Custom PP/CS Turnkey Workstation Vendor Reviews
 

Hi-

I realize that building your own PP/CS workstation is the most economical, but I am prepared to spent 6-7k and get a system that works and is guaranteed (for a few years) out of the box. I'm considering Core Microsystems (Core Microsystems - Video Editing & Graphic Systems) and Safe Harbor (Products for video and post professionals - Safe Harbor 800-544-6599) at the moment. Does anyone have experience with these or other turnkey NLE solution providers? I'm looking for warranty/product support experiences/issues, system reliability, etc.

I'm going to hold out purchasing until CS5 and the CUDA requirements, etc are public - but in the meantime I'm gathering background on potential providers.

I'll be working/editing in XDCAM-EX primarily, although clients tend to bring in almost anything. (Having the ability to edit 10bit 4:2:2 would be nice, but the majority goes to Blu-Ray, so it's a bit overkill) I'm thinking I'll also want an HD-SDI card for input/live SD/HD output, at least a quad core, 12-24GB RAM, a NVIDIA card of some type and probably an external RAID solution.

I'm looking at a CoreMicro Decklink HD Extreme 3 Turnkey with some of the options listed above.

Thoughts?

I have been dealing with Safe Harbor for about 6 years now and have found them to stand behind their products. I have had two editing systems built by them and they are rock solid. I had one issue with the new one but Tom worked with me and Matrox to solve the problem which turned out to be a bios setting. I would reccommend them to anyone.

Gene...

Any of the sponsors found here would certainly be a good place to start.

First off, I don't trust Coremicro due to their low quality website. Some links are wrong and many specifications are incorrect.

SafeHarbor is reputable but I didn't find any worthwhile turnkey systems for PC users.

For a video editing PC, you can't go wrong with the HP Z series, either the Z400 (1 CPU) or Z800 (2 CPU).

I have found that In/Out cards impose restrictions on editing, some more, some less. I find Matrox to be completely useless for Premiere on the PC (you can find my prior posts on the matter). I think Cineform, BM & Premiere don't work for live monitoring but Aja Xena does. From what I have read, the Aja products tend to be more compatible with various products.

For external Raid, the Areca 1680x or Adaptec 5085.

Thanks Eugene, Marty and Steve. I've been burned with legacy hardware boards in the past.