Gaming PC = Editing PC? HDV Possible? at DVinfo.net

Adam Chapman · January 10th, 2008, 07:45 PM

After interning at a big (for my area) production house this summer, my co-workers pushed me to buy a MAC for editing. I am completely against this, since I have been playing on PC since I was 6 - I know a lot about them, and I know how to fix them. The other issues is that MACs have a too high of a startup cost. It doesn't help that the quad core macs crashed Final Cut on me more than the total bugs in Windows 3.1x. So I am looking into buying an editing computer to last me for a while. I am a student, so I got to go cheap and I found this gaming computer website - CyberPowerPC.com. After searching through their inventory, I found a computer I liked. Here are the specs:

CASE: Apevia X-Telstar Aluminum Full Tower 420W Case
CPU: (Quad-Core)Intel® Core™ 2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.4GHz 1066FSB 8MB L2 Cache 64-bit
MOTHERBOARD: Asus P5N-E nForce 650i SLI Chipset LGA775 FSB1333 DDR2
MEMORY: (Req.DDR2 MainBoard)2GB (2x1GB) PC6400 DDR2/800 Dual Channel
VIDEO CARD: NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS 512MB 16X PCI Express
VIDEO CARD 2: NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS 512MB 16X PCI Express
HARD DRIVE: Single Hard Drive (250GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 8MB Cache 7200RPM HDD)
Optical Drive: Sony Q170A 18x Double Layer Dual Format DVD+-R/+-RW + CD-R/RW Drive
SOUND: 3D WAVE ON-BOARD 5.1 SOUND CARD

Total: $1324.00

I do have an abundances of external hard drives, and will also be adding a terrabite RAID 0 attached to a PCIe SATA2 RAID Card, along with 2 more gigs of ram via Newegg sales. I also have a Creative Video Editor Audigy2 box I use for optical audio, in addition to 2 22' Acers monitors and a 19' HD Gateway.

We are planning on editing HDV using cineform and Premiere CS3 from a Canon A1. Would getting the BM Intensity Pro card to capture analog video (from a DVD/VHS) and also send a video signal via HDMI->DVI into my gateway 19' be a reasonable option? I also do a heavy amount of work in After Effects, so it would be nice to see a preview of that on the screen. My gateway only outputs 720p. Would that be a reasonable choice over 1080i? Would 720p be easier on the processor since it is less data?

My question is, is this even possible to edit HDV or am I just dreaming. Does it matter that they label it a gaming PC or does it really make a difference? I just don't want to blow a school loan on a PC that can't output what we need. I'm still new to this HD world - I have just adjusted to the simplistic workflow of SD.

Sorry for all the questions, just I can not find any one at my school interested in HDV that knows what they are talking about. Tis is what I get for going to a private Christian school. Ha.

(EDIT) It would help to know I am on and will be on XP Pro. :-)

Allen Plowman · January 10th, 2008, 07:47 PM

I would get a plextor drive rather than the sony, also, for video editing, you need two or more hard drives. you can get a 750gb drive for under 200 dollars now.

Adam Chapman · January 10th, 2008, 07:53 PM

They don't offer plextor, but they do have LiteOn and LG. I never used either. Also I do know that HDV requires fast hard drives, this is why I was planning on getting a RAID0. 2 500gig hd or 4 250gig... I have heard 4 is better.

Marco Wagner · January 10th, 2008, 07:58 PM

If I'm editing HDV on my rig without issue, your machine will have ZERO problems.

Pentium Dual Core 930 800MHz BUS
4GB DDR2 667
1TB Hard Disk Space (4 SATAs 7200RPM)
nVidia GeForce 7900GT
Intel Media Edition Motherboard

Allen Plowman · January 10th, 2008, 08:05 PM

raid zero is ok for the operating system, but do not store anything on it. if any drive in a "raid0" fails, you lose all data on all the drives in the raid array. I do not do HD editing, but the operating system does not do much during the render process. I have my "C" drive on a single ide 7200rpm hd, with my raw footage on a raptor 10,000 rpm sata drive, and the video writes to a different raptor. most of the load is during render times, and while ram and cpu intensive, it has minimal usage of the "C" drive.

