PC for DVD editing

[Peter Stahl]

I want to upgrade my PC and be able to edit TV programs onto a DVD. I have a DVD recorder on my TV but would like to be able to use a PC to cut out commercials, change titles, etc. What would be the minimum, P4, 2.4 GHz processor, 512mb memory. What else would I need. Are there any tuner/recorder cards for a PC? Most channels I record are analog but I do have a Comcast PVR too for the digital ones. Also what PC is your preference? I was thinking Dell. What software do you use to edit Show/movies on your PC?

thanks, Pete

[Jim Becker]

Up that memory substantially, Pete. 1gb minimum, more if you can. Editing photography and video requires a lot of memory. You also need the right video setup for display, not just for the TV card...of which there are a number of them available including a nice one from ATI. Go DVI on your display, too...makes a huge difference in clarity...no way would I go back to analog!

I am a fan of Dell Machines myself. Mine is a P4 3ghz with 1gb of RAM. That's the minimum I'd recommend and I don't even do video (yet).

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Peter, I had a Dell built for my wife who is an avid amateur photographer/videographer. Take the memory to the max! You'll need it. The first project she performed was to scan in about 1900 family photos and turn them into a 1 hour video set to music for her parents 60th wedding anniversary. You'll want all the disc and memory you can get. There is also a device I bought for her from Dell ...can't remember what it's called but it sits on the desk top and allow for all current forms of video to be inputed and outputed via this device. She can transfer video in analog or digital forms from a camcorder or vcr to the computer, edit and then transfer it back to the vcr or camcorder in either analog or digital formats. It transfers audio too! Good luck with your decision!

[Peter Stahl]

Jim, Ken, thanks for the replies.

Jim, DVI is the type of Video card I'm guessing, if so how much memory on that , 128 mb enough?

Ken, Could you ask your wife what that input device is called? I'd like to do something like that with my pics too!

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Peter....the device is called a video capture adapter and it was sold in conjuntion with Dells video editing software package. I saw other companies selling software and adapters at other computer companies like Tigerdirect. This device has a single cable running to the computer and the device is diamond shaped. One side of the diamond has connectors and is marked INPUT. Another side of the diamond has the same type of connectors and is marked OUTPUT.

[Jim Becker]

Jim, DVI is the type of Video card I'm guessing, if so how much memory on that , 128 mb enough?

DVI is the digital output for the LCD monitors that accept digital input...best thing since sliced bread. 128mb on the card will work; 256mb isn't unreasonable if you plan on working at very high resolutions and high color densitites. I believe my card is 128mb.

As to the external "box" mentioned, I believe Sony recently introduced an entry in this space.

[Peter Stahl]

Ken & Jim,

Thanks again. Looks like the Video Capture Adapter is a special adapter so you can hook up your camcorder, camera, etc. Not sure if I'll need that but will keep in mind.

thanks, Pete

[Jerry Clark]

Be prepared with lots of patiences and disappointments-- It is not as easy as copying a disk. There is a big learning curve, but will be worth it when you master it. I have done some short ones, the longer ones are a lot of work. And as has been said, get as much memory as you can, some people use 4 gig. Memory chips are a lot cheaper now because of the surplus.:D

[Bill Arnold]

Up that memory substantially, ... 1gb minimum, more if you can. Editing photography and video requires a lot of memory. ...

Jim,

Is there anyplace to get Dell RAM anywhere but Dell? They seem to be real proud of theirs.

I've got a Dimension 8250, P4, 2.4GHz, 256MB RAM, dual monitors (NVIDIA Geforce 4 on a 19" Dell 992; NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 on a 17" Viewsonic). The system operates well even with multiple windows open while editing images, etc; of course, it's paging quite a lot!

Regards,

[Curt Harms]

I've always had PC's, but if I were looking for primarily a video editor, I'd look at the $499 Mac. It doesn't come with keyboard, mouse etc. but I think keyboards etc. with USB connections will work with PC or Mac. Macs have been the default professional multimedia machines for a while now and if the $499 machine didn't require major upgrades to work....

I was also reading an article about Dreamworks and other studios using AMD opteron 64 bit machines. Supposed to be fast and stable.

[Jim Becker]

Is there anyplace to get Dell RAM anywhere but Dell? They seem to be real proud of theirs.

Just about any place that sells RAM can help you out...Dell uses standard parts. For a well set up site, you should be able to just use your model number to cross reference.

[Mike Ramsey]

Go to Crucial or kingston's website and look up your model,usually arrives in 2 days after you place an order.
Jim,

Is there anyplace to get Dell RAM anywhere but Dell? They seem to be real proud of theirs.

I've got a Dimension 8250, P4, 2.4GHz, 256MB RAM, dual monitors (NVIDIA Geforce 4 on a 19" Dell 992; NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 on a 17" Viewsonic). The system operates well even with multiple windows open while editing images, etc; of course, it's paging quite a lot!

Regards,

[Perry Schmidt]

Peter - I did this very exercise about 9 months ago...and learned a lot :) I ended up with a 2.8GHZ P4 and that has plenty of power for video editing. Rendering isn't blazing fast, but good. Memory - I have 512MB and some editing programs don't use all 512MB, others chew it up fast. But the general recommendation of others to get more is right on the money.

