Video editing

[bogart]

Have taken the plunge and bought an HD camcorder and will be doing editing of the AVCHD files at some stage so will need a bit of oomph in any system.

Planning on Vista 64bit, 4GB ram (2x2), Q6600 cpu. After that its a bit sketchy.
Any advantage in getting a P45 m/b as opposed to a P35? And wondering about the disk setup.
Currently I run 2 disks in raid 1 but think that was just a fad at the time, probably got that off here, what would be best 2 x 500GB drives or a single 1TB drive?
Possibly another drive with just OS etc on it? ie one of my now redundant Hitachi Deskstars 160GB each.

Thanks

[Will404]

The spec looks gr8. With your OS drive, you could use both of your deskstars in RAID 0 so that the OS is super fast. Also I would go for a single 1TB drive, as this leaves room to expand in the future.

For the mobo, I recantly purchessed a P5Q PRO, and it looks great. It is one of the P45 chips, which has some advantages, such as PCI-e 2.0 x16, but if it is for editing then i don't think that this is nessocary.

[staffsMike]

I'd get a couple of 640GB WD AAKS, very fast drives and quiet drives, good value too

P35/P45 won't make much of a difference really. Neither should stuggle to overclock the Q6600 if that is what you want to do. I would get an aftermarket HSF for the Q6600 though, http://www.scan.co.uk/product.aspx?ProductId=22841 this is a bit of a bargain

P5Q pro seems pretty good, or for the P35 you could get an P5K-E wifi or -C. There is of course the Abit IP-35 PRO at around £95 and it is still one of the best overclockers you can buy

[bogart]

Hi

Good point re the OS using both Hitachi drives never thought of that one.

Yes i do intend to OC the Q6600, be silly not to!

[Lourdes]

You'd be best sticking with the two drives separately, that way you spread your I/O operations and can write from one disk to the other. If you add a third drive you can have source/temp/destination.

[Toobad]

I edit HD video from my Canon HV10 using Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum. I believe the newer AVCHD format will bring an older PC to its knees. Copious RAM and a fast processor are definately your friends with this newer format. Sony Vegas 8 is multithreaded and ideal for a Quad Core but, being Sony, it would be wise to confirm it handles more than just "Sony flavoured AVCHD" before investing.

Ideally you should employ 3 fast HDDs with high areal densities (320Gb/platter like the latest WDs) for Programs, Raw Footage, and Finished Video. An e-SATA connection to an external HDD makes for a speedy backup solution.

Check out this thread from April for further advice:
http://forums.hexus.net/hexus-hardwa...diting-pc.html