Recommended PC For HVX200 Editing

darmanb

darmanb

Well-known member
Can anyone who has experience and tried out the PC editing system in conjuction with HVX200, recomend me the setup (from motherboard - chip - hard drives - graphics - video card - monitors etc. etc.) of a solid PC system that will edit and distribute HVX200 footage (all formats)?

Do I, or do I not NEED a 10,000rpm Hard Drives?
I saw some HDV editing setups which are sold as a PC editing solutions with 7200rpm hard drives!?

Thanks!
 
Just buy yourself a Mac and forget the headaches and instability of the PC platform. You just plug it in and start cutting. You don't even need anything that fast or new. I cut varicam footage on a 800mhz G4 laptop without a hitch. You'll also see that the only time PC people aren't cursing their own boxes.. is when they are defending them against happy Mac people.
 
I have a 'old' Pentium4 3.2MHz 1gb RAM Media Center PC....

I have never upgraded systems (except add in RAMs)
Does anyone know how to upgrade a desktop to Dual Xeons... I checked newegg, they sell these chips for around $500... so I am thinking of droping $1K to furnish my hardware to get ready for HVX...

anyone has a similar project in mind... if so, can u share ur shopping list?
 
I thought the MacBook Pros don't have PCMCIA Type II slots, which are useful for the P2 cards of the HVX200? In any case, I would wait for Intel based PowerBooks rather than purchase a MacBook now, especially since Final Cut Pro and other applications have yet to be ported over in March.

And darmanb, I would first consider which editing software you want to go with before deciding on the hardware. I believe Avid Xpress Pro may be the only software you can consider right now until more support is announced from other PC NLE manufacturers. Deciding on the software should help you decide on the hardware purchases. This is particularly true if you're going Avid.

For the hard drives, you don't necessarily need 10,000 RPM hard drives. But if you can afford it, go for it. Hard drives are usually the slowest parts of any computer.
 
Justyn said:
Just buy yourself a Mac and forget the headaches and instability of the PC platform. You just plug it in and start cutting. You don't even need anything that fast or new. I cut varicam footage on a 800mhz G4 laptop without a hitch.
Click to expand...

As much as I hate to admit it, there does seem to be some truth to that. I thought I could order a maxed out dual Xeon to replace our two year old G5. The Xeon does render faster, but crashes a lot more than the Mac. It could be the brand, though...we asked for Alienware, but finance said ' dude, you're getting a D__l!:embarasse

I haven't decided which HD camera is right for me, but I needed an external HD for my (PC) laptop, so I just ordered the small G-Raid. It claims to support 3 streams of DVCPro HD footage (I just need it to handle one). Its a bit overkill if I opt for a HDV cam instead, but at $320, its still one of the cheapest parts of the workflow. If I get the HVX, I don't mind being tethered to an AC outlet (and really long extension cords) until P2 cards can hold at least 30 minutes of HD each.
 
redindian said:
I have a 'old' Pentium4 3.2MHz 1gb RAM Media Center PC....

I have never upgraded systems (except add in RAMs)
Does anyone know how to upgrade a desktop to Dual Xeons... I checked newegg, they sell these chips for around $500... so I am thinking of droping $1K to furnish my hardware to get ready for HVX...

anyone has a similar project in mind... if so, can u share ur shopping list?
Click to expand...

If you want to go to a dual processor system, you will have to buy a new motherboard, probably a new power supply and new processors. You may need new RAM and video card too depending on what you already have...

At $1K to spend, you won't be getting a new Mac and all the software you'll want or need. I guess you could get a Mac Mini and a DVI+VGA+USB KVM switch and set it next to your system and buy Final Cut Pro and you'll have a bare minimum Mac solution for about $1300. Also at $1K, you won't be getting a dual CPU upgrade for your current box either. Depending on your motherboard, you may be able to swap out your CPU for a PentiumD and have the additional CPU core, but the current PentiumD is a very expensive and crappy CPU. :( IMO, I wouldn't sink much more into upgrading that current system... You go too far with upgrades, sometimes you're better off to sell the current system and buy a new one. Throw another 1GB of RAM in there. Don't put more than 3GB in it... 32bit Windows can't use it.

The problem with the PC right now is there are no good edit solutions for the HVX. I wouldn't recommend buying Avid Xpress Pro. There are far too many bugs and issues and you have to re-encode the video to Avid's DNxHD just to be able to work with it at a decent frame rate.

I wouldn't upgrade your PC just yet, rather save those pennies and wait until you get your hands on an HVX. Then consider all the options at that time... Things could be vastly different next month and especially in April when NAB comes around. I'd hate to blow a bunch of money on PC upgrades to find that they weren't worth it and/or you will still need a Mac solution to do the things you want.

I'm predominantly a PC guy and have been for years and build several systems each year. But in terms of the HVX, I just sucked it up and bought a G5 Quad and Final Cut Studio. I'm not going to wait around for the PC software vendors to announce a product and then I have to pay them to beta test for the first few versions... No thanks. My HVX will be here soon and so should my new system and software and I'll be ready to actually create something. I had to buy the Dell 30" LCD though...
 
Hey there darmanb, no need for a mac. I'm running Avid Xpress Pro HD on a PC and am having no problems at all editing raw HVX footage with ease. The only gripe about Avid is that you can't use the pulldown feature for a 1080p file, but I hear you can't do this with FCP either.

I'm running an AMD64 3500 with
2x 7200rpm 200gb Seagate SATA drives
an ATI Radeon x850xt video card
and
2 gigs of Corsair XMS ram

Quite a cheap system and it does the job fine, plenty of speed and quick rendering times. Don't let these Mac boys get to ya. =)
 
Mr. Blonde said:
Hey there darmanb, no need for a mac. I'm running Avid Xpress Pro HD on a PC and am having no problems at all editing raw HVX footage with ease.
Click to expand...

