Best system for RT2000

[Tmau]

I need a relatively simple RT video editing system to do my personal editing. I think RT2000 fits the bill. I have a Dell Dimensions 400mHz PII machine. I am tempted to buy a new "barebone" system and build around the RT2000 to get the "optimal" system. I would keep my 7200rpm 27GB HD as the secondary work drive. Question: what would you recommend for best value: I was thinking a 1.1 Athlon chip, but is that really much better than the much cheaper 900mHz? What about the PIII vs Athlon... and then the new P4 at 1.4GHZ? The bottom line: how much faster (ball park) can I expect with rendering, say, a 30 minute native DV production using a newer system vs. by realiable Dell P II machine?
Thanks for your reply!

[Dr Mordrid]

Either the PIII or Athlon should work fine with the RT-2000. I'm using an Asus P3B-F/PIII-850 myself. The P4 is a waste of money since its performance has yet shown to meet or exceed that of the Athlon by any significant margin (if at all).

Otherwise here are my system suggestions;

1. 20g boot drive. Why? So you can have a dualboot system with one OS for "normal" use and the other for editing only. That way you can use a bare-bones installation for Premiere and other video software. This prevents a lot of potential conflicts.

2. Why stop at 27g for the video drive? I'd go with either a 40 or 80g Maxtor DiamondMax Plus. The price is not much different and you WILL eventually need the space anyhow. Especially if you end up with more than one project going at a time.

3. 256 megs of RAM. The less time your system plays around writing to the swapfile, the better.

4. You should have a DVD/CD-ROM reader in addtion to the CD burner. I've found this to be very useful vs. having a single drive handling it all.

Also don't forget that Pioneer recently announced an ATAPI DVD-R/RW & CD-R/RW writer/reader combo device for under $1000. This would be heaven when used with the RT-2000's MPEG-2 capabilites and DVDit! software.

5. Rendering isn't an issue except for exporting your mastered project to DV, which I find not very useful and an unnecessary wear and tear on the camcorder. DV cams are great for getting high quality video into the computer, but as a playback device? Naww...

I export my finished projects in realtime to SVHS masters by S-Video. I archive projects to CD-R for now, but that Pioneer DVD drive will fix that and make saving projects to DV tape even less palatable.

Also, who distributes on DV tape? Not me. Videotape still rules for distribution and will until DVD totally takes over. The Pioneer DVD-R/RW will then be the archive and distribution device for me.

Now for the rest of the rendering question: how much of an advantage is the 1.1g Athlon vs. your Dell PII system when rendering? LOTS on a long project with effects all over the place, not much on a short one one or one with few effects.

In point of fact my typical project uses very few 3D effects EXCEPT for the beginning and end sequences and a few scattered around the body of the project. As with most editors who are past the whiz-bang stage of their development 80-90% (or more) of my transitions are straight cuts or organic wipes, not 3D DVE's.

Dr. Mordrid