what's your set-up?

[Christopher Go]

Threads like this come up now and then, guess I'll relist what I have even though I haven't upgraded in a while:

Tyan Tiger MP Motherboard
Dual 1800MP+ AMD Processors & Swiftech Heatsinks
2GB Corsair DDR 2100 Memory
200GB Western Digital 8MB RAID 0
40GB Maxtor 7200RPM System Drive
40GB IBM 7200RPM Page Drive
Pioneer DVD Burner
Pioneer Slot Load DVD
Gainward Geforce3 Video Card
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz Sound Card
Highpoint RAID Controller
3COM NIC
Addtronics 7890A Server Tower
Antec 550 Watt TruePower PS

Sony 21" E540 CRT Monitor
Sony PVM-8042Q Editing/Field Monitor & David Riddle Case (click for pictures of case)
Dual Mackie HR626 Audio Monitors
and Panasonic AG-DV1000 Editing Deck

[Andrew Petrie]

AMD Athlon XP 1900+ @ 1800mhz
Asus A7V8X
1GB RAM
IBM Deskstar 75GXP 20GB system drive (3 years running and not a single problem that these 'DeathStars are 'known' for)
WD 120GB 8mb DV drive
WD 120GB 8mb Storage/DV export drive
Yamaha F1 CDRW
Pioneer 16x DVDROM (will probably be replaced with a Plextor 708 dvd writer)
Samsung 17' monitor
ATI 9700 vanilla, modded to 9700 Pro specs
Sound Blaster Audigy2 Platinum (will be replaced with something more professional when funds permit)
Lian-Li PC68 case and enermax 420W power supply.
Logitech MX500 mouse - because you can never have too many buttons :D

[Scott Osborne]

I use Intel Chips because it seems that many DCC programs are optimized for SSE, SSE2 extensions. For instance Canopus ProCoder is much faster on a P4 because its optimized for the Intel chip. Also I think that Intel based Chipsets seem to be more reliable than Via or NVIDIA. I had major problems with my old Via Motherboard because the PCI bus was limited by the Via Southbridge. Once I switched to a Intel 845PE chipset my problems stopped..There are patches to eliminate the latency issues but there still not as good as having well designed hardware.

I expect to see all of that change with AMDs implementaion of the Socket940 based motherboards. The Hypertransport on the New Athlon64 boards looks to be the best way yet designed to handle PCI and now PCIX communitcation.

Also I expect that more software companies will start optimizing for the X86 64bit world. Once Adobe and Sony supports 64bit work lenght we should se a clear advantage with the AMD Cpus

Hope I didnt get too "geekish" for you
BTW excuse my spelling havent had sleep in a while

[Steve Luhr]

Compaq laptop with 240MB RAM, 1.2 GHZ AMD, Hard Drive thats pretty big.

Pinnacle pcmcia card firewire
Studio 8 software

He He

At least it's cheap : 0

[Glenn Chan]

Um... celeron 733. It's woefully inadequate since I don't even have enough monitor space (video card can't do anything over 800X600 very well). I think I'll steal my brother's computer, at least it has dual monitors and is a pentium 800. :)

Used to edit on a dual 500mhz Yikes G4 at high school. Mmm... Mac...

[Ong Wan Shu]

hi all,

I am here to seek advice if the setup I have is good enough to capture, edit and output what I have shot

What I have shot

1 and half hour of mini DV in Short Play mode. Shot with DVX100, PAL version, 25P progressive scan mode.

My computer's set up is

Maxtor 60GB IDE HDD (7200+2MB+ATA133)
2 x 512MB PC2100/266 DDR Kingston Ram - 1GB ram in total
ASUSTEK NVIDIA GEFORCE2 MX400 (64MB)
MSI 645E Max2 (MS-6567) series ATX motherboard (Raid Capable)
1 x CD-ROM
1 x CD-RW
Premiere 6.0
Photoshop 7.0
Office 2000 Pro

Now here is my problem. I THINK i just need to get

1 x Firewire card
1 x 60GB or more HDD

and I can start my capturing, editing, smoothly. However, looks too good to be true and I need advice.