True. But the only problem is you can't monitor HD-w-Xpress Pro HD. Avid has a vested interest in protecting its Adrenaline and Nitris customers.
 
your going to spend more than 1k upgrading to dual on your old comp... and after everything installed theres a strong chance you will have problems with the parts.. i say spend 2k on a stalk dual 5g or a macbook. macs are built much sturdier and rarely ever have hardware problems..
 
Thanks for all the input.
Exactly what I was expecting from all of the extremely knowledgable people around here :)
Thanks guys!

I am not running away from different solutions, regardless if it is MAC or PC, I just want it to work - but not have to pay 10,000 USD for it :)

PC would be cost saving (thanks Mr. Blonde) and I currently run on:
Windows XP + Vegas 5/After Effects 6 + 2.4GHz Pentium IV + 1Gig RAM + 2 x 80GB 7200RPM Maxtor HDDrives + ATI 128Mb + DVX100 (of course) :)
This system works so fine that I don't want to change a thing with it.
Maybe a little slower rendering times from complex timelines, but that' about it!
I know that this PC is not capable of editing HD without a serious upgrade.
I think that it's better to invest in complete new PC and leave the current PC (with all of it's components) for other/smaller applications. Because it works fine and selling it would not be a good option.

This is the offer from a local dealer and please tell me what do you think about it:

1 x Motherboard/Gigabyte K8NF-9 S939/SATA/LAN/RAID = 146 USD
1 x CPU/AMD ATH 3800 + Box Manchester/Dual Core 939 = 499 USD
2 x Samsung 1GB DDR = 403 USD
1 x GrCard/Gainward Ultra 1980 TV/DVI/Geforce GF6600GT/PCIE 256Mb = 245 USD
2 x Maxtor/200GB HDD/SATA 300 = 300 USD
1 x Maxtor/80GB HDD/ATA 133 = 79 USD
1 x Case/Thermaltake/Kandalf = 275 USD
1 x Power Supply/Chieftec 550W = 56 USD

Total: 2,000 USD

This configuration is without any monitors, which is another thing I need to ask you guys - which one(s) should I buy for editing and which one for HD-out preview?

Thanks
 
The config is good, but you should definitely switch the Athlon X2 processor with the Opteron 175, HUGE Bang for buck, it absolutely rocks and has relatively small price difference compared to actual performance gain.

Also the PSU (Power Supply) is not that good, take a look at some better options from OCZ like the Modstream (I have that one it's absolutely great):

http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/power_management/ocz_modstream_power_supply

Or the Powerstream for more drive:

http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/power_management/ocz_powerstream_power_supply


As for the monitors, read on the forum posts, the 24' Dell seems to be having great reviews here
 
Hey, Darmanb, the config looks good just prices seem a littl' bit high. You can consider finding some better prices around here in the Balkans, for example here in Sofia you can find quite a good deal on processors, HDD's and especially Ram.

Question for jazzx: could you please elaborate a little on the Opteron - Athlon X2 difference in performance? I was going for the athlon dual core but one trouble I have with it is that I practically can't find a dual processor motherboard that would host a couple of those babies (I would really appreciate if someone points me to a manifacturer and / or a model of dual processor MB for the new Atholn 64 dual cores! Thanks!). Whereas this is not the case with the opteron, there are some MBs that would host two opterons. So, hence my hesitation:

If the difference in performance Athlon64 dual core/opteron is worth it better go dual opteron?

what do ya think?
 
Stay away from MAXTOR !!!

Stay away from MAXTOR !!!

Hey there,

There's one more thing...
Stay away from MAXTOR hard-drives.
They are the most unreliable hard-drives out there.

Out of 5 Maxtor hard-drives I owned, 4 crashed within less then 1 year from the purchase time (just about the duration of their warranty). In some cases within less then 2 or 3 months.
If you care about your work, protect it!
Don't store it on the worst hard-drives out there just because they're slightly cheaper.

I now work almost exclusively with Seagate Barracuda hard-drives (5 years warranty) and am very happy with them. great performance and reliability.
Also, for improved performance (and RAID compatibility) I'd recommend SATA drives instead of ATA. That's what I did. I now have several Ultra ATA Seagate Barracuda drives and several Seagate Barracuda SATA drives (4 of them in a RAID 5 system) and I'm very pleased with them.

I hope that helps...

Yuval.
 
I fully agree with Yuval. If you've going to get Maxtor you might as well buy two or three while you're at it, because as faulty as those things are you will need to backup your backups. I've bought my last Maxtor. 100% Seagate now.

To be clear, I wouldn't use Maxtor if they were GIVING them away. The experiences have been that bad.
 
Osmicata:

The Athlon X2 line of procs are not configured to be in dual socket motheboards, that's why you can't find any.

The good thing about the Opteron 175 is that a) It has 1mb L2 cache per core b) It's socket 939 meaning that it can fit in the dektop m\b's c) It's a server type processor meaning better performance, more stability, less power consumption and c) It rocks dude!



I have an Athlon 64 3200+ and it's definitely my next upgrade..

Absolutely agreed about the Maxtors, I always use seagates, now that Seagate bought Maxtor I hope we don't get a decrease in quality....
 
thankx, jazzx! do you think that a single opteron would be sufficient for hvx footage cut? I presume yes. Other things being equal I get it that opteron 175 is better than dual core 64 athlon.

BTW what about western digital HDDs? Any particular thoughts about them?
 
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