Need Help With Premiere Pro Computer
 

I've been reading many posts here regarding compatibility issues with motherboards, video cards, etc., etc. Frankly it has me worried as I'm in the process of having a brand new system built.

Please advise me if the below system is robust enough to support my software needs. Should I anticipate any conflicts like I've been reading about? I'm spending a considerable amount of money, so I'd like to spend my time editing instead of playing the troubleshooting game like some of you have been experiencing.

Please give me your advice and/or help.

Thank you all for your anticipated help.


SOFTWARE
Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe After Effects 6, Adobe Encore DVD, Adobe Audidtion.

SYSTEM CONFIGURATION
Case - Supermicro 600 watt rack mount
Motherboard - Asus P4C800 Deluxe w/800 FSB
Processor - Pentium 4 3.0GHz
RAM - 1GB DDR PC3200 Memory
Hard Drives - Three (3) Maxtor 200GB 7,200 RPM 8MB Buffer
Capture Card - Matrox RT.X100 Extreme Pro
Video Card - Matrox Parhelia 128MB
DVD - Pioneer DVRA06
CD-RW - Teac 52x24x52xDVD Player
Sound Card - Soundblaster Audigy 2 Platinum
Modem - US Robotics 56K Internal
ADS Pyro 3 Port Firewire Board
Windows XP Professional

I wouldn't get the audigy since it's more for gaming use. I'd get something like the M-Audio Revolution.

2- Doesn't your capture card already have a firewire input? Why get the firewire card? (unless it was FW800 instead of FW400).

compatibility issues- I have no idea. Usually you should have no problems with using windows. Some other OSes don't have the right drivers for all your hardware.

Thanks Glenn, I'll look into the M-Audio Revolution card.

The 3 port firewire card will be used for outputing to a external hard drive.

I'm mainly concerned with hardware/software conflicts.

Thanks,

Ken

Ken,

I've got an almost identical system and am having a great time with PP on it. Differences are:

36G Serial Drive for the system
ABIT IC7G Motherboard.

System is a screamer! Have fun

Now I really can't wait to get this baby up and running! Thanks for the positive unput Rob.

Are you running the Matrox Parhelia 128MB video card? I read somewhere that PPro is unable to preview to a NTSC monitor, unlike P6.5. Is that true? Seems kinda strange?

I plan on starting with dual 21" NEC CRT's and was going to add a Sony 14" NTSC monitor later on.

Ken,

Yep, no problem using the Parhelia 128MB video card. I'm driving two 18" Viewsonic LCD's. For video preview, I'm outputting DV all the time to a DSR45 deck that displays on a Pany monitor. Seem to recall that since I'm using both DVI outs from the card that I was limited to just the two displays but I'm not sure.

Dual 21"'s!! That'll be a lot of display space, kind of like horsepower, can never have to much!

i just built a new system and getting a motherboard that your capture card is happy to co-exist with was the hardest part.

i wound up getting the motherboard that the capture card company told me they use in their turnkey systems and that helped tremendously.

most any modern system has enough horsepower...

i had a lot of problems with the video stuff. it turned out that the matrox p-650 card i was using appears to have problems doing video overlay in premiere pro only on lcd monitors and only on the second screen. if i keep the premiere monitor window on the primary lcd screen i'm all set. if i try and move it to the second lcd screen it goes black.

i can reproduce it at will by putting half the monitor window on one monitor and half on the other. half is fine and the other half is black.

kind of freaky.

matthew

Ken I have an identical system-
Differences:
-ATi Radeon 9800pro (hey I'm a gamer too)Plus it supports dual monitors- I'm running 2 NEC LCD 1765s
-1gig of Corsaire XMS ultra-low-latency 3200 ram
-3 120gig Maxtor Serial ATA hds (2 in Raid-0...video drive)

Our mobo (Asus P4C800E) comes with multiple fire-wire ports built in and would offer better performance then running a firewire "card" that has to be bottle-necked thru the PCI bus.

Regarding the Audigy 2- I feel quite the contrary. I feel it's more than enough to do accurate audio editing especially paired with Klipshe speakers. Unless you are feeding audio via a mixing board or doing audio mastering (content creation) stick with the Audigy.