1) Can I do my editing after my purchases smoothly, without frequent crashing? Do i need to get anymore hardware that is neccssary? Costs is a concern for me so luxury items is not what I will get

2) I heard something about file system, FATS, dunno what that is but have been told it could significantly affect my editing process. Can anyone tell me more about it? and how to optimize?

3) can a 60GB HDD store all my footage? I really dunno how much memory does 1 minute of SP minidv footage shot on DVX100 PAL at 25P progressive mode takes up. Please advise, a ballpark figure would be nice.

4) What esle do I need to know? I am just so sure that I dunno about somethings that I dunno and that is dangerous...

Thanks a lot!!!
Ong

[Ed Smith]

Ong,

What is your processor?

I cannot guarantee that it won't crash, but it should run faster with the stuff you suggested

FAT is an old format standard which will only give you a 2GB limit of capturing data (video), by using NTFS it overcomes this problem.

60GB should be plently of space for your capturing and editing. DV video footage only takes up about 13GB for every 1 hour.

If at all possible have a seperate computer for editing. This will then make sure that no virusus get though and ruin your video work when you are browing the internet.

Cheers,

Ed

[Ong Wan Shu]

hi Ed,

My processor is the P4 1.8Ghz.

Unfortunately, I can't afford to buy another setup solely for editing. If i had the money to do that, I would have bought a Mac.

What is the NTFS? does my office 2000 pro covers that?

Also, is the hardware in my present comp fast enuff to prevent any drop frames?

However, does it help if i format everything from my comp and reinstall everything? will it give bad sectors to my comp?

Cheers

[Mike Rehmus]

Updated info:

Main System and support items:

Asus P4C800E-Deluxe
P4 2.4C
1 gig of 800 Mhz RAM
120 gig WD 8 meg, 7200 C drive
160 gig Sea SATA
200 gig WD 8 meg, 7200
100 gig WD 8 meg, 7200
Radeon 9600 Pro
Hercules Game Theatre
Intel gigabit LAN (on-board)
XP Pro
Canopus DVRexRT with Edius 1.51, MS Pro
Adobe Photoshop CS, AfterEffects Pro 6, Illustrator 10
Sound Forge, Smartsound, Acid, Sonicfire Pro, Smartsound
ProTools (the free version)
Poser, Animation Master, Truespace
Cool 3D studio
Neato MediaFace Pro
MyDVD
Ulead DVD Workshop
TDK 24X CD writer
Sony DRX-510UL DVD burner
JVC 14" production monitor
17" Samsung LCD HD TV/PC monitor
Krk Rok-R studio nearfield monitors
60 watt Rotel amp
Sony DSR-20 DVCam VCR
Sony SLR-V1000 S-VHS deck
Sony SVO-1420 VHS decks X2
Panasonic VHS decks x6
Sony 3/4" playback deck
Sony EVO-9800A Hi-8 deck
Sony EVO-9850 Hi-8 deck
Studio 1 dual proc amp
Horita color bar generator
BK television signal generator
Sony 520A Vectorscope and Waveform Monitor
Leader portable waveform monitor
Sign Video 16X DA
Fostex TT-15 Audio signal generator
S-Video, Comp Video and 1/4" patchbays
Tektronix 475 Oscilloscope
Radio shack, Mackie, Shure mixers (5)
DBX MC6 audio compressor
HP LaserJet 6
UPS with voltage regulation

Business system and editing Backup :
Asus P4T-E
P4 1.5 gig
500 megs memory
120 gig WD 8 meg, 7200 rpm
250 gig WD 8 meg, 7200 rpm
200 gig WD 8 meg, 7200 rpm
TDK CD writer
Random sound card
LaCie Electron19 III PC display
Macintosh 1700 amp driving a couple of random RCA speakers
XP Pro
Canopus DVRexRT with Edius 1.51, MS Pro
Microsoft Office Pro
Adobe Pagemaker 7
SMC DSL firewall and router
100 mbit LAN card
Epson R300 Stylus color
Brother P-Touch label printer
HP 5370C scanner
UPS with voltage regulation

Music System

Older AMD processor
E-MU Audio Production Studio
TDK burner
100 mbit LAN


EVerything can share signals through either the patchbays or direct cabling and individual switches.

