Best Video card(s) for video editing?

[gal220]

I want to build a computer which has a primary purpose of being used to import and edit video to produce quality DVD's. I would like to make really good quality slide shows with special effects from still pictures as well as being able to import, convert, and edit analog video and import and edit digital video. I have been doing some research but it seems like a lot of the focus on video cards has to do with gaming and I don't know how that translates to video production. I tried to do some video editing on my present system (a Dell Dimension 4600 - P4 2.66 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 video card, 2 ATA 70 GB hard drives, 512 MG RAM) but I realized that if I wanted to get quality output I was going to have to invest in a more powerful system. I am looking to build a system with a Pentium D processor, 1 GB of RAM, a SATA system drive, and two SATA drives in RAID O configuration for video storage. Does this sound like it would do the job? Is it overkill, about right, or not enough? Also, I really need input on the video card. Thank you, thank you, thank you for whatever help you can provide!!

[kram 2.0]

Unless a fair bit of three-dimensional work is involved, the graphics card will have very little to do with video editing. I would suggest getting a low-level graphics card and upping the memory to 2GB to accompany the Pentium-D. I would also discourage RAID 0 - it's a very risky setup. Instead, I would suggest two large hard drive with a large amount of hard drive cache.

kram

[Force Flow]

RAM capacity, CPU power, and HDD speed & space are the most important things for a video editing setup.

You may want to look at a raptor drive for source editing, and a seperate 7200rpm drive for video storage.

[Nimda]

At the minimum you need 2x120 Gb HDD! But it's better to buy one HDD as if you were 2 you PC might running slower.(needless to say about 3 HDD)
As for video card, I could recomend you ATI Radeon 9800Pro. It has 256Mb, I think it'll suit you fine.

[Mac Medic]

Dont waste money on a super fast video card with tons of memory, it will not get used while editing video. You need as much processor and ram as you can throw at the system and fast HDD's for capture (after capture any HDD provides plenty of bandwidth for DV). A video card will only help if you're using a 3d motion graphics program, and then only for real time effects during compositing, final output will still have to be rendered thus negating the video card at that point. Processor and RAM dude, thats the key.

[heymrdj]

I do alot alot of what your wanting to do just for the fun of it. Now while i'm only 16 and not the most experienced of the field I will give my two cents anyways . First the smallest card you can get thats compatible with new stuff will be fine. I recommend an ATI Radeon 7000 32 or 64MB card. SVideo, RCA, and VGA or DVI outputs. The Harddrives. You'll get better performance ripping from one drive and writing to another. So get two large Hard drives and skip the raid 0 thing. It will hurt your performance and you need drive to drive not just one huge 800GB drive. Next a case with good cooling. Since most encoding to DVD take my 2.8C P4 4-5 and a half hours at 100% cpu power and with two drives spinning good cooling is a must. Don't think to a water cooling degree but at least high quality fans and heat sinks. Next CPU. Biggest Intel you can find. I recommend the 570J (3.8GHZ) unless you running 64 bit programs. Then get an EMT 64 Intel 840. And finally as much ram as you can possibly cram on that motherboard. With the 64 bit processors try to get 4 2GB modules that will give you 8GB. But that might be overkill. You could run best probably at 2GB or higher. Oh and don't get EE edition Intels. $500 for HT integrated isn't worth it unless you just have to have that edge.

[glc]

Any PCI-E video card with 256mb onboard ram and VIVO will do a fine job, unless you want to spend the big bucks for a professional workstation card.

ASUS EAX700PRO/TVD/256 Radeon X700PRO 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814121523

[Mac Medic]

I assume that budget isn't an issue here so, just to fan the flames and considering I do have a lot of experience with film making,

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPL....3.1.3.0.0.1.0

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPL....9.1.1.0.0.1.0

[glc]

Originally Posted by Mac Medic I assume that budget isn't an issue here so, just to fan the flames and considering I do have a lot of experience with film making, http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPL....3.1.3.0.0.1.0 http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPL....9.1.1.0.0.1.0

Your session has timed out after a period of inactivity. Please return to the Store Menu to continue shopping.

-------------------------------------------------------

I personally hate Macs, but no question, they are ideal for that specialized use.

[Mac Medic]

http://www.apple.com/powermac/
http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/

oops.

[ror_b211]

Well Macs do have a much better reliability record since they're all made and tested by the same company. They are about $3000 for 1ghz or something though...

[ror_b211]

Did anyone mention dual cored CPUs or at least hyper-threading might be a good idea here?

[gal220]

Originally Posted by ror_b211 Did anyone mention dual cored CPUs or at least hyper-threading might be a good idea here?

Hey everybody,
I really appreciate the input I've been getting here. I hadn't checked back for a few days. The Pentium D is what I'm planning to use and it is a dual core CPU which is why I selected it. From what I read it seemed like it would be well-suited for the job, but I'm interested in anyone's input. Also, I was looking more at video cards and I wondered if the ATI All-In-Wonder X600 Pro would do the trick for me. One thing I like about it is it already has the inputs I would need for getting analog video into the computer to convert to digital. Anybody have any thoughts on this? By the way, what is VIVO? I can't remember if the All-In-Wonder had it or not. (I'm still pretty green)

[glc]

VIVO = video in/video out. The X600 Pro AIW not only has that, but it comes with breakout boxes to connect it to just about anything under the sun. That card would be an excellent choice as long as you install and configure it carefully, it's a bit complicated to get set up properly due to all its features. Tip: Before installing the drivers and all the utility software, install the Windows WDM Capture driver.

If you also want to capture digital video, don't forget a 1394 Firewire card if the motherboard doesn't have it onboard. You may want to consider a dedicated sound card if audio processing is part of your work, some of the Creative Audigy cards even have a Firewire jack. At least you can *try* the onboard sound first, before buying a sound card if it doesn't work to your satisfaction.

[gal220]

Originally Posted by glc VIVO = video in/video out. The X600 Pro AIW not only has that, but it comes with breakout boxes to connect it to just about anything under the sun. That card would be an excellent choice as long as you install and configure it carefully, it's a bit complicated to get set up properly due to all its features. Tip: Before installing the drivers and all the utility software, install the Windows WDM Capture driver.

Being that I am such a newbie, just how complicated is it? This card really does seem to be one that would work great for what I want to do, but I don't want to pull all my hair out to get it to work. Do you think I could get enough help to figure it out through this site? It's been pretty helpful so far, but I haven't put any parts together yet.

[glc]

It's not that difficult - it's just somewhat involved as there are a lot of functions in that card.