HD video editing PC build up £500 - £700

[V8burble]

Hello guys

My father has got himself in to HD movie making (Panasonic SD1) in his retirement. He is using Ulead/Corel VS11+ for his editing and DVD authoring. He doesn't play games so this is primarily what he will be using his PC for.

Unfortunately this means that his current PC (Mesh Elite Inspire-S with just an E4300 Dual Core 1.80GHz processor, running Vista home prem) isn't quite up to the job. Yes it is possible, but it does mean creating Proxy files to allow VS11+ to at least work, and let's face it we can do lots beter than this these days.

Apart from the Lightscribe DVD writer, the TFT monitor, speakers, keyboard and mouse the rest of the PC case can probably go.

Any thoughts and possible components lists would be greatly appreciated

Many thanks

[staffsMike]

You can get a very nice PC on that budget. I would build something nice and quiet.

Something along the lines of,

Intel Q6600 + Scythe Ninja Cooler ~£175
4GB PC6400 RAM ~£60
Abit IP-35 ~£60
Antec P182 + Corsair 520W HX ~£145 (but you could get something like an antec sonata III or plus for a bit less and the same sort of levels of noise ~£70)

500GB Western Digital AAKS (maybe 1TB) ~£60

For the graphics a passive ATi HD3650 would do quite nicely at around £60.
Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online from Scan Computers UK - more like £50

That's about £560 with the P182 + corsair combo or £500 with the sonata III.

A very nice silent( or near enough) build.

[V8burble]

That looks on the money to me staffsMike. I've read a review or two on the P182 and it sounds (or not LOL) like a good choice. I'll have to go take a look at the ATi graphics card.
Just read your edit too.

Thanks for your time

[staffsMike]

I run something similar in my study (P182, corsair PSU, Scythe Ninja, passive graphics card, AAKS hard drive) and all you get is the faintest whisper

It's not a small case by any means but it's very subtle looking so it blends nicely into the background, no crazy LED setups etc..

[V8burble]

It's not a small case by any means but it's very subtle looking so it blends nicely into the background, no crazy LED setups etc..

Yes a class case.

I don't think he would thank me for the blue neon gaming cases you can get

[sjbuck]

I'd budget for two HD's and raid 0 them, if he's doing HD video editing the drive subsystem will take a hammering. Obviously he'll need to backup whatever goes onto that array.

[V8burble]

I'd budget for two HD's and raid 0 them, if he's doing HD video editing the drive subsystem will take a hammering. Obviously he'll need to backup whatever goes onto that array.

Do you see any merit in putting the OS and program files on one HDD and data on the second?

[staffsMike]

There is merit to splitting hard drives like that but you couldn't use raid 0 and split the two like that.

[V8burble]

There is merit to splitting hard drives like that but you couldn't use raid 0 and split the two like that.

sorry, yes I understand that you can't do both, but I meant would one have a noticable edge over the other HDD setup?

[this_is_gav]

High Def. Hard drives are essential. Q6600 too. Save elsewhere (case) and spend here.

Personally I'd set it up with a small OS drive (80gb or less, whatever you've got lying around, etc), 2 150gb Raptors in RAID0 (RAID0 is great for sequential transfers, perfect for video) as the main editing drive (high def is very dependant on the hard drive subsystem), then as big a hard drive as you can afford for storing video that's not being edited immediately. If you can you'll want a drive to back-up the data on those 2 drives too, though in video editing that's sometimes not as important as in other uses, unless you're dealing with big projects.

Quad-core is vital too, and at these prices 4gb should be considered the minimum. 64-bit OS is also essential, as on a 32-bit OS only 2gb can be addressed by any single process - far from ideal for a high-def.

Best thing for video editing? How ever many of these fantastic devices you can fit and/or have SATA cables for. Consider a cheap SATA controller to attach additional drives.

A larger budget would allow for another RAID0 array for a scratch disk, 8gb RAM, and a nice direct-attached storage device or 2, but we're getting into perfect realms there.

[staffsMike]

Raptors seems a little excessive. That's almost £300 on 300GB.. that would kill me inside lol.

How serious is this video editting seems the most pertinent question?

[this_is_gav]

Excessive? Not when you're waiting for an hour just for Premier to conform a 3 hour video it's not. It makes a massive difference.

It's certainly not the best value for money option, but it is the best option realistically open to the home user.

If you're editing for a couple of hours a week, then no, it's not nearly worth it, but if you're doing it as a proper hobby, I'd seriously recommend it. I've got 4 36gb Raptors (all ex OS drives) I use for exactly this. If I didn't have them I would spend money buying new ones.

[V8burble]

Thanks for the replies guys. I'm not sure that I can justify a couple of Raptors TBH but I'm going to digest and reseach. It's so easy to just add anothr £10-£30 here and there and end up spending another £250, but will the resulting performance be THAT noticable?

His workflow is generally to edit down 4Gb-8Gb of AVCHD to result in individual HD DVD chapters before then burning. So, not generally working on more than 5-10minute chunks of video at a time. Although this workflow is also based on his current system restrictions, it's a reasonable workflow method. He only does a project every couple of weeks or so, so it is only really the during edit performance that bothers him. He's happy to go for a cuppa whilst the video file is being created afterwards.

So, I guess I'm saying that if spending an extra £100 would result in serious performance enhancement then ok, but otherwise he would rather spend his money on other related goodies.