Physical security Big studio alarm system and a Rotweiller

[Glenn Chan]

Hey Mike, does Pro Tools FREE on your system actually run without crashing every other command (*literally*)? In my experience that's what happens... .... ....

My processor is the P4 1.8Ghz.

[...]

Also, is the hardware in my present comp fast enuff to prevent any drop frames?

However, does it help if i format everything from my comp and reinstall everything? will it give bad sectors to my comp?

A P4 more than fast enough to capture. The main factor is the hard drive. 7200rpm drives are more than fast enough to capture unless there are multiple programs trying to use the hard drive at once. If you keep your completely clean (this includes getting rid of anti-virus software, adware [use adaware], unnecessary boot-up programs, etc.) then you should have no problems. A little program called "enditall" might help (sorry I haven't used it). Some people recommend getting a second hard drive to capture onto.

You will not get bad sectors when you format your hard drive (bad sectors happen when you hard drive starts failing). You will of course lose all the information on your hard drive.

[Ong Wan Shu]

hi Glenn,

Thanks for help and please see if I understand you correctly.

What I need to do now is

1) Get a Firewire card (any brand to recommend?)

I WILL NOT NEED a video capture card if i have a firewire card

2) Get a BRAND NEW 7200 rpm 60GB HDD, connect it in a isolated IDE so that no CD-ROM, CD-RW will slow down the HDD's performance. However, my primary HDD can connect itself to the CD-ROM or CD-RW since that's the only way I am ever gonna burn stuff from my HDD (correct me if i am wrong here)

3) Restart comp once i got everything in place. Do a disk fragmentation on the new and primary HDD (neccessary?) Then shut down any other programs that are running. eg. ADSL, ICQ, adaware,Norton antivirus, any other programs except Premiere 6.0. to minimize the chances of having drop frames.

4) Record everything I have onto the NEW DRIVE via Premiere 6 since 1 and half hour footage takes only at most half of my 60GB new HDD. Then choose those takes I want once they are in avi formats so that no quality is lost. This is easier also cause i run a risk of the camera freaking up (since i am a newbie) if i record part by part

Am i right? am i right? If so, i am going down to town to get the firewire card and a new HDD.

Thanks in advance!!!

cheers

[Kevin King]

You all have been so helpful, I thought I'd chime in on this one. I've been in the IT geek world for some time, but this is the first "video studio" machine I've built, and I couldn't have done it without all the guidence I got here at DVI. Thanks.

I just completed building my 'new' machine 2 days ago. I think I've finally got everything tweaked and working. I'm loving this new box!!

-Windows XP Professional OS

-Vegas 4.0 NLE

-Vegas DVD Arcetect (This caused lots of problems in my old computer. I downloaded the trial demo of Adobe Encore DVD and I think I liked that better. If I have any further problems with DVD-A, I'll be switching to Encore for DVD authoring. Though I will note the problems I've had seem to be isolated to me, haven't heard any similar problems searching the net).

-Adobe After Effects, Photoshop 7 (I was a photographer before I picked up video).

-Pentium 4 - 2.6Ghz w/ HyperThread /800Mhz FSB

-Abit IS7-E Motherboard (Note, the "IS7-E" does NOT have the onboard IEEE, where the regular "IS7" does. This was a disapointment, but I already had a dual head IEEE card in my other machine, so I wasn't totally out - just a note for anyone else considering this board. I love it, but make sure what exact sub model you get and what ports / features it has).

-512 MB of DDR400 / PC3200 RAM

-Sapphire ATI Radeon 9200 64MB Video Card
This card has a VGA out, a DVI out, and an S-Video out. The sales guy told me I could run 2 monitors PLUS a TV (s-video) at the SAME TIME. This is incorrect. You can run any combination you wish, but only TWO at a time. This was fine for me though as I really only wanted duel monitors. I'll be using an IEEE device to output to television for previewing.

