Which PC and Editing Software to Buy? at DVinfo.net

Matthew Kaplan · October 15th, 2003, 08:21 PM

I've been an apple user for the past 6 years, but I think I may be able to save some money and get more options if I got with a PC desktop.

-- Which desktop would u recommend. The SONY choices look the best for digital video editing?

-- Which software for the PC is the best? Vegas looks good. Avid DV Express I'm sure is great.

-- Which software is the most compatible to SOUNTRACK for apple?

Thank you.

Arnaldo Paixao · October 16th, 2003, 09:51 AM

Hi.

Two questions:

1 - What do you want to do?

2 - How much can/will you spend?

Best regards,
Arnaldo

Matthew Kaplan · October 16th, 2003, 09:56 AM

I want to edit Digital Video. Transfer short films or feature length films to DVD.

I'm looking to spend 1500 or less with the computer and monitor.

Anymore, and I would just buy a MAC, which I still might do, but I'm considering this right now.

Thank you.

Glen Elliott · October 16th, 2003, 10:10 AM

Good choice, going PC that is. For $1500 you can build quite an impressive computer. For a similar price I built a:
-P4 3.0gz w/800mhz fsb
-Asus P4C800-E mobo
-1gig of Corsair PC3200 xms ram
-360 gigs via 3 120 gig SATA drives (2 configured in raid-0 as dedicated video drive)
-Sound Blaster Audigy 2
-Modest graphics card (Nvidia FX 5200ultra)
-Antec 480watt true-power powersupply
-Coolermaster ATC-111 case
-already owned the optical drive (Sony DRU-500 DVD+-R)

Granted that price doesn't include monitor or the NLE.

My friend got a Mac G4 with dual 800's, 160gig of hard-drive space (non raid, non serial-ata), 512megs of ram, and a weak-a** video card (maybe integrated)- Needless to say for the same money my rig runs circles around his and then some!

You cold:
-step down in the hard-disc space (for some 120 gigs is sufficient)
-Go with a motherboard that has decent onboard sound/video
*Whatever you do DON'T go cheap on the motherboard. It's the part that's the most intregal when upgrading in the future. Plus with a high end one you get onboard lan, audio, video, and firewire!*

If you did those two things you'd be able to afford both a decent 17-19" CRT and your NLE of choice.

Speaking of NLEs I'm quite biased so of course I'm going to say Vegas+DVD. For under $500 you get an excellent NLE with native 24p and HD support, AC-3 and dolby surround encoding.

Check sites like NewEgg.com and ZipZoomFly.com (formerly GoogleGear.com)

Good luck! Oh and welcome back from the dark side. ;)

Arnaldo Paixao · October 17th, 2003, 02:41 AM

Hi Matthew

Glen is right on the spot. I'm assembling one just like that, and you'll have one hell of a system.

Don't know the prices over there, but here the price gap between the P4 2.8 and the 3.0 is significant. One thing you can do is go for the P4 2.8 and with the saved cash get a dual head video card and a second monitor. If you ever get used to work in a 2 monitor NLE, you won't want anything else.

Best regards,
Arnaldo

Glen Elliott · October 17th, 2003, 08:40 AM

Yep I'm using two 17" NEC 1765's. Newer cards from both ATi and Nvidia both have two outlets for monitors on their video cards. Simply plug in the second monitor and they practically configure themselves. Nothing like seeing a timeline spanned across two monitors- must be close to 30" inches in width!
But that might be a bit too rich for him. $1500 limit might be a bit thin for building a set-up of this calibur. Though the step down from 3.0 to 2.8 is and excellent idea. I bought my 3.0 for the same exact reason. Most of the speeds jump 50-75$ incrimentally however from the 3.0 to the 3.2 it was over a $200 difference. I couldn't spend over $200 for 200mhz.

Arnaldo Paixao · October 17th, 2003, 09:01 AM

Hi Glen.

And experience has shown me that you can easily put the majority of this processors working 200mhz up their rated spec with stock components, runing reliable withou a glitch. More than that, and you start going into serious overclocking and serious money spending, and for that money I buy the faster processor.

Best regards,
Arnaldo

Glen Elliott · October 17th, 2003, 11:14 AM

Yeah I don't have much experience overclocking. The biggest set-back would be the higher temp the processor would run at..correct? I'd have to safely assume that I have pretty good head-room if I were to over clock beings that at idle my CPU runs at 80f. After playing an intensive game (Max Payne 2) it only goes up to 84f! The stock cooler does an excellent job and I'd have to attribute some of that to my Coolermaster case. All aluminum with exhuast fans in the right place.

