Best PC For Editing

S

Steve_in_MD

Hello,

I apologize in advance if there's already been posts like this. I'm looking for the best reasonably priced PC for editing. For my editing purposes I've been using my family's old desktop computer that still has Vista and runs very slowly. It's getting quite annoying and I'm looking to do some serious editing on a much faster PC. I'll be dedicating this PC almost exclusively to editing. I'm looking to spend no more than $600. Would a laptop or a desktop be better for my needs? Also, how much RAM and how large of a hard drive should I be looking for?

If it makes a difference, I haven't decided for sure what software I'll be using yet. I'm going to download a few free trials then make my decision. It will either be Avid, Vegas, or Premiere Pro, since they are all in the $500 or less range with the student discount applied.

I know Macs are great and all, and I've been using an iMac and iMovie & Final Cut Express in my video production class for two years, but I just don't have the money for a Mac, because if I were to buy a Mac, I'd probably end up buying Final Cut Studio, and then I'd be spending nearly $2000 which I just don't have.

Thanks in advance.
 
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I spent $450 for my current editing machine. It's a Gateway DX4300-05 off the shelf, btw.

Windows Vista (came with free upgrade to Win7, which I never used in case of driver issues).

The more RAM the merrier, for sure - just be aware that it can be limited by the version of Windows you have, regardless of what you can squeeze onto the motherboard.

You'll want an external drive for editing, so don't fret too much about the size that comes with your computer. (Though all drives should be 7200rpm, or faster)

Good luck. :)
 
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Zensteve,

Thanks for the info. Right now, this is my first choice:
http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Satel...ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=pc&qid=1269915558&sr=1-1

But it is a 5400 RPM drive, not a 7200 like you recommended. In fact, I'm having a very hard time trying to find a computer with a 7200 RPM drive in my price range, unless I go desktop, which I am trying to avoid, because I'd then have to pay $150-$200 for a good monitor, speakers, etc, not to mention the lack of portability. Is having a 7200 RPM drive really that vital? I don't know a whole lot about the tech specs of computers.

EDIT:

Does the hard drive of the laptop need to be 7200 RPM or can I get a laptop with a 5400 RPM drive and an external drive of 7200 RPM?

Thanks.
 
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Steve_in_MD said:
Is having a 7200 RPM drive really that vital?
Click to expand...

Yes, it is.

5400rpm runs too slowly to properly capture video streams. 7200rpm is the minimum needed, if you want to avoid having frames dropped. (Makes the video look jerky, with skipped frames) There are faster ones which are probably worth lookin' at, but I'm not having any issues capturing HD with a plain 7200rpm.

In other news - I'm not a fan of laptops, for work computers. I'm also especially not keen on Satellite laptops. My brother's had two of those burn up in heat-related issues, and he doesn't even do video.
 
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Thanks for the help. As of now, this is probably what I'm going to end up getting, based on your advice and some tips from other websites and computer-savvy friends:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus+-+...ssor/9699016.p?id=1218152460479&skuId=9699016

It costs $510. It has 6GB of RAM (expandable to 16GB), a 7200 RPM, 750GB Hard Drive, 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium, 8 USB ports, HDMI output, etc. I'm pretty sure it has everything I need, except for a Firewire port, but I should be able to find one from tigerdirect.com for a pretty low price.

EDIT:

I searched around a bit and I'm thinking it might just be easier to spend an extra $50 for this computer:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Gateway...ssor/9698918.p?id=1218153427813&skuId=9698918

It comes with a Firewire port, plus a TB of Hard Drive space. Finding a Windows 7 compatible Firewire port is pretty difficult, all I've found so far are for XP (and older).
 
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Quality only hurts once

Hi Steve. I went through the same process as you, trying to find the best combination of value and performance for editing film. Since our company is planning on getting several copies of the machine, the decision was even more difficult. Finally, after a ton of searching and picking the brains of people with EXTREME knowledge in the field, we're getting custom systems built. The specs for these systems, with the following adjustments for budget's sake, would get you a computer that will give you the most bang for the buck and make you future proof for several years:

1. If you have ~$500 set aside for the NLE software, consider buying Vegas Movie Studio Platinum (~$70). It'll do 95% of what most people need done at a fraction of the cost. And when your budget allows, you can make a seamless transition to Vegas Pro.

2. Now that you've freed up a bunch of money, you can put that toward getting more Machine. It's been a very hard pill to swallow for me, but it really is true: quality only hurts once, and it'll save you money b/c you won't find yourself being frustrated, dissatisfied and buying another system a few months from now.

