I'm just starting the process of assembling equipment to edit using Vegas 4 +DVD. If any of you advanced users can help me with your recommendations as to the best computer system or the specs of your working system I sure appreciate hearing from you. I know some have suggested building my own system but am not sure if I'm up to it or more importantly have the time to do it right. Are any of you using off the self systems? Dell? Gateway? Alienware?
Best Edit Computer
- Thread starter foosiemac
- Start date
Re: Best Edit Computer
Man - student has a rockin system. For getting started editing DV I think any recent computer will do the trick, with a few qualifications. An ADS Pyro or Siig firewire card seems to work pretty well for most people. People seem to have good luck with the Texas Instruments OHCI fire wire host controller, I believe this is the default controler in windows XP & should load for either of these cards.
I'd go dual monitor if you can, monitors are real cheap and your gonna' love all that screen real estate.
I think the soundcard is the most important thing for Vegas, then you can take advantage of all the surround stuff and man, is it cool. The Echo cards and M-Audio cards seem to work well for most people.
Get 2 or 3 fast hard drives with 3 year warranty's! Put the OS and programs on 1, all your media on the other 2 and remember to back stuff up!
Building a computer is actually pretty easy - if everything goes well. If you get a dodgy power supply or bad stick of ram and your not sure how to diagnose it - your life will rapidly deteriorate to the lowest level of hell. If you don't want to build it yourself there are tons of off the shelf comps available, Dell has a very good reputation.
Good luck and I hope some of this helps,
Yoyodyne
here's my system specs;
Intel 845pesv mobo
intel p4 2.4 proc
1 gig crucial ram
6 -80 gig hard drives
Promise raid (2 drives striped 0)
Siig Ata 133 controller (2 drives)
Contour Shuttle Pro
Pioneer AO5 DVD Burner
Echo Gina sound card
speakers - 3 Tannoy Active Reveals (left,center & right) 2 Event PS-5s (rear surrounds) & a polk sub.
Nvidia GeForce 2 MX 400 dual head card
2 -17 inch Sceptre monitors
ADS Pyro Firewire card
Windows XP Pro, Vegas + DVD, Acid Pro 4, Sound Forge, BBE Sonic Maximizer, Photoshop, After Effects, Cool 3d Production Studio
Man - student has a rockin system. For getting started editing DV I think any recent computer will do the trick, with a few qualifications. An ADS Pyro or Siig firewire card seems to work pretty well for most people. People seem to have good luck with the Texas Instruments OHCI fire wire host controller, I believe this is the default controler in windows XP & should load for either of these cards.
I'd go dual monitor if you can, monitors are real cheap and your gonna' love all that screen real estate.
I think the soundcard is the most important thing for Vegas, then you can take advantage of all the surround stuff and man, is it cool. The Echo cards and M-Audio cards seem to work well for most people.
Get 2 or 3 fast hard drives with 3 year warranty's! Put the OS and programs on 1, all your media on the other 2 and remember to back stuff up!
Building a computer is actually pretty easy - if everything goes well. If you get a dodgy power supply or bad stick of ram and your not sure how to diagnose it - your life will rapidly deteriorate to the lowest level of hell. If you don't want to build it yourself there are tons of off the shelf comps available, Dell has a very good reputation.
Good luck and I hope some of this helps,
Yoyodyne
here's my system specs;
Intel 845pesv mobo
intel p4 2.4 proc
1 gig crucial ram
6 -80 gig hard drives
Promise raid (2 drives striped 0)
Siig Ata 133 controller (2 drives)
Contour Shuttle Pro
Pioneer AO5 DVD Burner
Echo Gina sound card
speakers - 3 Tannoy Active Reveals (left,center & right) 2 Event PS-5s (rear surrounds) & a polk sub.
Nvidia GeForce 2 MX 400 dual head card
2 -17 inch Sceptre monitors
ADS Pyro Firewire card
Windows XP Pro, Vegas + DVD, Acid Pro 4, Sound Forge, BBE Sonic Maximizer, Photoshop, After Effects, Cool 3d Production Studio
Re: Best Edit Computer
I'm using:
P4 2.8
1.5 GB PC2700 DDR RAM (Crucial)
3 120GB Maxtor 7200 RPM, 8MB cache ATA/133 HDD (2 in a RAID 0)
ASUS P4S8X mobo
Nvidia GeForce 4 ti4800SE 128 MB 8X AGP dual-out card
HP 300i DVD burner
Creative Audigy2 Platinum 6.1 card
Logitech Z-680 THX 5.1 Surround Speakers
2 Samsung SyncMaster 955df 19" monitors
JVC SR-VS30 Mini-DV/S-VHS dual deck VCR
Toshiba 14" 14AF43 TV
XP Pro
Vegas + DVD
ACID Pro 4
SmartSound SonicFire Pro
Creative Media Source
Pinnacle Liquid Edition
Title Deko Pro
Sonic ReelDVD
Commotion Pro 4.1
I'm looking to add After Effects Pro soon.
