need new video editing computer

[vincent_1985]

what are the main components for it? I would think video card and ram. which processor is better intel or amd.

what's a good vid card for it?

jsut for the casual video editor not super crazy or anything withing a budjet as well.

 

[Top Hat Theater]

The P4 will consistently nudge out an Athlon. You will want an All-in-Wonder ATi video card. Also, you'll want to setup a RAID 0 array to prevent dropped frames when recording from a live source e.g. TV

~THT

 

[vincent_1985]

raid 0 array i'mnto familiar what is raid? sorry newblar only know games and overclocking lol

 

[Yuriman]

Raid, running 2 or more hard drives in a way that it greatly increases speed. Kind of like dual channel ram.

 

[Top Hat Theater]

Basically, your system treats both drives as a single drive and reads/writes to both simultaneously. Therefore, the time it takes to write or access data is greatly reduced. However, if one drives fails, all data will be lost.

~THT

 

[nealric]

The P4 will consistently nudge out an Athlon.

It depends what we are comparing.

For low and midrange- athlon may be better.
For mid-high- p4
For ultra high- its a dead heat between fx51 and p4EE

An opteron 146 + nf3 might be a good choice for you.

What program are you using to edit?
Is it dual processor compatable- If so, you might do well to get a low cost athlon (non 64 bit) dualie.

As far as vid cards- not a huge consideration for vid editing. You will probably want a video capture card though.

Lots of Ram is helpful
TONS of high speed storage space is essential.

 

[Stedeman]

You will need to tell us more about the kind of AV you intend to do and at what level such as capture a good hardware card will spank any software card and if your using a hardware card RAID-0 is not needed. If it needs to be a secure system a RAID-1 set up would be helpful. but these are just shots in the dark with out knowing your intent for the system.
The key points are going to be
CPU~RAM~Capture device (TV Card / AV Card / FireWire / USB ect.)~Hard Drive (RAID / SCSI) and so on.


Links that can help
RAID info the easy way: http://www.acnc.com/04_00.html

 

[vincent_1985]

well p robably just entry level video editing fromt he video camera etc some dvd burning and what not.

just as a small side hobby i'm sure it won't be super intensive as ripping any divx or anything.

 

[Steve978]

You can rip and DivX with most XP or P4 systems If all your looking for is a little bit of cam capture you dont need much power at all, depending on your budget your options are pretty extensive, from a 2500xp to a pentium 2.6, or go high end with a 3.0-3.2 or an AMD 64 or FX.

 

[DaMouse]

Basically, your system treats both drives as a single drive and reads/writes to both simultaneously. Therefore, the time it takes to write or access data is greatly reduced. However, if one drives fails, all data will be lost.

~THT

Apparently with 3 or more you can actually rebuild a disk using data from the other two.
XYZ, if Y dies you can rebuild from X and Z etc. anyone know if this is true?

 

[autoMATTic]

Basically, your system treats both drives as a single drive and reads/writes to both simultaneously. Therefore, the time it takes to write or access data is greatly reduced. However, if one drives fails, all data will be lost.

~THT

Depends what RAID array your using.

 

[autoMATTic]

Check this out to learn about the different RAID arrays and how they function: http://raid.com/04_00.html

 

[vincent_1985]

i don't thin ki need that high quality hehe

 

[vincent_1985]

a good stable hd is fine besides i don't even know hwo to set up a raid!

 

[Pyros]

Lots of good info has been given so far about this, so I will just repeat some of to reassure you.
The more memory and the faster it is the better off you will be( I would suggest 512mb at the very least ). Lots of HD space is improtant, but how much really depends on what kind of editing and how much you plan on doing.I myself have a 160gb 7200rpm seagate barricuda.(concidering various games, programs,etc., I would suggest at least 80gb so you dont end up running out of room.) HD speed is crucial as well and a RAID config would be worth concidering.
As far as cpu type and speed, In my own experiences with various low end and midrange AMD and Intel cpus, brand hasnt seemed to make a great deal of difference as much as the speed of the cpu.( that purely my experiences and others may say different)
I do LOTS of video editing with the system in my sig(dvd ripping, burning, dv conversion,DiVX to Mpeg2,etc.,) and I am very pleased with the performance it gives me. Im actually doing a conversion as this is being typed. lol
And example of the speed I getting out of this setup.(btw, my processor is current running at the stock speed and not 2.4ghz)
:

This conversion is being done with TMPGenc Plus.
-Im using a .d2v file that was created from a .99gb VOB file,720x480
-A 1536kbps wave file,16 bit,2 channel stereo, 48khz

To put is short its being converted to this/-Super Video-CD NTSC Film (MPEG-2 480x480 23.976fps VBR 2150kbps, Layer-2 44100)
This is with most of the settings at best quality,fit to screen(keep aspect ratio)etc.
-min. bit rate 1000kbps, avg bit rate 2150kbps, max bit rate 2520kbps.
- this file is being converted in 3 parts.

I have 30 processes running at the current time on my pc including the conversion program, a firewall, and program that is currently downlaoding. My approximate conversion time for all three parts is 6-7 hours. The audio size is a big part of this time because a DiVX approx. 1.4gb with mp3 sound takes about 2-3 hours. This may not be fast enough for some, but for the ammount of money I have in my setup, Im satisfied with it.

Hope this helps and sorry for the large post.