best computer for DV editing

[Dionysus]

I was wondering why Apply has a such a great name with video editing that no one else does. I'm just curious cuz I do lots of editing on my comptuer using vegas video and it works beyond belief better than I found adobe or ulead to yet I don't know or see what apple has, besides final cut pro which to some isn't the best, that you can't just build your own system with better specs than the mac. Someone help me out here I'm looking to upgrade to a new system and am just curious as to whether or not I'll see a big difference just buying an Apple or just replacing and upgrading parts in my current system.

thanks ppl.

[OvERaCiD23]

The basic list of needs is:
*fast processor (1.4ghz or above is more than enough)
*lots of RAM (512mb is the optimum level, more is merely overkill)
*fast hard drive(s) (7200rpm is a must, i'd go with 80+GB, and have atleast 2 to avoid space issues ~~~> never know how many projects you might be working on! ~~~> i filled up my 80gb recently b/c I'm backed up; never thought that would happen ~~~>external firewire for a laptop, not as cheap to buy another one for myself)
*good FireWire card for capture
*high quality monitor for viewing (LCD, 17"+)
*DVD burner if that will be your export medium

those are the basic requirments. with that hardware, you won't desire much else from an editing machine. an important factor in video editing as well is a clean operating system ~~~> not loaded down with all sorts of crap running in the background. i used to use Windows 2K Pro on a dualboot machine, and the only things installed on it were Adobe Premiere, Adobe Photoshop, VirtualDub, and my codecs. Not practical for your only computer, but it sure elimnated all problems associated with Windows.

[theReal]

The basic list of needs is
[...]fast hard drive(s) (7200rpm is a must)
high quality monitor for viewing (LCD, 17"+)

Well, 7200rpm is nice, but it ain't a must. Of course the faster the better, and even better to have two seperate drives so you can write temporary stuff to the second HD while editing. But you can basically do DV editing with only one 40GB 5200rpm drive!

I'd also not call a LCD 17"+ screen a "basic need". I've been cutting a lot of DV stuff using one standard cheap 17" monitor. The trick is I connected a 21" TV to the PC via my DV cam and used it to watch video previews. Works better than just a 21" Monitor without the additional TV!

[OvERaCiD23]

5200rpm drives offer the threat of dropped frames. 7200rpm drives rarely drop frames, and are only a few dollars more. i would do it right the first time, and get the 7200.

as for monitors, you don't need a super nice LCD. however, why not look at it as an investment; if you buy a nice monitor, you likely won't have to upgrade it for quite a few years, as monitor technology doesn't advance as quickly as other components.

[bb]

Originally posted by OvERaCiD23
5200rpm drives offer the threat of dropped frames.
This is true for full res analogue captures using Huffyuv or uncompressed data, but definitely not for DV. For the DV datarate of 3.6 MB/s you can use almost any drive, even old ones. If drops occur, something else is the reason, not the drive speed.

bb

[Babeinternational]

As for the card, any FireWire card would do the job, even the cheapest.
As long as your HD(NTFS) is defragmented and your systray empty you can use every capture program without losing frames. So no need to buy an expensive card with software with it (which often costs more than half the card's price).
You can also have a 500 Mhz CPU, if you don't use hard editing (multiple video and audio tracks,filters,etc.)or rendering. If it is just for backup (I mean capture, and then encoding), it will just take (a lot) more time. With a 1500 Mhz CPU you can do whatever you want, even with a full systray. The encoding part will be long, though.
A faster CPU won't help you in the editing process, but rendering and encoding will be faster.

[theReal]

A faster CPU won't help you in the editing process, but rendering and encoding will be faster.

If you keep the video as DV (to play it back on tape again), then you need a fast HD to make your CPU work hard. Most of the work is then not rendering, but direct stream-copying one DV file to another. Here it really helps to have two or more fast HDs (so you can save to another than that where the source video is).