The two biggest areas that will make more of a difference than more than 512MB memory and faster processor are your video card and disks.

Video card: For video capture and edit the the ATI All in Wonder with the Theatre-based chipset. This is a very good chipset for capture. Other chipsets (in the less than $500 range) for video capture seem to have many problems except this card. The key isn't the card, it's the Theatre-base chipset. I don't know of any other cards that use this chipset, but I'm sure there are others. The ATI TV card does not use this chipset. 128MB on the video works well. Your higher video memory really comes into play for graphics/gaming, not video capture/edit. The biggest advantage a good card will give you is less dropped frames. With my setup I can capture a show and drop virtually no frames, and still do some small tasks in the background. A smaller CPU, or less memory or a video card that does less processing will really tax your computer and you will drop frames when capturing.

Disks: You want two very large (160GB and up) SATA disks. These are good through-put disks. When you edit you will increase your render time significantly by having your source on one disk and writing your finished video onto the 2nd disk. IDE disks will be very slow. SCSI disks are faster, but very expensive!

Software: If you are having to render your video, there's lots of products out there. Adobe makes a good one, Ulead has it's problems, but is generally good. Roxio is good, but limited to your output formats. Others that I've used (Pinnacle, Nero, Sonic) are really buggy. Pegasus makes VERY Good products but I haven't used their video editing/rendering products much. But lots of people say good things about them. For me ULead wasn't necessarily the best, but it was the least buggy, most complete package. I don't use it much for editing anymore, but still use it for DVD authoring.

Pegasys (www.pegasys-inc.com) has a very nice, fast 'editor' that does nothing but cut clips of video out, and allows you to rearrange the clips. VERY useful tool.

So if you're going to be editing tapes/TV shows, this TMPGEnc Editor (the Pegasys-inc tool I'm talking about above) works great! You capture the show/tape in MPEG format (which is what the ATI card does very well) at the final settings you want, edit it and write it out. The editing tool doesn't re-encode the MPEG file. All it has to reencode is the endpoints of your clips. So what you get is a finished file that has no quality loss from the captured MPEG, and writes out about as fast as your disks will copy the file. If the whole file is re-encoded - like most software does - an hour show took from 1-2 hours to reencode after editing, depending on the software.

If you are going to be editing home video and adding effects, then that's a lot different. Here you'll probably download from your camera via a fire-wire or USB port, so no video capture card is even needed. This will transfer the file in AVI format - raw, uncompressed video. VERY large files. You edit it, add effects, text, scene transistion, etc. (which ULead, Roxio, and Adobe all make good programs for this) then the finished product is rendered and encoded into MPEG format. This takes raw CPU power, memory and fast disks. The faster you have of this combiniation the faster it will render. My system (2.8MHz, 512MB, 2 SATA drives) will render in almost real-time speed depending on the software package, which is pretty good. But that's still a long time (2 hour video takes 2 hours...)

Both types of editing really require two differnet sets of software, and some hardware differences. The software isn't cheap, so take advantage of the trial software and really test it out. I loved the features and interface of Pinnacles software but it would never render a program without crashing. Roxio was very nice and not buggy, but the MPEG output options were very limited. ULead was very nice software...the interface wasn't quite as nice as Roxio or Pinnacle, but it was the most feature rich and not too buggy. And Pegasys software is very good...but you have to buy 3 different programs to do what one of ULeads programs will do. So there's a lot out there. I made the mistake of not really putting the trial software through it's paces before buying and ended up buying an 'extra program' I really didn't need in the end. Today I have two differrent programs for two different tasks - editing commercials out I use TMPGEnc Editor. For cam-corder video I use ULead. I've used Adobe's some, and it seems really nice, but it was very slow. Their professional product is VERY good, and VERY expensive. The 'average user' software is a trimmed down version of the pro product. I think some day it will be a very good product.

So there's lots of choices.

Check out these sites for more info:
http://www.digitalfaq.com/
http://www.videohelp.com/

There's a ton of info on these sites, especially the 2nd one. The first site is a good 'how-to' site, the 2nd one is a good reference site for tools, etc.

Hope this helps.

Perry

[Peter Stahl]

I've always had PC's, but if I were looking for primarily a video editor, I'd look at the $499 Mac. It doesn't come with keyboard, mouse etc. but I think keyboards etc. with USB connections will work with PC or Mac. Macs have been the default professional multimedia machines for a while now and if the $499 machine didn't require major upgrades to work....

I was also reading an article about Dreamworks and other studios using AMD opteron 64 bit machines. Supposed to be fast and stable.

Curt,

Thanks for the reply but I'll be staying with a IBM clone.

Pete

[Peter Stahl]

Perry,

Thanks for the reply. Looks like you've got a nice setup. Lots of good info there,

Pete

[John Hart]

My machine is set up with the ATI All-In-Wonder card. It's nice because it interfaces with all the known video input types and the accompanying software has good capture and editing cabilities. I have a stack of DVDs and Video CDs that make that "rainy day with nothing on TV" very enjoyable.