Glen, good to know others are using the same MOBO as I and are having good results.

What do you think about my choice of three (3) separate drives. I noticed that you have three, but choose to RAID two of them. I was advised that I shoud have three separate ones, 1-system, 1-render, and 1-capture. Is that true?

Thanks for your advice.

Ken

Ps. After doing further research, I'm staying with the Audigy 2 Platinum. The Platinum also has a drive bay module that has inputs, outputs, headphone jack and volume control.

I can understand the philosophy behind having a separate drive for each- it will allow access to both the drive the program is on, the drive your source material is on, and another to where the render is being created to. The reason for this would be for speed beings all the drives could be accessed simultaneously however you have the think...is your program going to be rendering faster than your HD can save data- NO. Your hardrive is far from your bottleneck during rendering. CPU and Ram are bigger culprits and you have them nailed down at a whopping 3ghz and 1gig respectively.
I simply use my Raid to store my renders as I complete them. Sure it's going to be accessing that drive for the source material in my render but that's why it's a Raid...it's fast. I've never had any problems rendering to the same drive the source material. Also I don't think my program is rendering faster than my raid can read/write...not even close.

i don't have a matrox firewire card, but i found that on their site they have some great reference material on stuff like what to put on what drive and why they think its faster.

in fact they had a better reference on getting your motherboard to work with a firewire card than the manufacturer of the card i do have!

matthew

Good point Glen. I guess it's a matter of preference and what size drives you start out with. I think either way will be fine.

Thanks

Yep, you'll be more than fine. Don't fret, everythings should be as smooth as clockwork.

Hey Glen - Any particular Klipsch speakers you had in mind? I have not purchased speakers at this time and would like something semi-high end to match my configuration.

Thanks,

Ken

Well I know there are better speakers for primarily audio monitoring but I decided to go with something thats going to sound good for both editing and gaming. I went with the Klipsch Promedia 5.1's but have since released the superior Klipsch Ultra 5.1's. Granted I have yet to do 5.1 editing in Vegas but at least I have the set-up to accomidate such a task. If you don't play PC games and only work on basic stereo editing (no surround mixing) you can simply go with the Klipsch 2.1's which are excellent as well.
Untill you hear these speakers you have no idea how good they sound. Definitly on par with my They could easily be used for home theatre speakers.

http://www.mazdamp3.com/vbb230/_hand...my%20setup.jpg

I don’t think I’ll be doing any 5.1 audio editing very soon. I really need to learn PPro first. I think I'll be going with just a two speaker stereo set-up, at least for now.

You're right; I should probably listen to the speakers to get an idea of their abilities. However, I have heard nothing but good things about Klipsch.

Ken

Yeah then the Klipsch 2.1's should be perfect.
http://www.klipsch.com/product/product.aspx?Cid=103


Speaking of audio editing- you considered giving Vegas a try? With Vegas+DVD you get built in 5.1 surround mixing, ASIO driver support, and AC-3 audio encoding! Plus it's integrated with Sound Forge. Simply right click your audio on the timeline and choose "open in sound forge". Besides Sound Forge can runs circles around Adobe Audition which is nothing other than a repackaged Cool Edit Pro. *sorry for the rant*

I like what I've read about the Klipsch 2.1's. I may just take your suggestion and go with that set-up.

Speaking of Sound Forge. I do have a copy of that program. Played around with it a few times. Looks very robust! There's just not enough time to learn all this software. I've already made the commitment to PPro, I'll have to consider the Vegas program for later. Heck, I'm only on the first DVD of Total Training for PPro. I have so much to learn!!!!

Are you guys running both a PCI capture card, the Matrox, and a PCI firewire card, like the Pyro, with no problems? The reason I ask is that this can sometimes be a source of conflicts. If they both use the Texas Instruments 1394 chipset there is less chance of problems but using different chipsets has been known to cause grief.

Adrian - I have not used the PCI Firewire Card along with the Matrox at this time. I'm having a system built for me and it will be configued as you indicated. I too have been alerted that there coould be problems. However, I was assured by the builder (B&H Pro Video) that there would be no conflicts with this configuration. I'll have the system in my hands in about two weeks. I'll update as soon as I put it through a battery of tests.

Thanks for the advice.