Anyway the 3.0 and 3.2 are litterally identical. They are tested at the factory and the ones who perform better get the higher clock.

Glenn Chan · October 17th, 2003, 10:26 PM

Macs are good, but the hardware is expensive. If you can get educational discounts or buy used locally that would be great. Final Cut Pro is a great program but it looks like a PC with Vegas would be a great budget system.

Soundtrack is like the Mac equivalent of Acid. However, it seems like you might be able to Vegas very much like Acid (without beatmapping and other nice stuff).

Video card: I don't think great 3d video cards really help you. Boris Red might use the 3d video card to gain extra performance but it's not that popular with Vegas users. Other NLEs may use the video card to get extra performance. If using Vegas you should be able to do great with something like a Matrox G550 (best dual monitor card from what I hear). Dual monitors are nice...

In regards to overclocking I believe it is pretty good value to do it. With a pentium 2.4c you can easily get to 3.0mhz. With excellent air cooling the max is around 3.5-3.6mhz. You will need a premium heatsink and fan (about $40 more?), thermal grease ($10 or less), and a motherboard that supports overclocking. It will take you some time to do.

The main limiting factor to overclocking is heat. If the processor is too hot it gets unstable. At a certain point you need to boost the voltage on it but that's when you are maxing out the processor. Don't mess with the voltages unless you know what you're doing.

If you plan on overclocking later then get the 2.4c. It's great for overclocking. It's also great value based on megahertz per dollar. The 3.0mhz processor is 25% faster which is not that much faster and you can get that speed or above by overclocking.

For RAM you should likely go with enhanced latency RAM (i.e. kingston hyperX) whether you want to overclock or not.

Joel Ruggiero · October 19th, 2003, 06:42 PM

I was in the same situation and i bought a sony pcv-rs420 and it works fine for what i do

October 15th, 2003, 08:21 PM	#1
Matthew Kaplan Regular Crew Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: United States Posts: 60	Which PC and Editing Software to Buy? I've been an apple user for the past 6 years, but I think I may be able to save some money and get more options if I got with a PC desktop. -- Which desktop would u recommend. The SONY choices look the best for digital video editing? -- Which software for the PC is the best? Vegas looks good. Avid DV Express I'm sure is great. -- Which software is the most compatible to SOUNTRACK for apple? Thank you.

October 16th, 2003, 09:51 AM	#2
Arnaldo Paixao Major Player Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Vimeiro - Portugal Posts: 255	Hi. Two questions: 1 - What do you want to do? 2 - How much can/will you spend? Best regards, Arnaldo

October 16th, 2003, 09:56 AM	#3
Matthew Kaplan Regular Crew Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: United States Posts: 60	I want to edit Digital Video. Transfer short films or feature length films to DVD. I'm looking to spend 1500 or less with the computer and monitor. Anymore, and I would just buy a MAC, which I still might do, but I'm considering this right now. Thank you.

October 16th, 2003, 10:10 AM	#4
Glen Elliott Wrangler Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Philadelphia, PA Posts: 2,898	Good choice, going PC that is. For $1500 you can build quite an impressive computer. For a similar price I built a: -P4 3.0gz w/800mhz fsb -Asus P4C800-E mobo -1gig of Corsair PC3200 xms ram -360 gigs via 3 120 gig SATA drives (2 configured in raid-0 as dedicated video drive) -Sound Blaster Audigy 2 -Modest graphics card (Nvidia FX 5200ultra) -Antec 480watt true-power powersupply -Coolermaster ATC-111 case -already owned the optical drive (Sony DRU-500 DVD+-R) Granted that price doesn't include monitor or the NLE. My friend got a Mac G4 with dual 800's, 160gig of hard-drive space (non raid, non serial-ata), 512megs of ram, and a weak-a** video card (maybe integrated)- Needless to say for the same money my rig runs circles around his and then some! You cold: -step down in the hard-disc space (for some 120 gigs is sufficient) -Go with a motherboard that has decent onboard sound/video Whatever you do DON'T go cheap on the motherboard. It's the part that's the most intregal when upgrading in the future. Plus with a high end one you get onboard lan, audio, video, and firewire! If you did those two things you'd be able to afford both a decent 17-19" CRT and your NLE of choice. Speaking of NLEs I'm quite biased so of course I'm going to say Vegas+DVD. For under $500 you get an excellent NLE with native 24p and HD support, AC-3 and dolby surround encoding. Check sites like NewEgg.com and ZipZoomFly.com (formerly GoogleGear.com) Good luck! Oh and welcome back from the dark side. ;)

