What computer do you use to edit your HD footage?

C

corycross

Well-known member
Hey I am getting into HD and I want to know what kind of comupter you guys use to edit with? how much ram do you have, and how big is your Harddrive.. thanks =)
 
it says in the Barry Green book 1 GB of Ram on an old g4 can handle HD just fine, but I think it's reccomended to have around 2 GB of RAM to process it a bit more smoothly. Just sayin.
 
There's no simple answer or your question.
When we got our first HVX we used a G5 with 4 gigs of RAM.
Since then we have upgraded to a 4 core Intel-Mac and now a 8 core. Both with 8 gigs of RAM.
We have also moved from 720p 24 to 1080p and so forth...

The minimum requirements are well below that, but sometimes I feel like I don't have enough.

As far as storage goes the answer is clear: as much as you need.

Anyway, many combinations can be used with different results.
 
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I'm probably the exception here, but we use a custom built PC on Vista Ultimate 64. Dual Boot with Win XP, but haven't used that in 6 months.
Dual duo core Intel Processors
4 gig ram, but will be going to 8 while I can still match memory modules.
Two 2 TB 4 drive arrays for video/audio and 4 500gig Raptor data drives for GFX and EDL's.
Dual channel SATA ll controller card to keep a wide pipeline for HD Video.
It's the baddest sysytem I could by.....last June! :) Now I could get 25% faster for the same money. But I've made a bundle on it so I'm happy.

We use SpeedEDIT to edit on. SE handles the .mxf files natively and there's NO NEED for rendering unless we do 6-7 layers with multiple keyframes on each.
We do a lot of commercial, retail work with multiple stuff flying in and out, so this is huge to us! :)

Managing multiple SD-HD formats, ingesting and exporting is part of our daily process. VT-SpeedEDIT handles these tasks pretty well.

Now you'll get 100 MAC computer configurations which you probably wanted to know about in the first place! :)
Make sure your questions are specific on these forums or you'll get an ear ful. :)
You also didn't mention what type of HD, but I assume you mean with DVCPro .mxf files?
I wish you luck.
 
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i use a mac with 1.5 GB of RAM and two external hard drives that equal about 600GB of hard drive space in addition to my 250 GB internal hard drive. affordable by all means.

i'm only doing short films for myself and working on a feature though. i don't need but so much in order to get what i want done. if you're getting into videography and plan on having tons of video productions going on at one time then you better get as much as you can afford to speed up the process...rendering can be a pain if your cpu isn't up to parr on RAM.
 
custom built PC running Windows XP. Vista just doesn't cut it for real content creation for me. Too many DRM hassles and driver issues.

4GB Ram, dual core AMD proc, 1 TB of RAID 0 for work space, plus 2 TB internal for real storage, plus a library of external HDDs for backup and longer term storage.

I just bought a bunch of old P4s from a univeristy rummage sale. I'm going to try to build my first render farm. :)
 
If you want to work in a Windows platform this is a good machine to start.
Way beyond minimum requirements.
As you progress you can add to it and upgrade.
 
I edit hd footage on sometime elses computer.. is way cheaper than owning my own.. and they pay me to do it! hehehe..




but seriously.. my own stuff on my Powermac g5.. other peoples stuff usually on macpros.. or random pc's depending if they are using avid or not.
 
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i have 3 computers for video edit, they are all core 2 duo 2.66ghz, each with 4gig of ram (minor tweak on boot.ini to have it recognize up to 3 since some 32 bit software doesn't use the full 4), xp pro windows (no crashes for the last 3 years). Each also have a small 100gig c drive for program, and 4 500gig hard drives, and a dvd dual layer burner.

I use adobe product since I've been efficient with it when it was 4.2 on my 200mhz computer back in 1998.
 
I guess it depends on your patience, neither me nor my editor have patience to wait for a machine to do things it should already have done. We started editing on our MacBook Pros with 2.6 Ghz Dual Core processors and 4 gigs of RAM, it was way too slow for us, just unacceptable. It's a top-of-the-line laptop, that one, but it's not fast enough for HD in my opinion.

I just got this new computer, Mac Pro with four internal hard drives (stock 320 for applications, 1 TB, and two 750s), 10 gigs of RAM, 3.2 Ghz 8-core processors, an AJA KONA 3 video card, the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 graphics card, and we still have a 2 TB CalDigit HDOne on order that should ship in mid-to-late May, that has 8 hard drives in RAID 5 (or you can configure to other settings, we'll be doing RAID 5) with sustained transfer rates up to 400 megs/sec. Then we have a 20" Mac monitor with a 28" Hanns-G monitor, not the best for color accurate images but great for the timeline, personal applications, etc., then the HD/SD 17" BTLH-1700W pro reference monitor from Panasonic next to the Hanns-G for coloring. We can also send the signal out to the 40" Samsung 1080p HDTV. That's what we want for our workflow. Anything less is unacceptable ;)

This top-of-the-line machine is built for the future, too, though, anticipating working with RED footage or at least Scarlett footage, etc.
 
it's also gonna be obsolete in a few months when Native Quad Core's are released.

Just saying.
 
Not really, no.

There's no such thing as obsolete if a system functions for what it needs to do. If it can handle HVX200 footage as well as it can right now, which it will short of it breaking (there's the warranty for that), it'll be able to handle it just fine even if a computer 50 times as fast was released next month. Of course, I'd be jealous of anyone with the one 50 times as fast, but it wouldn't change our workflow. It takes almost no time at all to export files with this computer, the longest process is coloring and even that's fairly fast.
 
Boxx tech
WS Intel Dual Quad Core Enhanced Performance Processors
4GB FBDIMM DDR2 800 REG ECC (2 - 2GB FBDIMMS)
NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600G 1.5GB
150GB 10,000rpm SATA 16MB Cache (OS)
4TB Raid 10 Sata drives (Storage)
Avid media composer+Adrenaline
 
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