HDV Editing PC [Intel e6600]

[Ram Ganesh]

I have a JVC HD100 and building a PC for injesting and editing it.

I've put together a list from this post. I'd love to hear what u guys think.

Processor: Intel E6600 CPU (Already have)
OS: Windows Vista Basic (Already have)
--
Camera: JVC HD100 (Already have)
Editor: Premier Pro CS3 or Vegas 7 (undecided)

Motherboard:
GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3P LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard
---$149

Video Card:
EVGA 256-P2-N751-TR GeForce 8600GT 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 SLI Supported Video Card
---$99.99 AR

Memory:
CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory
---$76.00 x 2 = $152 AR

Cooling:
ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro 92mm CPU Cooler
---$35

would love to hear upgrades suggestions which make HDV editing easier or any comments.

Thanks!!
Ram

[Jon McGuffin]

Hey Ram,

I'm sure you're probably looking for "other" opinions than mine (which you already have as you referenced my post). But I thought I'd throw my two cents in here anyway.

— Obviosuly the NLE you choose is more of a personal choice. I can speak as a Vegas user and say that I'm very happy with Vegas performance with this type of configuration and dealing with HDV. You'll likely see better performance as you'll only be editing 720p as opposed to 1080i.

— Make sure the memory you buy is the 'C4' version. Not that their standard is bad, C4 is better and comes at a very small price premium.

— What are you doing about your hard drive situation?

Jon

[Ram Ganesh]

I picked up the VideoCard and Memory suggestions from your list. Do you suggest anything higher than this (within +$100 range)?

HardDrive - have a few old internal 250GB and a few fast 300GB external drives.

I am primarily interested in picking up the right video card + memory than anything else.

Thanks

[Chris Medico]

My recommendation is to research the video card very carefully.

I'm an Avid user and the DX10 cards are currently not compatible with Avid Liquid.

I would do some asking around the folks that use Vegas and make sure your hardware choices are going to work out of the box.

Chris

[K.C. Luke]

Get SONY Vegas 7 editing in HDV. See here:

System Requirements

* Microsoft® Windows® 2000 SP4, XP Home, or XP Professional (Windows XP SP2 required for HDV and XDCAM)
* 800 MHz processor (2.8 GHz recommended for HDV)
* 200 MB hard-disk space for program installation
* 600 MB hard-disk space for optional Sony Sound Series Loops & Samples reference library installation
* 256 MB RAM (512 MB RAM recommended for HDV)
* OHCI-compatible i.LINK® connector¹/IEEE-1394DV card (for DV and HDV capture and print-to-tape)
* Windows-compatible sound card
* DVD-ROM drive (for installation from a DVD only)
* Supported CD-recordable drive (for CD burning only)
* Microsoft DirectX® 9.0c or later²
* Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0²
* Internet Explorer 5.1 or later²

[Jim Day]

I know you said you already have vista home and plan on using it. That is where you need to think about your NLE. Although some people have had some success with Vegas 7 and Vista, Vista is not officially supported and can cause problems. That is not the case with Premiere Pro CS3. Personally, I'd still recommend Vegas 7 and you can purchase a copy of XP and still come out much cheaper than PP CS3.

[Jon McGuffin]

Ram, I agree with Jim above. I wasn't going to say anything because you said you already had the OS but frankly, I think Vista is WAY too premature to run "mission critical" software on it and though I may sound odd to talk about NLE software as being mission critical, as far as I'm concerned, I use a computer for the applications. Windows 95, Windows 2000, Windows XP, or Windows Vista do nothing for me other than change the way Soliatire looks a little bit when I fire that up. Windows XP Sp2 is a really proven and solid OS that has had years to mature.

On another note... regarding your video card. Unless you are planning on playing games, I don't recommend putting any more money into the Video card than what you already found. The 8600GT series of cards are VERY well regarded for their video playback performance, even more so than their 8800 cousins (I know, it doesn't make sense, but it's true).

For optimimum playback and rendering performance, I do strongly suggest you set yourself up with some type of RAID 0 configuration seperated from your boot drive. Drive technology seems to go through levels of performance improvements every 12 months or so. The "newer" SATA2 drives are typically about 10-20% faster than those that were the norm just a year ago. Working in HD requires lots of disk access. CPU, Memory & Hard Drive performance are your primary considerations, video performance (believe it or not) in Vegas particularly is not a major concern.

Jon

[Ram Ganesh]

Thanks - I'll probably stick with XP (got free Vista with lappie purchase last year)

is GTS worth $50 more? I dont play games in my PC - but my current comp (P4 2.4MHz 2GB) stammers while displaying HDV.. (low framerate), so was hoping to get a good video card for the new PC I am building.

EVGA GeForce 8600GTS 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 HDCP Ready SLI (675 MHZ / 2GHz)
-- $145
[Same 8600GTS Overclocked to 720MHz/2.1GHz -- $20 more ($165)]

EVGA GeForce 8600GT 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 SLI Supported Video Card - Retail
-- $100

Thanks!!

[Jon McGuffin]

Your stuttering playback is probably more to do with your existing video card and limited CPU power. I have a 7900GS along with the E6600 CPU right now and playback in Windows Media or any other player is silky smooth. Of course, I typically playback at half resolution because my monitors won't display 1920 X 1080 so that's a factor.

The speed of the video card for performing triangular/openGL/directX type of stuff has limited benefits for Video Playback performance and accuracy. Both the GT and GTS have 100% identical spec's as far as video playback is concerned. If $50 isn't much and you just want to buy a tad bit more peace of mind and maybe a little higher resale value down the line, go for it. I think eVGA and XfX are pretty solid manufactures and I like their "slightly" factory overclocked cards.

Jon

[Robert Brandon]

Would you guys recommend the XP Pro 64- bit edition? Particularly to utilize 4g of RAM...

[Harm Millaard]

If you use Adobe, no. Adobe is still 32 bit. For Vegas I've heard that it now is 64 bit. In that case yes.

[Robert Brandon]

Originally Posted by Harm Millaard

If you use Adobe, no. Adobe is still 32 bit. For Vegas I've heard that it now is 64 bit. In that case yes.

will adobe still run fine with xp 64?

[Harm Millaard]

There have been numerous reports of difficulties in getting it to work reliably, especially Encore. With some registry tweaks some people have claimed success. YMMV.