PC system spec

[Paul Boore]

Hi guys,
I think I may have to buy a new PC and I was wondering what king of minimum spec I should look for to allow good quality video editing.

Any thoughts?

Cheers
Paul

[Robert Knecht Schmidt]

Hi Paul,

It used to be that only those who did a lot of compositing (and therefore rendering) were advised to go with a dual processor system, but at this point, real-time operation demands multiple processors and most video applications support them. (Acknowledgement of this universal fact came this week as Intel announced its 2005 generation of chips will be dual core: two processors in one.) As to the speed of the processor(s), unless money is no object to you, buy for your budget, not for the latest technology. There's no worse feeling than having a 6-month-old computer that saw more than half its value depreciate since its purchase. 2.4 and 2.8 GHz processors will be your economy choices; 3.2 GHz and Xeon chips will be on your to-buy list if you're thinking of spending upwards of $2000 on your machine.

A solidly supported motherboard with fast bus speeds will ensure error-free operation. Others who keep up on the latest will have more to say on this topic.

When it comes to video editing, you can never have enough hard disk space, so two or more 200+ GB drives are in order. Hitachi has recently introduced a very speedy 400 GB drive for around $400, but you might do even better to buy two 200+ GB drives and RAID-0 them for this price.

RAM is cheap, so go with 1 GB. More than that is probably overkill, except for specialized applications.

A DVD burner is practically obligatory at this point. DVD+R and DVD-R are more or less equally compatible with existing readers, but -R media is cheaper, so go with a -R (or dual format) burner. (The Plextor PX-708A is very highly rated, and is $185 street.) DVD is a reliable and inexpensive way to backup large projects. (For projects larger than 4.7 GB total, just RAR your files into appropriately sized chunks. Backing up to DVD will always be more economical than external hard disks.)

Tom's Hardware - useful link

[Tim Borek]

Robert: What do yo mean by RAR?

[Glenn Chan]

RAR refers to WinRAR, which is a compression utility much like winZip. Instead of compressing it can split large files into 4.7GB chunks for burning onto DVD.
http://www.rarlab.com/download.htm

2- You should provide more details.
Which NLE
what you want to do
what your budget is

Vendors also post minimum specs for their programs, although you're likely better off going with the recommended specs.

[Robert Knecht Schmidt]

"Instead of compressing it can split large files into 4.7GB chunks for burning onto DVD."

Right--but there's no reason why you can't also compress and split both, which is what I do.

[Robert Knecht Schmidt]

As much for my own reference as for others, here are my RAR settings, saved to a profile called "DVD backup":

Archive format: RAR
Update mode: Add and replace files
Compression method: Best
Split to volume: 666,594,743 bytes [This size allows the chunks to be conveniently backed up to DVDs and, if need be, CDs]
Archiving options: nothing checked except "Test archived files"

I use WinRAR 3.51. There's probably a newer version.

And sorry for resurrecting this old thread. It's useful to Google this information for myself when it's not at hand. See also threads here and here.

[Yi Fong Yu]

you can also download:
www.tugzip.com
for free =D. it also does rar, ace compressions provided you have the .exe for them.