Best Editing Rig and Software for Under $7000?

Based on my personal experience I would suggest getting a PC based system for a couple of reasons:

- Mac systems are unreasonably expensive and the claim that they are "better" for editing audio/video/images no longer holds any truth to them. That was long ago. In addition, Mac is all proprietory which means any upgrades are going to be massively expensive

- PCs are dirt cheap in comparison, can be custom built exactly to your specifications and if you need an upgrade later on, you can get the parts almost anywhere. Oh, and in spite of all the things that are wrong with Microsoft, they don't release new OS versions that require you to buy all new software just to use your computer.

- Premiere Pro has been rated as better than FCP in final output and is just as easy to use as FCP. Doing any type of video editing you will have to use PhotoShop and possibly Illustrator and After Effects extensively and Premiere being an Adobe product as well works seamlessly with these products. The new Adobe Production Studio and Production Studio Professional bundles are incredibly well working and contain absolutely everything you need software wise to do any type of editing, be it NTSC, PAL, DV, HDV, HD, 24p or whatever else you can come up with. And you don't need expensive expansions and upgrades to do HD. It's all in the box for around $2000 US. And did I mention that they now work seamlessly with all the Macromedia products as well?

- if for some godawful reason your Mac crashes your work is lost. Not so with a PC
 
its all about personal opinion man. Some people work better on FCP/Mac system. Like myself. I have used the PC/premier setup, but to this day I love FCP better.

Each editors opinion will be their own.

viva la FCP!
 
morten said:
Based on my personal experience I would suggest getting a PC based system for a couple of reasons:

- Mac systems are unreasonably expensive and the claim that they are "better" for editing audio/video/images no longer holds any truth to them. That was long ago. In addition, Mac is all proprietory which means any upgrades are going to be massively expensive

- PCs are dirt cheap in comparison, can be custom built exactly to your specifications and if you need an upgrade later on, you can get the parts almost anywhere. Oh, and in spite of all the things that are wrong with Microsoft, they don't release new OS versions that require you to buy all new software just to use your computer.

- Premiere Pro has been rated as better than FCP in final output and is just as easy to use as FCP. Doing any type of video editing you will have to use PhotoShop and possibly Illustrator and After Effects extensively and Premiere being an Adobe product as well works seamlessly with these products. The new Adobe Production Studio and Production Studio Professional bundles are incredibly well working and contain absolutely everything you need software wise to do any type of editing, be it NTSC, PAL, DV, HDV, HD, 24p or whatever else you can come up with. And you don't need expensive expansions and upgrades to do HD. It's all in the box for around $2000 US. And did I mention that they now work seamlessly with all the Macromedia products as well?

- if for some godawful reason your Mac crashes your work is lost. Not so with a PC
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Ok...I am not a member of the "Cult of Mac" (as Wired would put it,) but I am going to protect against misinformation and play devil's advocate. But I am not flaming.

1) The Mac Pros are equivalent to certain Dell workstation and yet cheaper than Dell. I will admit that the Mac Mini's and IMACS are outrageously overpriced, but the Mac Pros are a better deal than their PC counterparts.

2)Mac PCI Express slots are the same as in PC's. All one needs to do is look for a card that works with MAC drivers. Also RAM, hardrives, as I mentioned graphics cards, and optical drives all can be upgraded by the user in a MAC Pro. The Mac Pro even had slide in and snap drive bays.

3) Uhhh last time I checked the Mac laptop my sister owns running OS 10.2 works with all programs.

4) Better than FCP in final output? What does that mean? They both produce similar if not exactly the same results. They just have diffferent ways of doing it. Also Apple has this thing called the Apple Final Cut Pro Studio with graphics, DVD authoring, video editing, sound work, and a compressor. For $1300, $700 less than Adobe's suite. FCP works with all those formats out of the box except for a quick 1 minute tweak for 24p. Which is featured on this website. Oh and did I mention that FCP works seamlessly with Quicktime, which actually has a reliable standalone player. Unlike the web-based flash.

-Also my Windows box crashes at least once every week. My Mac hasn't crashed since....4 months ago. And before that it hadn't crashed.

******Also I back up....on both computers....so if either loses data......I have it. That's not exclusive to an operating system that's exclusive to certain users.

But as I said in an earlier post...it all depends on what this user will be doing on this computer. Does he plan to export to Quicktime, Flash, or DVD? Does he need more of Motion type effects or Photoshop/ After Effects type effects? It's all up to him. Let him see correct information about these computers. Not misinformation.

BY THE WAY: The Apple guy was just trying to sell you more stuff. You will be fine with even the lower end Mac Pro.