-NEC 1300A DVD burner. After upgrading to the new 1.08 firmware, this drive seems to work very well with all kinds of DVD-R and DVD+RW media, as well as regular CD-R's.

-Serial ATA 80 GB drive - broken into 3 partitions - one for Winders', one for apps, and one for data.

-Maxtor SE 200GB IDE drive for mass video storage

-Swappable drive bay - to put large projects on their own hard drive and swap them in and out. This is the best $12 investment I'll ever make.

-160 GB IDE drive in the swappable bay (for now anyway, this one is going to a customer along with the master of his project)

-Creative Labs 2.1 60 watt speaker system. The best sound I've ever heard for $50.

-Video preview through my extra consumer DV camcorder to preview monitor via RCA cables.

-External preview monitor - Standard issue 19" TV, first purchased 7 years ago when I moved into my first appartment.

-Espresso Machine

-Cigarette Dispenesr


"Stuff to buy with my next credit card" list:

-Canopus 100 box for A-D and D-A conversion and for external monitor preview

-Maching set of new 19" monitors

[Kevin King]

Ong:

I was following your posts about your hardware setup and though I could clairify a few things for you.

1. Correct, you do NOT need a "capture" card if you have an IEEE / firewire card. A "capture" card accepts an RCA or S-video input and it "records" off of that input. Back in the days before digital video, this was the way things were done. The IEEE takes a new kind of cable (probably supplied with the card) that plugs between the card and a firewire port on your miniDV camcorder. The software will send a signal to your camera over this cable and it will digitally copy the info right off your tape and onto your computer in uncompressed .avi format - you can then edit all you want with your NLE.

2. When shopping for a hard drive, the most important is to get a 7200 RPM drive - it is basically faster than the older 5400 RPM drives. Also, the "cache" buffer can help. 8MB buffer is ideal, but a 2MB (on most drives) should be just fine. Also, look at the ATA specification. It should be an ATA-100 or ATA-133 drive. On the off chance you see an ATA-66 hard drive, pass it up for a faster interface.

3. As far as NTFS - this stands for "NT File System". This is the type of file system you use on the hard drive, and it is specified when you first format the drive. The alternative to NTFS is "FAT32". NTFS is a much better choice for video as it handles large files much better than FAT32. I believe all Windows 2000 machines, and Windows XP Professional support NTFS. Windows XP Home Edition may not, I'm not sure on that. When you get your new drive, when you go to format it in your system, see if NTFS is an option and choose this. You won't notice any difference after it is formatted - it will behave just like any other drive in your computer, it will just perform better.

4. Finally, you don't have to worry about "bad sectors" from formatting. Bad sectors usually crop up in drives as they age, and they really start to crop up quickly in drives that are about to fail.

Hope that helps. With the IEEE card and a new 60GB drive, you should be just fine for all your editing needs with the machine you already have. Keep in mind for storage space, that raw video (uncompressed AVI right off your IEEE card) will require approximately 13.5 GB per hour. Make sure to budget some extra space to render your finished product onto out of your NLE, however long your project is.

Good luck!!

[Glenn Chan]

Some gamers use FAT32 because it's slightly faster. For video definitely use NTFS.

2- Hard drive interfaces have a neglible effect on speed when they aren't the bottleneck (the hard drive nearly always is... firewire400 is the exception). Newer drives tend to be faster though.

[Brad Horner]

- Aopen AX4C II w/ sata raid 0, 1, 0+1 (for 4 drives)

- 2.6C 800mhz (en route via newegg.com)
*will overclock to 3.2 hopefully

- pc3700 528 x 2 (later this month, maybe Corsair)

- 36 GB Raptor 10000rpm as my drive for OS and progs.

- two pata 7200 rpm raid0 to render with. I will probably switch
to two 72 GB Raptors in a raid0, later next year.

If Santa brought me a DVRexRT Professional then all would be well in my geek world.

I have an XL1S that needs this NLE to be built!