Will I be ok using a PC?

Londude said:
You sound rich.
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Hardly. I have employer who understands that my time is money, and he'd rather pay for hardware once, than pay me to sit around on the clock waiting for timeline renders. We work on deadlines, and if we can't meet them, there are problems. So he asks what I need, I give honest answers, and they try to buy it. Simple as that.

Buying an expensive graphics card hurts your wallet up front. But it probably saves me an hour a day. With 24 working days a month times whatever your time is worth, let's say $25/hr which is what I charge for cheapie freelance work, that's $600. The average graphics card has paid for itself already. In another 4 months, I've saved the cost of my new edit suite. And in a year's time, I've saved the cost of my editing machine. Just from that 1 hour per day.

If you work for yourself, slow machines cost time, money, and productivity. And in a corporate environment, if you miss deadlines, they could cost you your job.
 
PerroneFord said:
Vegas won't use the GPU. Sadly. It puts the entire load on the CPU which is quite frankly, not optimized for the task of handling video. You are using the "lite" variant of AVCHD as the full spec is 24Mbps and quite a lot harder to handle than the 17Mbps. The folks trying to lay footage on the timeline from the 5D and 7D are dealing with a very similar codec but at 40Mbps and 48Mbps respectively.

If you plan on doing work in After Effects, you are going to have to stop fooling with AVCHD and transcode to a proper editing codec. AVCHD will not survive the round-trip though After Effects without falling apart. So be prepared with adequate disk space to go to something much more robust, perhaps even uncompressed. Your files will be 10-25x larger.

Your video card is a good one, but certain programs are able to take advantage of the new chipsets available, especially the CUDA processor in the newer NVida cards.

I use AAV Colorlab as well, and it does use the GPU. But it's not doing anything very tricky so you don't gain much with it. Take a look at the reccommended specs for photoshop, Aftereffects, and whatever 3d program you intend to use. If you only meet the minimum spec, expect minimum performance... :)
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Thanks for the advice! I'm already using Cineform's Neoscene to transcode my 1080p footage, so I'll start using that for all my footage when I do After Effects. Would you consider that a good editing codec?

Also, one more question. I'm currently running 6GB of RAM. For After Effects and 3D work, do you think I'd benefit more from upgrading to 12GB or upgrading my 9800GT to a GTX260 or 275?
 
Londude said:
So your a PC techie? You build/customise and repair computers?
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It's actually not that hard to become a PC techie. There's tons of info on the net about how to build and choose parts for your next computer.

I think I posted this before, but will do it again... forums.anandtech.com General Hardware forum has a great guide on how to build a computer. Perhaps a bit outdated but it goes through all the basics.

Then from there I'd hit up www.overclock.net which is a great community with people ready to help you pick parts and learn how to put it together and overclock it.

It's really rewarding once you're all done and you have a really fast computer to boot.
 
yabyum said:
Thanks for the advice! I'm already using Cineform's Neoscene to transcode my 1080p footage, so I'll start using that for all my footage when I do After Effects. Would you consider that a good editing codec?

Also, one more question. I'm currently running 6GB of RAM. For After Effects and 3D work, do you think I'd benefit more from upgrading to 12GB or upgrading my 9800GT to a GTX260 or 275?
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Cineform is an excellent editing codec. One of the best in fact. Does After Effects work with it?

I cannot say whether you'd benefit from more RAM or not. That should be asked of the folks who make the programs you'll be using. If they have a forum, ask over there. And ask about a graphics card. If they take advantage of the CUDA, then buying a faster card would be smart. If not, just stick with what you have.
 
yabyum said:
Also, one more question. I'm currently running 6GB of RAM. For After Effects and 3D work, do you think I'd benefit more from upgrading to 12GB or upgrading my 9800GT to a GTX260 or 275?
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For those programs, you will benefit more from adding RAM then upgrading your video card. It is recommended to allocate at least 2 gigs of ram per core in AE. your video card is pretty decent. I'd wait and upgrade to a direct X 11 capable card after they become more widely available/cheaper.
 