Chris Barcellos · January 10th, 2008, 08:10 PM

You should do fine with that set. I have had issues with external drives, though. I cobbled my system together from sales at Frys, and only trouble I have had is USB drives shutting down the system during edits. I just do everything on internal drives. I am using AMD Dual Core 3800+, now two years old. Handles HDV in Vegas 8 great, but I think you are saying you are using Cineform, which I have now gone to also, and that puts less load on your system.

Adam Chapman · January 10th, 2008, 08:12 PM

What I learned from working with the big boys, is to use the RAID 0 as a capture scratch and cache folder and then use just an USB hard drive to keep the important stuff such as project files and final videos. If a hard drive in the RAID fails, all you have to do is to recapture and relink the footage. That will keep the OS and program files on a completely separate hard drive.

Marco Wagner · January 10th, 2008, 08:12 PM

Hey Chris,

What wattage power supply do you have? That sounds like its juicing the system...

Andre Tira · January 10th, 2008, 09:28 PM

Hey Adam,

I am also a student and looking to go from SD to HD. I, too, need an inexpensive system. Let us know what you decide and if you get it, let us know how it performs.

Thank you.

Josh Chesarek · January 11th, 2008, 05:47 AM

I would recomend dropping the 2nd card from the SLI setup and using the money left over to either get a faster single card (if you want to play games on the side) or use the spare cash to jump to 4GB of RAM, keep in mind you should be using a 64bit OS if you do go for 4GB of RAM.

January 10th, 2008, 07:45 PM	#1
Adam Chapman Regular Crew Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Knoxville, TN Posts: 47	Gaming PC = Editing PC? HDV Possible? After interning at a big (for my area) production house this summer, my co-workers pushed me to buy a MAC for editing. I am completely against this, since I have been playing on PC since I was 6 - I know a lot about them, and I know how to fix them. The other issues is that MACs have a too high of a startup cost. It doesn't help that the quad core macs crashed Final Cut on me more than the total bugs in Windows 3.1x. So I am looking into buying an editing computer to last me for a while. I am a student, so I got to go cheap and I found this gaming computer website - CyberPowerPC.com. After searching through their inventory, I found a computer I liked. Here are the specs: CASE: Apevia X-Telstar Aluminum Full Tower 420W Case CPU: (Quad-Core)Intel® Core™ 2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.4GHz 1066FSB 8MB L2 Cache 64-bit MOTHERBOARD: Asus P5N-E nForce 650i SLI Chipset LGA775 FSB1333 DDR2 MEMORY: (Req.DDR2 MainBoard)2GB (2x1GB) PC6400 DDR2/800 Dual Channel VIDEO CARD: NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS 512MB 16X PCI Express VIDEO CARD 2: NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS 512MB 16X PCI Express HARD DRIVE: Single Hard Drive (250GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 8MB Cache 7200RPM HDD) Optical Drive: Sony Q170A 18x Double Layer Dual Format DVD+-R/+-RW + CD-R/RW Drive SOUND: 3D WAVE ON-BOARD 5.1 SOUND CARD Total: $1324.00 I do have an abundances of external hard drives, and will also be adding a terrabite RAID 0 attached to a PCIe SATA2 RAID Card, along with 2 more gigs of ram via Newegg sales. I also have a Creative Video Editor Audigy2 box I use for optical audio, in addition to 2 22' Acers monitors and a 19' HD Gateway. We are planning on editing HDV using cineform and Premiere CS3 from a Canon A1. Would getting the BM Intensity Pro card to capture analog video (from a DVD/VHS) and also send a video signal via HDMI->DVI into my gateway 19' be a reasonable option? I also do a heavy amount of work in After Effects, so it would be nice to see a preview of that on the screen. My gateway only outputs 720p. Would that be a reasonable choice over 1080i? Would 720p be easier on the processor since it is less data? My question is, is this even possible to edit HDV or am I just dreaming. Does it matter that they label it a gaming PC or does it really make a difference? I just don't want to blow a school loan on a PC that can't output what we need. I'm still new to this HD world - I have just adjusted to the simplistic workflow of SD. Sorry for all the questions, just I can not find any one at my school interested in HDV that knows what they are talking about. Tis is what I get for going to a private Christian school. Ha. (EDIT) It would help to know I am on and will be on XP Pro. :-) __________________ Cinematographer & Film Director @ FPC www.adamnchapman.com