October 17th, 2003, 02:41 AM	#5
Arnaldo Paixao Major Player Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Vimeiro - Portugal Posts: 255	Hi Matthew Glen is right on the spot. I'm assembling one just like that, and you'll have one hell of a system. Don't know the prices over there, but here the price gap between the P4 2.8 and the 3.0 is significant. One thing you can do is go for the P4 2.8 and with the saved cash get a dual head video card and a second monitor. If you ever get used to work in a 2 monitor NLE, you won't want anything else. Best regards, Arnaldo

October 17th, 2003, 08:40 AM	#6
Glen Elliott Wrangler Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Philadelphia, PA Posts: 2,898	Yep I'm using two 17" NEC 1765's. Newer cards from both ATi and Nvidia both have two outlets for monitors on their video cards. Simply plug in the second monitor and they practically configure themselves. Nothing like seeing a timeline spanned across two monitors- must be close to 30" inches in width! But that might be a bit too rich for him. $1500 limit might be a bit thin for building a set-up of this calibur. Though the step down from 3.0 to 2.8 is and excellent idea. I bought my 3.0 for the same exact reason. Most of the speeds jump 50-75$ incrimentally however from the 3.0 to the 3.2 it was over a $200 difference. I couldn't spend over $200 for 200mhz.

October 17th, 2003, 09:01 AM	#7
Arnaldo Paixao Major Player Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Vimeiro - Portugal Posts: 255	Hi Glen. And experience has shown me that you can easily put the majority of this processors working 200mhz up their rated spec with stock components, runing reliable withou a glitch. More than that, and you start going into serious overclocking and serious money spending, and for that money I buy the faster processor. Best regards, Arnaldo

October 17th, 2003, 11:14 AM	#8
Glen Elliott Wrangler Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Philadelphia, PA Posts: 2,898	Yeah I don't have much experience overclocking. The biggest set-back would be the higher temp the processor would run at..correct? I'd have to safely assume that I have pretty good head-room if I were to over clock beings that at idle my CPU runs at 80f. After playing an intensive game (Max Payne 2) it only goes up to 84f! The stock cooler does an excellent job and I'd have to attribute some of that to my Coolermaster case. All aluminum with exhuast fans in the right place. Anyway the 3.0 and 3.2 are litterally identical. They are tested at the factory and the ones who perform better get the higher clock.

October 17th, 2003, 10:26 PM	#9
Glenn Chan Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 4,750	Macs are good, but the hardware is expensive. If you can get educational discounts or buy used locally that would be great. Final Cut Pro is a great program but it looks like a PC with Vegas would be a great budget system. Soundtrack is like the Mac equivalent of Acid. However, it seems like you might be able to Vegas very much like Acid (without beatmapping and other nice stuff). Video card: I don't think great 3d video cards really help you. Boris Red might use the 3d video card to gain extra performance but it's not that popular with Vegas users. Other NLEs may use the video card to get extra performance. If using Vegas you should be able to do great with something like a Matrox G550 (best dual monitor card from what I hear). Dual monitors are nice... In regards to overclocking I believe it is pretty good value to do it. With a pentium 2.4c you can easily get to 3.0mhz. With excellent air cooling the max is around 3.5-3.6mhz. You will need a premium heatsink and fan (about $40 more?), thermal grease ($10 or less), and a motherboard that supports overclocking. It will take you some time to do. The main limiting factor to overclocking is heat. If the processor is too hot it gets unstable. At a certain point you need to boost the voltage on it but that's when you are maxing out the processor. Don't mess with the voltages unless you know what you're doing. If you plan on overclocking later then get the 2.4c. It's great for overclocking. It's also great value based on megahertz per dollar. The 3.0mhz processor is 25% faster which is not that much faster and you can get that speed or above by overclocking. For RAM you should likely go with enhanced latency RAM (i.e. kingston hyperX) whether you want to overclock or not.

October 19th, 2003, 06:42 PM	#10
Joel Ruggiero Regular Crew Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Buffalo,NY Posts: 167	I was in the same situation and i bought a sony pcv-rs420 and it works fine for what i do