I'm using:
P4 2.8
1.5 GB PC2700 DDR RAM (Crucial)
3 120GB Maxtor 7200 RPM, 8MB cache ATA/133 HDD (2 in a RAID 0)
ASUS P4S8X mobo
Nvidia GeForce 4 ti4800SE 128 MB 8X AGP dual-out card
HP 300i DVD burner
Creative Audigy2 Platinum 6.1 card
Logitech Z-680 THX 5.1 Surround Speakers
2 Samsung SyncMaster 955df 19" monitors
JVC SR-VS30 Mini-DV/S-VHS dual deck VCR
Toshiba 14" 14AF43 TV
XP Pro
Vegas + DVD
ACID Pro 4
SmartSound SonicFire Pro
Creative Media Source
Pinnacle Liquid Edition
Title Deko Pro
Sonic ReelDVD
Commotion Pro 4.1
I'm looking to add After Effects Pro soon.
Re: Best Edit Computer
I'd like to tell each of you who took the time to answer my inquiry how much I appreciate your information. You have some kick-ass systems, which inspire me to save a few more bucks before I set up my own computer. If anyone has some less advanced systems that work well with Vegas, I'd like to hear from you too.
THANKS
I'd like to tell each of you who took the time to answer my inquiry how much I appreciate your information. You have some kick-ass systems, which inspire me to save a few more bucks before I set up my own computer. If anyone has some less advanced systems that work well with Vegas, I'd like to hear from you too.
THANKS
Re: Best Edit Computer
Due to my job I only have a laptop (some Toshiba P4 1.7 from last year's line-up). I upgraded the internal HDD to 60 gig and bough an external Firewire 80 gig 7200 rpm HDD and an external DVD burner. Shuttle Pro goes w/o saying.
Obviously I do this more as a hobby.
But this setup does the trick and fits into any carry-on...
Due to my job I only have a laptop (some Toshiba P4 1.7 from last year's line-up). I upgraded the internal HDD to 60 gig and bough an external Firewire 80 gig 7200 rpm HDD and an external DVD burner. Shuttle Pro goes w/o saying.
Obviously I do this more as a hobby.
But this setup does the trick and fits into any carry-on...
Sol M.
Veteran
Re: Best Edit Computer
I used to run Vegas on a 600mHz Pentium 3 w/768Mb RAM.
Vegas ran fine, there was a enough realtime functionality to not be TOO hindering. In my experience, Vegas is pretty forgiving as far as power goes. You don't NEED a dual proc with 4GB RAM to run it well. However, rendering will speed up as you increase the computer's power. Just don't shell out too much more for an incrementally better system (2.4GHz vs 2.8GHz) as rendering time will not decrease by an incredible amount.
I used to run Vegas on a 600mHz Pentium 3 w/768Mb RAM.
Vegas ran fine, there was a enough realtime functionality to not be TOO hindering. In my experience, Vegas is pretty forgiving as far as power goes. You don't NEED a dual proc with 4GB RAM to run it well. However, rendering will speed up as you increase the computer's power. Just don't shell out too much more for an incrementally better system (2.4GHz vs 2.8GHz) as rendering time will not decrease by an incredible amount.
G
Guest
Guest
Re: Best Edit Computer
Here is what we are recommending as the minimum system for getting great results.
- 2.4 + Ghz Hyper-Threaded P4 processor or Dual 1.8 Ghz P4/ Athlon
- 512+ Megs of RAM
- A dedicated 7200 RPM drive for video (can be EIDE, FireWire, SCSI or Serial ATA)
- A decent 3D graphics card with 64+ Megs of RAM. (I recommend a dual head card - once you go dual you'll never go back)
We've got a recommended systems page on our website that goes into much more detail http://www.videoguys.com/system.htm
Gary
Videoguys.com
Here is what we are recommending as the minimum system for getting great results.
- 2.4 + Ghz Hyper-Threaded P4 processor or Dual 1.8 Ghz P4/ Athlon
- 512+ Megs of RAM
- A dedicated 7200 RPM drive for video (can be EIDE, FireWire, SCSI or Serial ATA)
- A decent 3D graphics card with 64+ Megs of RAM. (I recommend a dual head card - once you go dual you'll never go back)
We've got a recommended systems page on our website that goes into much more detail http://www.videoguys.com/system.htm
Gary
Videoguys.com
Z
Zoomforce
Guest
Re: Best Edit Computer
I have used vegas on a 500mhz Pentium Laptop with 380mb ram.. it wasnt very fun but it worked.
I have used vegas on a 500mhz Pentium Laptop with 380mb ram.. it wasnt very fun but it worked.