January 10th, 2008, 07:53 PM	#3
Adam Chapman Regular Crew Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Knoxville, TN Posts: 47	They don't offer plextor, but they do have LiteOn and LG. I never used either. Also I do know that HDV requires fast hard drives, this is why I was planning on getting a RAID0. 2 500gig hd or 4 250gig... I have heard 4 is better. __________________ Cinematographer & Film Director @ FPC www.adamnchapman.com

January 10th, 2008, 07:58 PM	#4
Marco Wagner Trustee Join Date: May 2005 Location: Saint Cloud, Florida Posts: 1,043	If I'm editing HDV on my rig without issue, your machine will have ZERO problems. Pentium Dual Core 930 800MHz BUS 4GB DDR2 667 1TB Hard Disk Space (4 SATAs 7200RPM) nVidia GeForce 7900GT Intel Media Edition Motherboard __________________ www.facebook.com/projectspecto

January 10th, 2008, 08:10 PM	#6
Chris Barcellos Inner Circle Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Elk Grove CA Posts: 6,838	You should do fine with that set. I have had issues with external drives, though. I cobbled my system together from sales at Frys, and only trouble I have had is USB drives shutting down the system during edits. I just do everything on internal drives. I am using AMD Dual Core 3800+, now two years old. Handles HDV in Vegas 8 great, but I think you are saying you are using Cineform, which I have now gone to also, and that puts less load on your system. __________________ Chris J. Barcellos

January 10th, 2008, 08:12 PM	#7
Adam Chapman Regular Crew Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Knoxville, TN Posts: 47	What I learned from working with the big boys, is to use the RAID 0 as a capture scratch and cache folder and then use just an USB hard drive to keep the important stuff such as project files and final videos. If a hard drive in the RAID fails, all you have to do is to recapture and relink the footage. That will keep the OS and program files on a completely separate hard drive. __________________ Cinematographer & Film Director @ FPC www.adamnchapman.com

January 10th, 2008, 07:47 PM	#2
Allen Plowman Major Player Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Paradise, california Posts: 353	I would get a plextor drive rather than the sony, also, for video editing, you need two or more hard drives. you can get a 750gb drive for under 200 dollars now.

January 10th, 2008, 08:05 PM	#5
Allen Plowman Major Player Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Paradise, california Posts: 353	raid zero is ok for the operating system, but do not store anything on it. if any drive in a "raid0" fails, you lose all data on all the drives in the raid array. I do not do HD editing, but the operating system does not do much during the render process. I have my "C" drive on a single ide 7200rpm hd, with my raw footage on a raptor 10,000 rpm sata drive, and the video writes to a different raptor. most of the load is during render times, and while ram and cpu intensive, it has minimal usage of the "C" drive.

January 10th, 2008, 09:28 PM	#9
Andre Tira Regular Crew Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 83	Hey Adam, I am also a student and looking to go from SD to HD. I, too, need an inexpensive system. Let us know what you decide and if you get it, let us know how it performs. Thank you.

January 11th, 2008, 05:47 AM	#10
Josh Chesarek Major Player Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Winter Park, FL Posts: 978	I would recomend dropping the 2nd card from the SLI setup and using the money left over to either get a faster single card (if you want to play games on the side) or use the spare cash to jump to 4GB of RAM, keep in mind you should be using a 64bit OS if you do go for 4GB of RAM.