-Michael
:)
 
don't get caught up in the whole mac or pc debate...it's a no win situation on both sides. personally i use the adobe products. you probably will use photoshop and illustartor at some point- mac does not offer those products in a bundle like adobe does...so it's really up to you...as far as pc crashing all the time...not true...at least in my experience..i've edited on both pc and macs and both have crashed on me...i personally do not like quicktime..the load time...is painfully slow...of course that's on a pc...if i had to make a choice today...i would still go pc based hardware and adobe...but avid would be hard to pass up...hopefully adobe will acquire avid...then there wouldn't be any debate anymore :).

good luck!
 
j8jweb said:
Thanks for all your replies, very interesting and useful.

...I wandered down to the Apple store around here, and I was blown away by the 30 inch cinema display. It's beautiful, I've never seen a PC monitor that compares to it, at any size.

The guy in the shop said that if I'm intending to edit much HD footage (which I might well be), that I will need the bare minimum following spec machine:

Quad Core 3GHZ (3GHZ x 2)
4 GIGS RAM
1000 GIGS HD Space (500GB x 2)
Videocard ATI Radion 512MB

Which comes out at close to $7000 in itself (I live in rip-off Britain)

Is it really this expensive to get seamless HD editing?
Click to expand...

Don't buy the Apple RAM or Hard Drives. Try Ramseeker.com for RAM, it's kind of like the stock market for RAM, price goes down to the price you want to buy at, get an email in your box and buy that day. You can get drives for WAY less than in the Apple Store. Try Macmall instead. Drives always eventually fail, so as far as I'm concerned, they're more or less disposable; no need to spend too much, just back up in few places. And no, you don't NEED the single fastest computer Apple has has ever made available for sale to edit HD. Just bought the Mac Pro 2.66 two days ago and yes, it's fast, but so is my Dual 2.7 G5 PPC.

My advice, wait for some hapless dope to dump his six month old Mac Quad 2.5 cause (s)he heard the Mac Pro 2.0 is faster, I mean newer, no, that's it, it's faster. SNARK alert (2*4 GHz=8 GHz and 2.5*4 GHZ=10 GHz). The Mac Pro 2.66 GHz is actually the best $$$/GHz ratio going in Mac products, because it's individual processor cores are .66 GHz faster than the next lowest model, while only $300 more in price, and with the higher speed 3.0, the next .34 GHz/core in clock speed winds up costing you an additional $500, or $800 from 2.0 model.

Get the middle one, it's more bang for the buck (or pound).

Mac Pro 2.0 GHz x4 $2200
Mac Pro 2.66 Ghz x4 $2500
Mac Pro 3.0 GHz x4 $3000
 
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Which comes out at close to $7000 in itself (I live in rip-off Britain)

Is it really this expensive to get seamless HD editing?
Click to expand...

I will be in your situation soon, i dont relish the thought of trying to get a good quality pc that is configured properly and that the costs are reasonable in Britain. I can confirm only two things from my practical experience.

Dell is significantly more expensive than some of the other pc distributers in Britain. I have no experience with dell after sales other than some remarks that you mostly have to purchase their products when upgrading though i am sure there is a way round that.

Mesh computers (just an example) offer a better deal, BUT you better hope that the engineer that configured it was good, if you have a problem you will probably regret the whole purchase. Other CHEAP vendors appear to be the same. Rarely do you get a company offering exactly what you want so you have to comprimise.

Build your own or get someone to do it for you and you may be lucky, it probably wont save any money but you can select your prefered parts and case. BUT some people have said that if something goes faulty you have an awkward situation trying to get the part exchanged re excuses its not your memory its something else.

It might be worthwhile waiting for the new intel woodcrest processor to come out and build something with this. might give some future proofing?

Reviews of processors by various mags often suggest the best value or bang for bucks processor. it's rarely the top of the range as you pay a premiem for "the fastest" which can do something 2 seconds faster for an extra £200

Don't look at prices for monitors in the USA that will depress you (much cheaper).

I read on this forum somewhere that you should keep your editing pc strictly for that purpose and thereby avoiding various possible bugs viruses etc. I shall try and do that myself when i start, that means no games or internet. Get a cheap pc for that.

Others have said it depends on your situation and what you are going to be doing. Do your own research as well it might throw open more options.

XMAS time may not be the best time to get a well configured pc (too busy throwing out things quickly).

If this is a hobby then think carefully and spend wisely with logic. Dont buy an old version of software with the intention of upgrading to the new version cheaper UNTIL you double check that this will be acceptable to premiere or some other editing suite. If it is acceptable then that is a cheaper path than paying the full price. Watch out for good deals, Matrox offers a special bundle with their capture card that includes premiere and other goodies. Others might do the same.

