I've been asked to price up and spec some options (plural) for a PC to do the following:
It will be replacing a machine running audacity, powerpoint and displaying video output simultaneously to a VPU for display on a large screen min 3m x 3m. (The VPU is already installed so no need to select that.) Recording currently is mainly single track, or a blended single track from a multi channel PA mixing desk. The PC also has to provide a stereo line-out that is fed into the PA mixer for when CD/DVD/web video playback is required.
The machine has to maintain the ability to do the above, but also allow for installation and operation of sound mixing/editing software. They mentioned wanting to use ProTools(? I think that's what they said, I lost my notes) in the future so presume the machine will need some multi-core grunt to enable multi-track processing/mixing.
Present video replay is stuttery and it won't handle certain formats, but I think this is partly due to just 256MB of DDR and an old celeron processor, not to mention a DVD drive that looks like it's from 2000. They do have an Audigy soundcard already, so not sure if that's worth keeping or not.
Would welcome your collective suggestions for this, particularly as the end user is budget limited. There isn't a target budget as such - they just have to keep the cost as low as possible to do the job sensibly for the forseeable future. ie not something that will put them back in the same position for at least 5+ years if possible.
I thought I'd offer them three options to pick from:
1) the cheapest minimum to do the current job but without the stuttering and make it more responsive
2) the happy middle ground
3) will do all you chuck at it and mix/edit multitrack with ease while simultaneously playing back DVDs embedded into powerpoint