[Bill Arnold]

Jim and Mike,

My Dimension 8250 uses RIMM strips -- not 'standard' memory (whatever that means :) ).

Interestingly, when I checked the Kingston website, they don't list any compatible memory. However, I did a Google for RIMM and found it at computer-memory-store.com with the manufacturer choices being Kingston and Samsung. Their price is $540 for 1GB plus shipping; Dell's price is about$740 for the same.

Checking further at the Dell site, I could buy a new desktop (Dimension 8400) with 1GB DDR2 SDRAM, P4-3000, etc. for $604! Sometimes these pricing schedules amaze me. :confused:

Oh, well -- on with the day...:rolleyes:

[Bill Arnold]

... I have a stack of DVDs and Video CDs that make that "rainy day with nothing on TV" very enjoyable.
LOML works for the cable company (I spent most of my life in engineering management in cable also). We get all levels of service (except PPV) free, which includes a couple hundred channels.:eek: There are also several channels that offer VOD (Video On Demand). Sad to say there are times I just want to be a couch potato for a while and cannot find anything worth watching! :rolleyes: Not sure what that means, but just tossing it into the mix...;)

[Charlie Plesums]

Jim and Mike,

My Dimension 8250 uses RIMM strips -- not 'standard' memory (whatever that means :) ).

Interestingly, when I checked the Kingston website, they don't list any compatible memory. However, I did a Google for RIMM and found it at computer-memory-store.com with the manufacturer choices being Kingston and Samsung. Their price is $540 for 1GB plus shipping; Dell's price is about$740 for the same....

I recently dropped 6 old PCs off at Goodwill (my ancient machines, plus my son shut down a business) - they asked me to take them to the central computer location in Austin, where they also had a computer outlet store as well as a computer museum.

In the Goodwill computer outlet store, they had trays of memory - including what looked like the memory strips in our Dell 8200 - I wasn't looking for memory, but I did notice that most of the strips were priced $20 each - it looked like it was irrespective of capacity. I asked about guarantee - 7 day money back if it doesn't work to your expectations. Austin is a high tech town of 500,000 but I bet Tampa would have a comparable place.

[Robert Mickley]

I've spent part of my free time looking for a website that I thought I bookmarked. :( It took you through all the steps in setting up your computer for doing digital revordings and burning them to CD. Darned if I can find it though.

The one thing I do remember is they reccomended the
http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_pvr500mcekit.html

The big advantage they claimed was that rendering was done on card as not to use up system resouces. And they where happy with the packaged software, while not perfect the sofftware would work just fine.

[Steven Wilson]

Remember that uncompressed broadcast quality video is 1GB/30secs. I use to use a computer to edit video and my control card was $6K (Fast Video machine) and the VCR's were $5-$10K each (need three). If I were setting up for DV today I would go with 1-2GB of ram and then a Raid 5 array of high RPM disk drives. The newer drive types are fast enough so that you shouldn't need SCSI. If raid drives aren't in your future then have two drives for editing besides your main OS drive. As for cards I haven't checked them out recently but go with the best you can afford as video/audio sync has always been an issue with the lower priced video capture cards. I also prefer to use a SMPTE time code / video sync (video black) device to provide a stable sync clock - always handy when you deal with outboard devices.

[Charlie Plesums]

Remember that uncompressed broadcast quality video is 1GB/30secs. I use to use a computer to edit video and my control card was $6K (Fast Video machine) and the VCR's were $5-$10K each (need three). ...
Geesh you made me feel old. When I worked in broadcast many years ago, the VCRs were $75,000 each, and required 3 racks of electronics apiece. They were black and white only, and had to be started 8 seconds before the signal was stable enough to "take" on the air. Digital memory was $1 per bit, so nobody even considered doing the type of editing we do now.

[Andy Fox]

I configured two 150 GB SATA drives with RAID 0 so that the data is striped across both drives. You really should have a motherboard with hardware RAID support to do this. RAID 0 significantly improves write performance, but if either fails, all data is gone. The safest way to do this is to put the OS and other non-video files on a non-RAID disk.

I built my own 2 years ago using the hardware recommendations at http://www.hardwareguys.com/picks/picks.html

[Al Willits]

Got close to what Andy does except 2 80 gig hd's and Raid 0, not so sure about it raising speed significantly but it will make it a bit faster, something I doubt will make any difference with what you want to do.
fwiw I'd take a look at Newegg.com for comp parts and maybe try a website like DVDRhelp.com to get ya into video editing, they'll have ways of saving money and short cuts with what your doing.

You can probably add an external hard drive to your system and save some money there, 200-300 gig is what I'd opt for.
Seems whatever is one level down from the top can be had for some pretty good savings, so if cost is an issue, stay a way from leading edge.

ATI/INVIDA/Hauppauge are a few that all make nice video/turner cards with the nod going to the Hauppauge in my opinion, but look at whatever card you choose for how easy it is to deal with, a good card that's to difficult to use is no fun..
There's a German video card that very nice to, but I can't remember the name now...MD Quartz or something like that

Have fun...:D

Al...who thinks you'll find way more opinions on computer stuff than you want...:D