3. Since both Vegas MSP and Pro's performance relies mostly on Processor and Memory, and not nearly as much on the graphics card used, you can safely get away with something like the following:

Intel i7 920 or 930, 6-12gb of quality memory (remember to always upgrade memory in multiples of 3 with these processors, or your performance will suffer), 1 TB boot/main drive, 1TB or more for rendering, ~750watt PSU, nice gamer class case with larger, quiet cooling fans (larger fans turn more slowly to move a given volume of air and thus produce less noise, which is important for those of us editing film), quality mobo (chipset is EXTREMELY important) like the ASRock H55M Pro LGA1156 Micro ATX on the low $ side to an ASUS P6X58D on the high side.

After adding a modest gamer card or even a lower priced workstation card, Win 7 64bit, DVD drive, etc, you're looking at just under $1000 to about $1200 for a POWERFUL system that will make life fun with lots of room for expansion, overclocking, etc. You'll thank yourself for going this route when you JUUUUUST make a critical deadline for your project b/c your machine was able to render it all in time.

Oh, and don't worry about building it yourself, with all the tutorials online, it's really easy. Think about the sense of pride you'll have, knowing you're crafting your work on a system you built with your own hands.
 
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I you are like me, you will be spending a great deal of time in the edit bay. Build you own computer from scratch.
Use a 10k RPM drive for you system dirve. And at a minimum four other dirves and keep everything backed up!

And this is the most important, NEVER connect you editing computer to the internet!!!!

Only install software that you realy need to get the job done.

Goodluck and have fun.

Terry
 
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Stardust Walking said:
And this is the most important, NEVER connect you editing computer to the internet!!!!
Click to expand...

I have heard this before, and it makes sense, but how do you usually upload to Youtube/Vimeo? My current editing computer which is a piece of crap isn't connected to the internet, and I upload by burning a DVD and ripping the file from the DVD using Altysoft DVD Ripper on my other computer, then uploading. Is this what you usually do?
 
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I don't know why I didn't think of that, haha. Thanks for the suggestions.

On a similar note, I am a little confused by all this talk of external hard drives. I have had many people tell me I am going to want to use them for my editing. What exactly does this mean? Am I saving all my raw files and semi-edited ones to the external hard drive and then saving my finished file to my computer? Or does this mean something completely different? I've always just saved everything right to my computer's drive, which probably isn't the best thing to do.
 
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Not just external hard drive, but what are known as working drives. I have my systems drive and 5 other hard drives in the editing computer totaling 2.25 TBs.
Two of the drive are in drawers that can be changed out. I also can add three outborad drive as needed. At present I am working on a doc with over 90 hours of
footage and over 5000 photos on the editing computer. You can never have enough hard drive space.

Terry
 
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I just got this in my inbox. Tiger Direct has a sale on this awesome drive ending today.

Hitachi Deskstar 2TB Internal Hard Drive
2TB, 7200RPM, 32MB, SATA-3G

$149 <<< that's ~7 cents/gig. ... Hand... reaching... for ... wallet ... can't... stop ... hand ...
 
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Well, after doing some research and getting a lot of help from a friend of mine who knows computers well, I decided to take the plunge today and get a PC. This is what I ended up with:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/HP+-+Pa...ssor/9694506.p?id=1218150609828&skuId=9694506

I got it on sale at Best Buy for $680. 8GB of DDR3 RAM (expandable to 16GB), AMD quad-core processor, 1TB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive, Nvidia GeForce 9100 graphics, etc. Gonna swap out the graphics card for a better Nvidia because the one that came with it is a 256MB, but that will do for a little while anyway.

Now, one question I have is mainly for Stardust Walking, since he mentioned it, but anyone who has the answer can certainly chime in.

Why exactly do I not want to connect my editing computer to the internet?
 
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Its a configuration management problem. Every piece of software youll install, OS,NLE, Utilites etc will all want to automatically update them selves, sounds great, but not every update is going to play nice with what your doing, you want to control this. I work in a huge company with worldwide IT issues, and NO software updated gets applied to the IT systems without first going through a RIGOROUS test and compatibility check.

I haven't even mentioned viri, spyware, malware etc..

The truth is, if your livelihood depends on your computer working rock solid, don't put it on the internet, but if your like me, like living on the edge and don't consider it a going out of business problem, then go for it!
 
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depending on your editing software, you might get more bang for you extra bucks by upgrading that memory now! Before upgrading the vid card.. (but is anyone even making 4gb sticks of ddr3 yet?)
 
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