Is this PC OK for AVCHD editing, with Vegas?
 

A while back, I posted about my problem with Vegas shutting down when opening AVCHD files. I was looking into building a system that would be able to handle AVCHD. My current rig seems to be the weak point, and not Vegas, though I'm not 100% sure.

Any of you have problems editing AVCHD with Vegas Pro 8?

What do you think of the following? Cost is $1000.
Thanks,


PC comes with these:

Intel Core i7-930, 8 MB L2 Cache, 2.80 HHz
Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit
8 GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1333 MHz
1.5 TB hard drive, 7200 RPM
AMD Radeon HD 6450 1 GB DDR3
Soundblaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio

Are the following "upgrades" worth the money?

[1] Upgrade CPU to i7-960, 3.20 GHz costs $470.

[2] Upgrade to 12 GB Tri Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1333 MHz, 6 DIMMs, costs $160.

[3] Upgrade to AMD Radeon HD 6670 1 GB DDR5 costs $30.
Upgrade to AMD Radeon HD 6770 costs $110
Upgrade to NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450 Single 1 GB costs $190

[4] Upgrade to Soundblaster X-Fi Titanium costs $40

[5] Add 2 USB 3.0 for $38

Re: Is this PC OK for AVCHD editing, with Vegas?
 

These 'upgrades' are ridiculously priced. Don't bother with any of them. Is this Dell or HP?

You can buy any of the 'upgrades' for half the price at any street corner and install them yourself. And while you are at the street corner, get at least two additional disks, one of them can be smallish like 320 GB for OS & programs, the other a large one.

Re: Is this PC OK for AVCHD editing, with Vegas?
 

The CPU "upgrade" seems real steep, $470! I hope the "base" CPU is good enough. I don't want to upgrade at $470, but don't want to do that later either, changing CPU is somewhat of a pain. The other upgrades are easy. This is a Dell XPS Studio. My friend, who's into gaming, says this rig should be plenty for my purpose. I just want a 2nd opinion from someone who's doing AVCHD editing, and not from a "gamer".

Thanks,

Re: Is this PC OK for AVCHD editing, with Vegas?
 

With Vegas I don't know, with Premiere Pro I would say it is OK from the CPU perspective, but then it is a Dell, which means no overclocking, crippled BIOS, and huge prices for anything over the standard configuration. They steal you blind.

I would either build myself or go to a good custom builder where you get a much better system, because this Dell would not even meet minimum requirements for Premiere Pro and is a lousy editing system, even in its basic configuration.

8 GB memory on a triple channel mobo is crazy, because you run in dual channel mode. Either 12 or 24 GB.

Single hard disk??? You need a smallish OS disk and at least two 7200 SATA disks for an editing station.

ATI video card would be considered as a capital crime in Premiere Pro environments, maybe it is OK with Vegas, but I repeat, I don't know about Vegas.

Soundblaster audio card makes no sense when you have on-board audio.

I suggest you forget about Dell. You supplied the evidence they steal you blind. The 960 has about the same price as the 930, maybe $ 10 more, but they charge you $ 470 extra, well you get the picture.

Re: Is this PC OK for AVCHD editing, with Vegas?
 

The base configuration is fairly attractively priced - but most if not all of the upgrades are outrageously expensive. In fact, of all the upgrades on that list the only ones that are worth their asking prices are either of the AMD Radeon upgrades - and only then, if you're not planning to use Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.x. And between the HD 6670 and HD 6770, go with the HD 6770 if you're planning to upgrade to Vegas 10 or 11 Pro. If you were not careful with the selection, you could have spent more than $1,800 for a system that performs as slow as some build-it-yourself systems that cost half as much.

As for the X-Fi Xtreme Audio, it is not a true X-Fi card at all - but a software-controlled sound card that basically dates back to the days of the Sound Blaster PCI 64/Ensoniq AudioPCI (although the Xtreme Audio does use a newer controller with newer software than the old PCI 64). As such, for the price of that card it is nowhere near that much better than on-motherboard audio.

And lastly, for Vegas get at least one additional internal hard drive (although Dell does steal you blind on additional hard drives): On single-drive-only systems, no matter what other components you upgrade, that system upgraded to an i7-960 might as well be as slow in performance as a Celeron G5xx-based system with the exact same single disk because the SATA interface that these hard drives use is only half-duplex. That means that the system must wait for the read operation to be completed before any write operations take place (video editing programs require simultaneous reads and writes, which is something that a half-duplex interface like SATA does not allow).

Re: Is this PC OK for AVCHD editing, with Vegas?
 

