No clear consensus, need adivce
 

Hi, started putting together my NLE system, I have gotten almost all my parts. Been reading all the threads here and I can't seem to come to a clear consensus on a video card.

Here's what I have so far

Asus P4C800 Deluxe mainboard 800MHZ FSB
P4 3.0 800MHZ FSB
1 Gig Corsair XMS RAM 2X512MB (going to upgrade to 2 gig after I get the thing intially built)
600watt ATX Power supply (was only a few bucks more than the 450)
Aluminum full tower 6 fan, 13 drive bays, front panel USB, Firewire
Sony DRX-500ULX external DVD burner (been using with my laptop)

haven't gotten yet but planning on getting

M-Audio Audiophile 2496 Soundcard
external amp and studio monitors (not sure which ones yet)
60 gig or 80 gig 7200 rpm hard drive for OS, and other programs
2 120 gig 7200 rpm hard drives in RAID0 for video capture
possible 1 120 gig hard drive for rendering
Sony or JVC (depends on the money) Color production monitor

????Video Card????????
I want to be able to run at least 2 monitor, and a color production monitor.
Have been looking at the Matrox Parhelia, but its only AGP 4x

Also I am going to be using Vegas 4 + DVD as my main NLE
and I was hoping to be able to stretch across Vegas across multiple monitors, and I thought I read with the Parhelia card that isn't possible, or is that just how Vegas with any video card?
Also going to be using other programs (like AE, etc.) Going to be running XP pro for OS.

So like I said spent all day yesterday reading threads about video cards, and I can't seem to come to a clear consensus for what I want.

Please help me out with any advice or tips.
Thanks Every again.

Jeff Troiano

The Matrox G550 is frequently recommended for a dual-head video card.

Instead of going for power supply wattage, go for power supply quality. I'd rather havea 300 watt high quality reliable power source, than a 600 watt questionable one. Especially if it's just a few bucks more than 450 (that raises a flag). Buy an Antec power supply, you will not regret it.

The M-Audio card is a good entry level true 24bit card. You'll be happy with it. M-Audio's other offerings tend to come with breakout boxes with adapter cables up the wazoo, which you shouldn't need if you're just doing DV.

The seperate disk space for DV is nice, though I don't think you'll need a render-to drive aswell. You can never have enough diskspace tho :) I haven't used a dedicated render-to drive before, so if anyone can add some input here, great!

Video card - Don't let AGP speeds bother you. The difference between 4x and 8x is so minute, you will not notice anything at all. I went with a Radeon 9700 due to the recent price drops, TV out and dual monitor capability, and it'll keep up with gaming for the next couple of years. Also, ATI has been doing dual monitor and TV-Out solutions for many years now.

Vegas will work fine with a dual monitor setup. It relies on Windows this way, not the video card. As long as the video card and windows driver supports dual monitors, you're set.

A production monitor on the other hand, I'm not sure about. I don't know if Vegas could route the signal through a video card's TV Out and display whatever is in your preview window... This is very interesting, as I'm also planning on purchasing a calibrated monitor for shoots (I hate the colour viewfinder)

Jeff, was this thread one of the ones you read? Matrox is releasing the P750 sometime around the end of this month I think.

Thanks to those who have replyed so far.

I am going to take you up on your advice Andrew, and return the Compusa 600watt ps, and pick up the Antec 450 or 550.

Nigel I did read that thread, but that wasn't the one I was thinking about, I will look again and see if I can find it, but what I am refering too, (if anyone who uses Vegas would help me out and let me know) I have read that with Permiere you can stetch the program across 2 or more monitors (haveing your timeline across the bottom of both screens). Is this possible with Vegas? If not its not a big deal. Just want to find out beofre hand.

Thanks again
Jeff

<<<-- Originally posted by Jeff Troiano : Thanks to those who have replyed so far.

I, (if anyone who uses Vegas would help me out and let me know) I have read that with Permiere you can stetch the program across 2 or more monitors (haveing your timeline across the bottom of both screens). Is this possible with Vegas? If not its not a big deal. Just want to find out beofre hand.
-->>>

Absolutely!

BTW, I'd go with the Radeon 9700.

Dylan when using the Radeon 9700 pro with Vegas, can you preview the video footage using the tv out? or would I have to do the old firewire to the camera, then out to the production monitor?

Thanks again

Jeff

FWIW, on another forum concerning a different app, someone had probs with an ATI card on dual monitors. Not the 9700 though. Sorted it by replacing with a Matrox. Not sure this is necessarily relevant to you, just FYI.