If i were in your situation i would be tempted to take one of two options.

1. There are some really cheap deals with intel core duo that ship with 200gigs or maybe 300gigs with a cheaper graphics card for £400. That would get you started. Use this as a starter to see what you like etc. Then you could get a free trial of various editing suites and see what you like working with. I think many on this forum have admitted it is a matter of what you like working with?

Deleting these suits might give you a problem ( i don't know) but at least the pc has not cost you much and you might establish what YOU like and go for that later on with a faster pc.

2. Wait until january/February and get a really fast pc with a woodcrest processor loads of hard drive space and by then maybe we will have HDD or blue ray recorders at a realistic price, if not? Then stop looking at computers and mags it only depresses you when you see new things much better and faster etc. If your existing pc does the job you require it to do then thats all you need.

I have had good and bad experiences with PCs. Here in Britain i think it is a minefield. Getting a really good knowledgeable guy to build one for you with your well researched and useful parts properly configured and some thought to upgarding is probaly going to be my path, unless a vendor comes out with a great deal, then you take your chances ithat it is built well and properly configured?

Good Luck:) lets know what you do i am interested.

Michael
 
SO why has there been no mention of the amd opteron chipped pc's with adobe software, this is an option well worth investigating I can build a screaming amd pc with dual 19 widescreens, 2 dual core opterons,4 gigs 3.3.3.7 memory and plenty of storage for under 2500

enough said
 
I don't want to start or contribute to the mac vs pc war either but I think it is important that people get the facts and not fundamentalist oppinions. My claim (boldly stated under the heading "My personal experience" is only that the claim that Mac is an infinately better system is a 'slight' overexaduration.

If you build your computer yourself - or custom design it and get the shop to build it - it'll be much cheaper to buy a pc than to buy a mac with almost the exact same specs. And just a side note: Stay away from DELL.

The claim that PCs crash all the time is complete nonsense. As with the performance claim it was true once but not any more. I bought one of my 3 computers about 3 years ago. It kept crashing on me for a few months. Then I discovered it was because one of the SATA cables was busted from the manufacturer. I replaced it and the computer hasn't crashed once since. This in spite of my extremely heavyhanded use (usually After Effects, Premiere, PhotoShop, Illustrator and Flash at the same time (pluss Firefox, Thunderbird, Messenger and Norton Antivirus and some other minor progs)). If you have a properly updated and properly set up PC that crashes it means there is something wrong with either the hardware or the software in the same way that if your Mac crashes there is a problem.

I completely agree that it all comes down to what you are going to do and what programs you are going to use. I'm just warning that much of the propaganda spewed by the people at Apple and the religious fanatics is little more than hot air. With the switch from IBM to Intel processors the Mac is looking more and more like a PC and the main diff becomes the software. Apart from Macs destroying a couple of my projects in the past, the massive beef I have with both the company and the fundamentalists that use their products is that they are guilty of doing exactly what they criticize Microsoft for doing: Monopolization.

the one big danger of buying a mac these days is that you become a mac addict. soon you'll have an iPod or five, several iPhoto albums you've made into books and a whole pile of shiny white peripherals that cost you way too much and is hardly ever used.

I have a dream of one day setting up a head-to-head between a mac and a pc that have the same specs but run different software. Probably never going to happen but it would be interesting.
 
All the people screaming "Get a PC and XOXOX editing app for $2000" forget that you need quite a bit more for serious editing.

- A deck for capturing (or do people like ruining their DVXs?)
- a decent videomonitor to see interlacing and colours
- a capture card or breakout box to connect it
- loads of fast harddrives or a RAID if you edit anything but SD

Software wise, the minimum imho is

- Editing app
- some sort of motion graphics/titling tool
- Sound editor
- DVD authoring software
- Photoshop

That having said, I'd recommend a Mac Pro, 2x2.66 with 4Gigs of RAM. Three HD's. A JVC TM-H1750 videomonitor, a cheap canopus box or a decklink card for previews. Shuttle Pro for easy capturing. Final Cut Studio and Adobe Photoshop. Depending on your choice of monitors and capture card / box, that might add up to be more than $7000. If you choose a cheap Canopus Box and only one 20" cinema display you'll stay under it. Don't spend money on an editing keyboard, that's only to show your clients you're a 'pro'. Get a Jog shuttle though.
My two (€) cent.
 
moebius said:
All the people screaming "Get a PC and XOXOX editing app for $2000" forget that you need quite a bit more for serious editing.