Thank you very much, Harm and Randall. This is the info that a non-geek like myself can digest, well most of it anyways. I will not be using any Adobe Premiere Pro. I will probably upgrade to Vegas Pro in the near future, so will go with Randall's suggestion of the 6770 GPU.

Please let me know if I understand the following correctly:

[And lastly, for Vegas get at least one additional internal hard drive (although Dell does steal you blind on additional hard drives): On single-drive-only systems, no matter what other components you upgrade, that system upgraded to an i7-960 might as well be as slow in performance as a Celeron G5xx-based system with the exact same single disk because the SATA interface that these hard drives use is only half-duplex. That means that the system must wait for the read operation to be completed before any write operations take place (video editing programs require simultaneous reads and writes, which is something that a half-duplex interface like SATA does not allow). ]

If I have 3 internal hard drives, how should my video projects be distributed? I understand that all the system programs, OS,... stay on 1 drive. Should the raw video footage be on the 2nd drive, and the rendered videos be saved to the 3rd drive? I'm a little confused about the last sentence in the bracketed paragraph above.

Re: Is this PC OK for AVCHD editing, with Vegas?
 

You have the disk setup 100% correct.

Re: Is this PC OK for AVCHD editing, with Vegas?
 

In your particular case (having three hard drives - one for the OS/programs, one for the raw video files and one for the exports), put the Windows pagefile on the fastest of the three drives and put the media cache and previews on the faster of the two non-OS drives. The project files should go on the same drive as the raw video files.

And what I meant for the slow performance of single-drive systems assumed that the system had only one hard drive - period. That configuration is not recommended for video editing with even a cheapo consumer program. And when I meant "half-duplex" for the SATA interface, it means that SATA allows data transfers in only one direction at a time through a given port.

Re: Is this PC OK for AVCHD editing, with Vegas?
 

Randall,

What does "Windows pagefile" mean? Is the operating system a "pagefile"?

What does "media cache" mean? Are you referring to the photo files, mp3 files,...that are added to the video project?

Is it OK to use USB external hard drives?

Thanks,

Re: Is this PC OK for AVCHD editing, with Vegas?
 

I read the other post about purpose-built PC, tons of info on there.
What do you guys of buying a pre-built system from HP or Dell. Is HP better?

Thanks,

Re: Is this PC OK for AVCHD editing, with Vegas?
 

Both are good ONLY if you stick to the standard configuration and do not upgrade or add anything and do not want to overclock.

If you need to upgrade or add anything both are really bad. They steal you blind with outrageous prices for every extra you add. If you want to overclock, you are in a deep pile of sh*t, because of their crippled BIOS. If you need to replace a PSU, you are in trouble with HP because of deviant dimensions from standard PSU's.

Do not expect them to help you configure a video editing system, even with unlimited funds, because they simply don't know what is required. You have to tell them EXACTLY what you want and need, then they can triple the amount and make you an offer.

You are much better off with a reputable firm for custom-build video editing machines. You get what you need at a much better price and way better service.

Re: Is this PC OK for AVCHD editing, with Vegas?
 

After further thinking, I've decided that I'll follow the Videoguys DIY8 build, and assemble it myself.

Mobo ASUS P6X58D-E
CPU Intel i7-980 Hex Core
RAM Corsair XM S3 24 GB
System drive: Hitachi 1 TB 7200 RPM
GPU: n Vidia GTX 470
Case: Antec Nine Hundred Two v3Black ATX ($119)
PSU: Corsair CMPSU-850 TX 850 W
OS: Win 7 Prof OEM
Optical Drive: BDR-206

The CPU and RAM are recommended for their "Hotrod" system, but I just selected them for my "Budget" system, replacing the Intel i7-950 Quad Core and 12 GB of RAM. The Antec case has a bunch of bays for drives, so I'll add 2 more of the Hitachi 1 TB 7200 RPM drives, for a total of 3.

What do you guys think?

Re: Is this PC OK for AVCHD editing, with Vegas?
 

AVCHD is a highly compressed format that's not meant for editing. Converting it to a less compressed format would be a better solution instead of spending all that money. It doesn't mean buying a newer system is a bad idea, but it would save you from getting high end cpu.

Re: Is this PC OK for AVCHD editing, with Vegas?
 

Pete,
Are you talking about Cineform Neoscene?

Re: Is this PC OK for AVCHD editing, with Vegas?
 

I do my editing primarily on the Mac and convert to AIC or ProRes, I don't know the comparable codec for the PC but I'm sure someone here could tell you. Converting is not without its draw backs, mainly the time it takes. Not knowing your budget and process its difficult to say what would be best.