Efexone said:
For those programs, you will benefit more from adding RAM then upgrading your video card. It is recommended to allocate at least 2 gigs of ram per core in AE. your video card is pretty decent. I'd wait and upgrade to a direct X 11 capable card after they become more widely available/cheaper.
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Cool. Thanks for the input. I'll order that next 6GB then :)
 
Would you guys mind checking out these 2 Pcs and give me you opinion???

One is over $1000 cheaper than the other which would start me off well, and not sure whether I need to spend over 2 grand on the other better one. Let me know what you think it be ver much appreciated, thanks. The website is New Zealands own version of eBay.

Computer no.1 -http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=265851823

Computer no.2 -http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=264934777
 
Londude said:
Would you guys mind checking out these 2 Pcs and give me you opinion???

One is over $1000 cheaper than the other which would start me off well, and not sure whether I need to spend over 2 grand on the other better one. Let me know what you think it be ver much appreciated, thanks. The website is New Zealands own version of eBay.

Computer no.1 -http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=265851823

Computer no.2 -http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=264934777
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Those links didn't work when I put them in my browser...
 
Londude said:
Would you guys mind checking out these 2 Pcs and give me you opinion???

One is over $1000 cheaper than the other which would start me off well, and not sure whether I need to spend over 2 grand on the other better one. Let me know what you think it be ver much appreciated, thanks. The website is New Zealands own version of eBay.

Computer no.1 -http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=265851823

Computer no.2 -http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=264934777
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Neither one seems good value to my mind. Not for this application.
 
Londude said:
And why not? Can you tell me why?
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Sure... because a machine for editing HD video needs an abundance of:

1. CPU power
2. RAM
3. Hard drive S\space
4. Video processing power.

The less expensive machine offers meager CPU power, not enough RAM, woeful hard drive space, and no video processing power to speak of. For over twice the cost, the expensive model offers enough CPU power, woeful amounts of RAM and Hard drive, and a video card that most major video companies are not supporting for our work.

Maybe those machines are normal in your country, but in the US, they would not be competitive in the least.

[edit]

Just took a look at the exchange rate. Apparently, the current exchange rate is nearly 1.5:1 between us, so a $2k machine to you is a $1500 machine to us. Given that, I would say that anyone who expects to do significant editing of HD material in the US is looking at a $1500-$3k machine. So use that as a guide.
 
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But I'm editing standard definition video, I have a DVX100b??? I'm not using a HD camera. I just need a machine that will do the job , better than the peice of **** I have at the moment.
 
Here's a pretty good computer, but it's a tad over budget at $2225.64 without monitor: http://www.ascent.co.nz/productspecification.aspx?ItemID=384433

That's a New Zealand site too, price in NZ as well I believe. Just a few problems with it:

-Lack of hard drive space, only 1 1TB drive included. You can easily buy and install more though. Not hard at all.

-Radeon 4870, it's a pretty decent card but I think most of the programs you'll be using would be better with an Nvidia card. You can also easily fix this by selling the 4870 and buying a GTX260 or even 9800GTX+ or something to go with it.

-Kind of a crappy PSU if you want to do any overclocking. Again, easily fixable if you buy a new PSU.

The good news is, it's an i7 920 system with 6GB of RAM. The better news imo is that it has a pretty good motherboard, so you'd be able to overclock it to ~4GHz with the right cooling solution (can be had for $120 with this puppy, the Megahalems heatsink: http://www.ascent.co.nz/productspecification.aspx?ItemID=381333).

Oh, I see that you're editing standard def video. Well a lot of machines will do that job, but again, the faster the computer the less time it takes to render.
 
Ok I'm confused now.......which of those 2 computers a should i get? Will the $1000 PC do me fine?
 
Computer no.1-Specs:

CPU: NEW Socket AM3 AMD Athlon II 620 2.6Ghz x 4 Quad Core Processor - VERY FAST!

Motherboard: ASUS M2N68-AM AM3 Ready Motherboard, excellent quality 1 PCI-E 2 PCI.

RAM: 4GB DDR2-800 Fast Memory

HDD: 500GB SATAII 7200RPM

DVD: 22X Dual Layer DVD-RW

Graphics: Nvidia Geforce 9500GT 1GB (1024MB) DX10 Great choice for gaming/photo/video editing!

Case: Supercase TX373 Solidly built mATX with dual rail PSU

OS: Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium fully installed with discs and certificates supplied
 
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