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Dedicated PC for editing
Having tried with some little success but mostly dropping frames at a rate that was alarming. My software was Adobe Premere and my PC was cramed full of graphic's hardware and software so, I decided to have built a dedicated PC for video editing. The cost has to be the controlling factor I'm afraid! Can someone please advise me if I should consider this combination. An AMD Athlon K7 650 CPU. Two Maxtor Diamond Max HD's One 10Gig UDMA66 7200rpm 2mb cache the other a 30Gig UDMA66 &200rpm with 2mb cache and 128mb of memory. I have a Matrox G400-TV graphic card that will be used. If someone can advise me on this or an alternative I would be very greatful I do not want to make a costly mistake but I also would like a machine that is on the ball.
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If you want high performance and a lower price consider an Asus P3B-F mainboard and a CeleronII processor.
The CeleronII has lots of bang/buck and it has SIMD instructions because is uses the PIII core. A $20 FCPGA compatable slotkey will be necessary to adapt the FCPGA CeleronII to the Slot1 board, but this causes no performance hit at all.
The P3B-F board is rock solid with excellent stability and performance. It can also run 133mhz CPU & memory and still keep the PCI bus at 33mhz, even though it's a BX board. The 6 PCI/1 ISA/1 AGP version is the top dawg.
If you can hang on for a few weeks another option arises: A 700mhz Duron processor and board to match. It's one fast puppy and will be very cheap. Perhaps cheaper than the CeleronII and with a faster FSB.
You can get a ton of good hardware info & comparisons at;
http://www.tomshardware.com
Dr. Mordrid
[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 06 July 2000).] -
Wow! that was fast. Thanks for the advice.
Would you recommend or have you had any experience of the Diamond Max HD's. I have been told that I will need a new M/B when they hit the market to suite their UDMA66 format. Any help or advice would be great as I am on my own and do not know antone who is mad enough to get involved in video editing.
Thanks againComment
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The new Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 40 series are blistering fast and getting cheaper by the minute. The last I checked the 40 gig size it was running about $220 or so. The 20 gig runs about $130-150.
Typically the Plus 40's perform 18+ megs/second writes and 20-24 megs/second reads. This is way more than the Marvel needs for anything other than full screen RGB or YUY2 captures. Those fall into the domain of RAID arrays like the Fasttrak66 because of the need for 20-30 megs/second for capture and playback.
The nice part: they will run on a standard ATA33 interface if you use the included utility to put them into compatability mode.
Nice part #2: they'll loose little or no speed in the transition as the ATA33 interface is very capable of 20 megs/sec anyhow. Just put it on the secondary IDE header so it and the boot drive don't fight over resources.
It can even share the secondary IDE header with an ATA33 compatable CD-ROM or CD-RW as long as you don't try using them both at the same time.
Ex: CD access or burning during video captures or playbacks. A bad practice under any conditions.
You'll also want to turn off the auto-insert notification for the CD drive so it doesn't poll the bus every few seconds looking for a disk. This can cause dropped frames all by itself.
I have four of the DiamondMax Plus 40 40 gig drives myself; three in a 120 gig Fasttrak66 RAID0 array and one mounted as a single drive. The single performs as mentioned above. The RAID0 array benches at over 40 megs/second and plays back even faster. Like I said, they are very fast drives.
Since the fastest capture my system can even attempt is 30 megs/second I have no capture problems that are drive related
One other piece of info you should have;
the Asus P3B-F can handle a 136 gig drive or RAID array with the latest release BIOS version (1005). Update the BIOS to this version if it isn't already on the board, especially if you plan on using large drives, RAID arrays or Coppermine CPU's.
Dr. Mordrid
[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 06 July 2000).]Comment
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Thanks for the info guys!
Just a couple of other things that bother me.I intend to use Adobe Premere as my editing software, would that be OK or, what would be your advice on an alternative package. Plus what version of Windows should I be looking at for the best editing results I run 98 at the moment.
Thanks again.Comment
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Uleads MediaStudio Pro 6.0 works much better with the Marvel than Premiere does. It's also more stable and has more built-in effects. Also its capture module is a separate program, which has its advantages. Other programs in the bundle are a rotoscoping program (Video Paint) and a titler (CG Infinity). Ulead also makes a 3D titler, Cool3D 3.0, that while a separate program works very well with MSPro.
Dr. Mordrid
[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 07 July 2000).]Comment
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Thanks again
I could not believe the speed of your answer.
I will look at Ulead's software. Any advice on the Windows question or are you guy's anti Window addicts.
CHEERSComment
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For now I'm recommending Win98SE, especially if you're using any IEEE-1394 (Firewire) gear. It has enhanced support for these devices over Win98 Gold. Also many devices do not have reliable Win2000 drivers as yet. The G400 Marvel falls into this catagory.
Dr. Mordrid
PS: the replies are because I'm retired and now do nothing but video and househusband duties
[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 07 July 2000).]Comment
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Drew
I'll go along with the rest. However, I believe that the little extra for a PIII processor would be money well spent, but make sure that the m/b has an Intel chipset and not Via, if you do go the Intel way. There is a 20-40% perfomance gain with this. Many softwares are developed with Intel hardware and minor variations in the instruction sets may cause some difficulties with other CPU types. I understand that Ulead MSPro uses some of the unique PIII instructions to enhance performance, when a PIII CPU is present, for example. BTW, I second Doc's (retd.) suggestion that MSPro 6 is better than Premiere: I have tried both.
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Brian (the terrible)
Brian (the devil incarnate)
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The advantage with MSPro6 is that it makes use of the PIII's SIMD instruction set, which the CeleronII also has since it uses the PIII Coppermine core.
Dr. Mordrid
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Thanks all of you again
I guess I will have to give the AMD Athlon a miss. But your info has knocked my budget for six. I will have to sell my wife and kids to support this video habit.
But It has to be right and although it will take a little longer it will be worth it. The last thing in the world I would want is to set up the new machine and it be a nightmare. Then I would end up in the funny farm.
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