- A deck for capturing (or do people like ruining their DVXs?)
- a decent videomonitor to see interlacing and colours
- a capture card or breakout box to connect it
- loads of fast harddrives or a RAID if you edit anything but SD

Software wise, the minimum imho is

- Editing app
- some sort of motion graphics/titling tool
- Sound editor
- DVD authoring software
- Photoshop

That having said, I'd recommend a Mac Pro, 2x2.66 with 4Gigs of RAM. Three HD's. A JVC TM-H1750 videomonitor, a cheap canopus box or a decklink card for previews. Shuttle Pro for easy capturing. Final Cut Studio and Adobe Photoshop. Depending on your choice of monitors and capture card / box, that might add up to be more than $7000. If you choose a cheap Canopus Box and only one 20" cinema display you'll stay under it. Don't spend money on an editing keyboard, that's only to show your clients you're a 'pro'. Get a Jog shuttle though.
My two (€) cent.
Click to expand...

here's what I would get:

A PC either custom built at a shop or from a general supplier like Toshiba or HP which has:

- Dual Core Pentium 3.2gHz or higher
- motherboard with SATA RAID and PCI-e (most cards have this now)
- 2gb of ram
- >7500 rpm SATA drives - at least two (no MAXTOR - do Western Digital or something like that): one system and one media - or even better 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 (SATA is crazy fast and with it you don't really need RAID even for HD but if you have the money why not?)
- Either a huge wide screen digital monitor or two smaller ones
- a cheapo palmcorder with d/a conversion (instead of a capture card - works just as well with your firewire and costs a LOT less - pluss you have a second camera AND it doesn't matter if it breaks)
- a monitor to plug into your camcorder through d/a conversion

If you want to go overboard you can go out and buy one of those crazy gaming machines - just make sure they're not overclocked or you'll fry the processor rendering.

As for software: get the Adobe Production Studio Premium (currently selling for $1699 at the Adobe store). It contains everything you will ever need software wise: Premiere Pro (NLE), After Effects (animations, effects, etc etc etc), Audition (Audio editing), Encore (DVD production) - the Premium version also contains Photoshop CS2 and Illustrator CS2. That's absolutely everything you need.

If you want I can get more specific and design a system but I'm too tired right now.

mor10
 
- Dual Core Pentium 3.2gHz or higher
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I think it would be a mistake to buy a Pentium chip these days. There just isn't any reason to do it. I would go AMD anyday over Pentium but would go Core 2 over both. :D Intel's new architecture is VERY impressive. These things have crazy overclocking capabilities. I know this is general frowned upon by pros as it can cause system instability but if you know what you are doing and test for stability you really run very, very little risk and stand to gain huge returns. There are numerous reports of people overclocking Conroe chips to 4Ghz on air cooling while running stable. That's just freaking amazing.

I posted a comparison of a home built system and the basic Mac Pro setup a while back which I researched out of sheer curiosity. Might be interesting to some.

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=68280&highlight=price+comparison

Anyway, more than anything it's really a matter of software these days. As was said earlier, with Macs moving to intel processors the difference between a Mac and PC really isn't anything but OS and software. Even price has been proven to be approximately equal these days (on the Mac Pro's at least). Decide what software you want to use and that will answer your question right there.

As for quad core vs dual core... I'm not entirely convinced yet. Benchmarks showing a significant improvement were brought to my attention in the thread I posted but it seems that everything is moving heavily towards GPU processing and acceleration removing a lot of the load from the CPU. Just seems like it won't be that helpful in the near future if the industry continues to implement processing on the GPU (and as processing becomes easier to implement in the near future the trend will only escalate). You'd almost be better off buying a better video card. Of course, 4 cores can't hurt!

Maybe I'm flat out wrong though. :D
 
Shaw said:
but would go Core 2 over both. :D Intel's new architecture is VERY impressive. These things have crazy overclocking capabilities. I know this is general frowned upon by pros as it can cause system instability but if you know what you are doing and test for stability you really run very, very little risk and stand to gain huge returns. There are numerous reports of people overclocking Conroe chips to 4Ghz on air cooling while running stable. That's just freaking amazing.
Click to expand...

yes, that's why I said "Dual Core". Sorry I'm not up on the jargon. What I meant ofcourse was the Core 2 Duo. Getting an old processor is just stupid.

Overclocking... not a good idea. It makes sense if you're gaming, but like I said before: if you overclock your processor you'll fry it doing After Effects renders. and processors aint that cheap.

Get the Intel Core 2 Duo dual core whatever it is they want to call it now.

nuff said
 
Depends. If you fry your processor doing renders then it would fry while playing games too. ;) The stock clock for a chip isn't anything magical. Some can handle overclocking, some can't and of course to varying degrees. Stability checks are necessary of course.
 
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