Selection criteria for video card to be used for video editing

[WSW]

I have a P4 1.6G computer with 80G HD, 256MB RAM and a 16M video SiS video card. I am learning to use the PC for video editing. I am using ULead Video Suite 7 for editing. Somehow the video quality is not as good as the digital video tape. I think my problem is the video card.

I want to upgrade the video card so that I can use the PC for video editing. What should be the selection criteria for a video card for video editing? Any recommendation on the vendor and model of video card that I should purchase? My budget for the video card is about $150.

[WSW]

One of my friend told me that the Matrox G550 is a good card for video editing. Although it has only 32MB, it is fast enough for my application. It has dual heads and is within my price range. Any opinion?

[glc]

Excellent card for that use, there is no better one in its price range.

[SonicVanguard]

Well if I read your post correctly, you said digital video tape. I'd assume that to be either minDV or Digital8. IF that's the case, you should only need a IEEE1394 card (firewire).

And keep this in mind - ULead's default settings out of the box may provide you with less that asthetic results. For example, if the default settings are 320x240@15fps, that is 1/2 of what is considered full frame video which is 640x480@29.97fps (or 720x480@29.97fps for DV).

HTH.

[WSW]

Yes, I meant miniDV.

I already installed a firewire card on the PC. I use the firewire card to capture video from my Sony miniDV camcorder into the PC hard disk and then do editing using Ulead Video Suite.

Video capture is no problem using firewire. The only problem is the video quality is not as good as direct playback from miniDV tape. The video image on the PC is jerky and much darker than the original. That's why I suspect the problem is my old video card.

I am debating whether to buy the Matrox G550 with 32MB or the Sapphire Radeon 9100 with 128MB because they are within my budget. The Matrox card is slightly more expensive. My friend recommended the Matrox card for my application. I was wondering why I pay more for less memory.

[Xayd]

The Matrox card doesn't have gaming speed but the image quality from Matrox cards has always been excellent.

Any fairly recent card can render video, it's not like you're dealing with games that demand 60 to 100 fps performance at high resolutions, video is video. The FPS can't be more than 30 and the resolutions you're dealing with during playback are relatively small.

[WSW]

I don't use my PC for games. Looks like Matrox is a good choice because of video quality. I'll go ahead with the Matrox card. Thanks for all your suggestions.

[SonicVanguard]

The Matrox card will have no bearing whatsoever on your video quality once it's capture to your hardrive. It will also have no bearing on the video once you've edited it and captured it back to your miniDV camera.

The fault here is in your software.

[imbest123]

the matrox is good but its like $500-600. i wouldnt recomend buying one unless ur gunna start a mini-business. my dad edits video and i know how to a little. my video card is only a gf4 mx440 and it is good enough for that. so just get anyone with a dual vga or dvi (depending on whether u have lcd screen or crt) output. for editing u might also want to upgrade ur ram to increase rendering speed.

[imbest123]

oh yeah if u output to dvd then get a card with a real-time mpeg-2 encoder.

[Alaron]

The Matrox G550 is a great card. It is only $100. http://www.mwave.com/mwave/doSearch....CID=&Back=&n=1

imbest123, I think you might be thinking of the Parhelia. It is $500.

[imbest123]

oh yeah mah bad. oops.

[WSW]

I checked the video captured on hard disk in mpeg format. The mpeg files were captured at 720x480@29.97fps. However, when I play it back on my PC the video image is jerky and dark.

Besides the video card, it sounds like I have to increase my RAM size to improve rendering speed, as suggested by imbest123.

Is Ulead Video Suite 7 a good software for video editing? I found Ulead Video Suite very easy to use for simple editing. However, the quality is not as good as I expected. I thought the video quality problem is my hardware.

My plan is to transfer my video on miniDV onto DVD disks. Can someone recommend a good video editing software at consumer price?

[Xayd]

I've only used Premiere to edit, might be a bit out of your price range.

But, the bad quality you're seeing could very well be from a shotty mpeg encoder in the Ulead software (if it's the same encoder that's in their DVD authoring software, it sucks ).

Try TMPG to encode to MPEG with, and see if your quality improves.

http://www.tmpgenc.net

After you've encoded to MPEG with TMPG you can then edit however you like in the Ulead software.

[WSW]

Xayd is abolutely correct. The Ulead mpeg encoder is my main problem. It creates low quality video.

I captured my video into the PC as .AVI file and then use TMPG encoding software to convert the .AVI file to .MPG file as suggested by Xayd. There was significant improvement in video quality. The video is jerky only with high speed shots. The brightness is OK.

If a good software mpeg encoder can produce good quality video, a hardware mpeg encoder must create excellent quality video.

Are there video cards with hardware mpeg 2 encoder? If yes, which one is good and at reasonable price?

[Xayd]

There are none that I know of under the ~800 dollar range, unfortunately.

The absolute best software encoder is CCE. It's significantly faster than TMPG, and the quality you get from it can be slightly better due to more advanced multi-pass options as well.

http://www.cinemacraft.com/index.htm

The problem is, the full version of it is around 2 thousand dollars :\. It's aimed at the hollywood studios, not home use, so it's priced as such. There's a demo on their site if you wanna give it a try, though. I believe the trial version leaves a watermark ad in your video until it's registered.

There is a "basic" version of CCE if you find that the demo does everything you need for 58 dollars, though. The significant difference in it and the more expensive flavor of it is the basic version to my knowledge doesn't support control files, which prevents insertion of hard coded chapter points. If this isn't an issue then it might be a consideration when you decide which encoder to go with as well.

[glc]

It still wouldn't hurt to get a G550 - SiS cards are not known for quality. The G550 is dual head with one output DVI-capable if you ever get a DVI LCD monitor, and the driver has a lot of adjustments. Sure - a MX440 will do the job just fine, but Nvidia is not known for image quality and true color rendering like Matrox and ATI offer until you get into the Quadro line of workstation cards.

A gig of ram and either Win2K or XP is the way to go for that work.