.0 in case it matters. Oh and I am running 2 monitors. I know this topic has been brought up else where but I wanted some more specific information then other forums have been giving.

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

Not sure why the :-( about PC?
You need:
AJA Xena or a BlackMagic Design HD card. You could also get an Axio, but since you seem to be trying to save $$ vs spend em'...
you need one whoppin' RAID
that's all.

[Alan James]

RAID as in hard drives? I have that but whenever I try to play the video within premiere it is very laggy. The :-( is cause Macs are way better for editing and I wish I had one but I like computer games to much to buy a mac. I dont know what those cards are. Ive never heard of them.

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

Originally Posted by Alan James

RAID as in hard drives? I have that but whenever I try to play the video within premiere it is very laggy. The :-( is cause Macs are way better for editing and I wish I had one but I like computer games to much to buy a mac. I dont know what those cards are. Ive never heard of them.

:-( Macs are better for editing? Dang, wish I'd have known that before we installed many PC systems in places like MTV, ABC Nightline, AP Press, CNN, and other large facilities. In fact, I now feel kinda stupid that we have only 5 Macs to our 14 PC systems.

If you've never heard of those cards, then you likely aren't really prepped to edit HDCAM. You need an HD card. Not a video card. Additionally, gaming systems don't really mix well with editing software and hardware.

[Alan James]

No sarcasm needed. I am now wondering why I am not prepped to move into HD. It is no different in editing then SD is, the only difference is the hard wear, which I won’t be thinking about when I actually start editing. Thanx for the advice though, I’ll start looking into one of those cards.

[K. Forman]

Alan- Having just jumped into HDV from DV, I can attest it is a different can of worms. It's no longer quick and easy... or cheap!

[Alan James]

I belive you both I am just wondering how it isnt as easy as SD? It's just higher resolution material and thus needs more powerful hardwear. I figured editing is editing and you are doing the same thing only higher quality. In what way is the process different and what do I need to do to start editing HDCAM and HDV footage?

[Glenn Chan]

1- Some places to look for, to do basic research:

System requirements in the Decklink and Aja websites. I know the Decklink for example lists compatible motherboards, RAID arrays, etc. Getting both right is important, otherwise your setup won't work.

Turnkey vendors like Promax sell HD systems... you can get an idea of a HD setup's cost from their websites. The DIY route will be slightly cheaper.

Last time I remembered, the cost of a minimal FCP uncompressed HD setup was around $15k, *not including* HDCAM deck (very, very expensive) or HD monitor (a basic HD CRT is around $4k now).
B&H bhphotovideo.com would have prices on HDCAM decks and so forth.

I belive you both I am just wondering how it isnt as easy as SD?

Rendering takes several times longer. There are a few other stumbling blocks... i.e. stuff not working since HD is new and not that many people use it (compared to DV).

2- HDV editing is cheaper, since you don't need a hefty RAID array. One route is cineform... it should work with your existing hardware.

3- You will likely need to be conscientious about logging and capturing your tapes, instead of capturing a whole DV tape in one shot and letting DV scene start/stop detection do its work. With HD, you may not have the money to store all your footage... so you may need to offline and/or not capture entire tapes.

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

The experience of editing HDCAM can be potentially fraught with all sorts of pitfalls. You need a system that will manage it, you need outboard gear that will manage it, you need to understand what is happening with it at all levels, because the datarates are SO significantly higher.
Are you editing SD 4:2:2 uncompressed now? If not, then you don't have anything to make a comparison from.
Do you have HDCAM now? If so, how are you already capturing it? You're aware that entry level HDCAM is just under 100K, right?
It's not sarcasm, it's reality that HDCAM and HDV are different animals than editing DV, which is where I suspect you're coming from. Do you understand compositing in 4:2:2 or 4:2:0 vs 4:1:1?
Just because HD is a huge buzzword, and computers have sped up significantly doesn't mean that uncompressed HD has gotten grossly cheaper or easier. It's still a bitstream monster, even if you use exceptionally efficient codecs from BitJazz or CineForm, or someone else.

Overall, you've got a lot to learn, and while folks here are readily available and interested in teaching you, starting out with comments like "Editing HD can't be different than editing SD" or "Macs are better for editing than PC's" when you apparently aren't experienced in what does what, sorta sets the stage for some challenges in the answers.
AJA and BlackMagic Design are the two leading manufacturers of uncompressed HD cards for ingest and output.
Do you have an HD SDI monitor or HD component monitor? got an idea of what one costs? What about a deck? Amount of storage? Aware of how much storage one minute of uncompressed HD requires? Megabyte per seconds required?
Not trying to discourage or give you a hard time, just that you need to educate yourself on what is really involved, because editing uncompressed 4:2:2 isn't remotely similar to editing DV, except that your eyes are seeing moving pictures.