Hey,
 

I use the 550 card and two Viewsonic P225fb monitors. These are great monitors. The accept RGB input & more!

A nice hard drive is the WD1200JB and they have other "JB" drives. Don't buy a "BB" drive cuz they only have 4meg vs 8mg.

I use JVC products. What VTR will you use? The BR-DV600UA is nice. I use it everyday. I make my copies with a JVC BR-S800 SVHS.

JVC and Sony are both great monitors there is a nice one for sale on this site. I use the JVC TM-H1700. No problems but I wish I would have gotten a 19".

I use Avid XDV 3.5 with Photoshop and Boris Red 2.5 (3GL is coming June).

When I started looking into this hobbie I looked at the turnkey guys like Laird. I ended up with a Laird rackmount which has the "JB" drives which I had to order special. But I got the Laird because they gave me a good price on their LTM5500FS and a couple other things.

Next time I might put my own system together like you are doing.

Ya ever notice that there are more Sony products for sale on eBay than any other mfg? It isn't because they make more.

Jeff, I actually have a Radeon 9000. I've never tried using the TV out for footage only, but from what I've heard, the answer is no, you still need to use the Firewire.

Not sure if that's correct though.

At the time I bought it (last fall), the Radeon 9000 outperformed the G550 in every aspect, for the same price, plus had TV out. Comparing the Radeon 9700 to the G550 is a no-brainer. 9700 all the way.

Good suggestions already, won't reiterate any (some of the best power supplies around other than Antecs are those found at PC Power and Cooling with 5 year warranties on their high end models; very good point about the 4X vs. 8X AGP being negligible in real world performances, etc) but I see you're still deliberating studio monitor speakers?

Why an external amp? Some good ones suggested previously include the Event 20/20bas, Tannoy Reveals, Mackie HR624, HR626, or HR824s, and Genelec's high end line if you have the $$$ for them. All of these are powered but will set you back close to $1000 give or take a few hundred.

Yeah I know what you mean
 

Hi Jeff,

I'm doing the same thing, building a new workstation (through NewEgg.com) and I got totally hung up on the video card, selecting everything else was a piece of cake.

Took me two weeks but I ended up getting a GeForce FX 5200 just because, if I didn't pick SOMETHING, I wasn't ever going to order the new computer, though I'm still partial to Matrox, so I'm still going to check out the Matrox 750 when it comes out. I'm previewing video through firewire using VV3.

I don't know if some of this info will help but here it is anyway:

1. If you're going to use After Effects the Parhelia is a good way to go because you can use the WYSIWYG driver when outputting your video preview to an external NTSC/PAL monitor. This also works with Photoshop. Unfortunately - the new budget Matrox Parhelia 650/750 cards DON'T support the WYSIWYG driver. There's another way to do this with After Effects and some outboard device, but generally it got a thumbs down from those who used it.

2. My main concern with the Matrox cards was OpenGL and DirectX support for ParticleIllusion SE and Cool 3D Studio, according to other users, this isn't a problem at all, lots of users happily running those programs on the new and older Matrox cards.

2. Here is the list of cards I was choosing from:

Matrox G550 (and 650/750 when they come out) US$90-200
Nvidia GeForce 4 440 MX US$40-60
Nvidia GeForce FX 5200 US$80-100
Nvidia GeForce 4 Ti4200 US$140-200
3DLabs WildCat VP560 US$150

I didn't consider ATI because I've had bad experiences with their drivers/software.

Vegas will use two (computer) screens effectively, like displaying the timeline on one and FX windows on another. But for previewing your work on a (TV) monitor, you must use an IEEE 1394 card (called Firewire in the Mac world and iLinc in the Sony world) plus a converter (which could be your DV camera). I'm told you get practically real time previews with most of your FXs (some are more demanding than others).
Correction: I think you get real time anyway, but Vegas will economize on the frame rate when things get too tough.

Jeff,

I'd also check out the new 10,000 rpm SATA drive from western digital for the OS and program files. I just ordered one from NewEgg.com. Supposedly, I should then get 4 free IDE channels for all my secondary drives.

Here's the review from Anandtech and Tom's Hardware. They ranged from "pretty good" to "excellent".

AGP speed
 

Any data to back this up? Only the slower AGP was one thing putting me off of the Parhelia, but I was unhappy about the lack of AE WYSIWYG support by P750. If the real world difference between 4x and 8x is demonstrably insignificant (and by that I mean in benchmarks that are useful to DV, not gaming), that will be enough for me!

JB not BB - that's good advice. I didn't know that.

I'm in the process of pulling stuff together for a home brew DV editor, and this is all good stuff to know. Thanks!