Buy 450 now or wait for something else?

[Snydley]

Want to do home video editing. don't want to spend $ 1500 on capture card and software but I do want very good quality. Is the 450 the answer? Is it even close to the RT 2000 in quality and features? Is a Pinnacle card a better option? I need to capture from Hi8 and want to have a finished porduct on DVD. At least I think I do! Must the 450 render to build effects thus taking a large amount of time? And how much time does it take to render a dissolve for example? Sorry for my ignorance but that is why I'm here. I'm in the process of buying a new system P III 800 Mgz, 128 meg ram, 2 x 15 gig ata 100 hard drives, DVDand CDR. Is 256 Meg. RAM more realistic? An enhanced IDE controller has been strongly recommended. All tolled the price tag is steep (About $ 3500 Canadian dollars) before the capture/graphics card is taken into consideration. If I have to go to the RT 2000 or Pinnacle DV 500 I will probably have to build a system to be "video editing ready". so for me this is kind of a make or break question!


Thanks

[Randy Simons]

The G450 has no video input! It's by no means a replacement for the RT2000.

As for the rest: ATA100 is still marketing-language. The ATA66 found on most boards is more than enough for today's harddrives. Get yourself 256MB instead of 128MB, that's a much better investment.

You might want to look at RAID IDE controllers eventually, it can improve the throughput of your drives.
However, I still prefer SCSI. More expensive, but it still feels just "better" than IDE. Drives are more robust, faster, larger buffers etc.

[Gary Hendershot]

Yes, I wholly endorse SCSI as well for these sort of "real-time" operations (i.e. -- digital video and audio). If you want the absolute fastest drive around -- ones that will work with the most bandwidth hungry application without missing a beat (er... dropping a frame) look no farther than the Seagate X15, IBM 36LZX, or Quantum Atlas 10K-II series Ultra-160 low-voltage differential SCSI hard drives.

But, IDE hard drives have come a long long way in recent times from their lowly position on the storage totem pole. Drives such as the IBM 75GXP series (15 GB, 20 GB, 30 GB, 60 GB, and 75 GB capacities) are very speedy, well built, and don't cost much. Quality IDE RAID has also finally made its way into the market with the 3-Ware Escalade controller series -- IDE RAID controllers with 2,4, or even 8 ports.
http://www.3ware.com/products/escalade6000.shtml

As said above, ATA-100 is not much more than a marketing ploy at this point. ATA-66 and even ATA-33 still offer plenty enough bandwidth for any available IDE hard drive, including the latest ATA-100 hard drives from Maxtor and IBM. The upcoming Serial ATA will offer even more bandwidth than ATA-100, but will instead provide a new more reliable connection between the ATA controller than what the ubiquitous parallel IDE ribbon cable can do now.

If you want even more info on storage issues such as people's experiences with certain hard drives and RAID products, check out the excellent discussion list over at Storage Review...

http://www.storagereview.com/

[Ali]

Sounds like you should be looking at the G400 marvel, not the RT2000.

I dont think there is a G450 marvel yet, but for what you are looking for I would expect the G400 would be enough for a while.

You could also try the rainbow runner G series. There is a possibility that it might fit onto a G800 when they come out (dont count on it though).

If it was me I would get a G200 marvel for now, because I guess they are VERY cheap now, then see what happens with the G800. There might also be a G450 marvel soon.

Good luck

[Marshmallowman]

I think matrox have released a g450 eTV, or somthing like that, it does mpeg2 capture and time shifting.
check the main news page here at matroxuser(or even matrox).

The desktop video forum is probably a better place to ask these sort of quextions

[Greebe]

The Marvel G450 eTV isn't on the market yet.

[Pertti]

Hmm... nam, nam... newcomers who "know" that SCSI is necessary for video editing.

Welcome to the <A HREF="http://forums.murc.ws/cgi-bin/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&forum=Desktop+Video &number=2&DaysPrune=5&LastLogin=">Desktop Video</A>[/b]</FONT>

[Snydley]

The information that I am gathering on this site is THE most helpful I have received so far as it is based on users' real experiences. I probably have not even asked all the right question so any and all information is very much appreciated.

On a personal side, I am a sports television cameraman in Canada. Because of my television background I realize the importance of tastefully editing down my home video. Although I have shot many great moments in sports, nothing will compare to chronicaling my daughter's life. It continues to be my most treasured project.

I have since posted in the desktop video forum where this topic really should have been posted from the start.

Thanks

[Randy Simons]

Other than some occasional playing with my webcam I don't do video-editing

However, when I compared my Quantum AtlasV U160 SCSI drive with the WD 30GB IDE drive I bought for my dad, there's a world in between them. The Atlas felt and looked much more robust.

Futhermore, I hear quite alot of stories of people who's IDE drives broke down lately.

I see SCSI compared to IDE as "business quality" versus "home/family quality"

Hmm, this is getting waaay OT

[Heiney]

I recently attended an IBM technical lecture....they basically said ATA100 is BS, the drives hardly utilize ATA66 yet....




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ABIT BF6, Pentium III Katmai 450-&gt;663MHz, GW VOS32 Cooler, 256MB SDRAM, Toshiba 6X DVD, Quantum Fireball Plus LM, Matrox Millenium G400 DH @ 160/200, Creative SBLive, Enlight 7237 Case, 300watt PCPC TurboCool PS, and some fun with a Dremel!