PC for general use & camcorder

[navychop]

I have a Canon HF100 HD camcorder on order, for use during an April vacation in Key West. This camcorder writes a separate file to an SDHC card each time you stop filming. I'll need a fairly high powered PC to stitch these together to burn DVDs, DVDs readable only on BD players, and BDs. I probably won't get too fancy with the movie editing software.

I need to decide whether to buy or build. I've built for myself, others, and where I work since DOS days. Heck, I built some Heathkit H89s. But now, with Vista concerns and having everything play nice together, I wonder if I should buy off the shelf.

I looked at Dell, and stopped when the price topped $4,000.

I've been partial to AMD, but have no problems going back to Intel. What do you recommend? Quad Core? 2 GHz? 3GHz? 4GB? 8GB? Probably go with a dual HDD RAID array.

 

[JAG72]

Why not a MAC. What else are you going to use this PC for besides video editing? If you are going to buy a PC I would consider going back to Intel right now. Intel has really shown a huge improvement and IMO has overtaken AMD again.

 

[navychop]

Well, with the iPhone I've pretty much gotten over my avoidance of Apple (had to work with an early B&W one piece Mac "droid" for a semester-YUK!).

But it's not an option. I'll also have to use the machine to remotely access our Windows servers at work, including our accounting program, which has a bad allergy to anything non-Windows. In theory, it should work, but.... Same with Office. In theory, the files are the same, but....

It will serve as my main home PC- WP, SS, surfing, DVDs, CDs. Pretty much stuff that can be done with any OS.

But gotta stay with M$, and dabble with Linux.

 

[JAG72]

I would stick with an Intel based processor then. Get one with as much cache as you can afford.

I am not used to people using their home machines for work anymore as we have not been allowed to do that for the past 6 years or so. It is a pain as I have to take a laptop back and forth with me now.

 

[navychop]

Yeah, "cache" is a concern!

Thanks. We started to look at it when fuel prices reached for the stars, and are revisiting it now that we're getting word to expect large increases in the coming months. Only for certain administrative personnel. But as I'm in charge of that sort of thing, .....

Yes, contamination is a concern, but I lost that battle to convenience.

There will be times when I can't make it in to the office but will still need to log in and perform certain tasks. If we get it set up properly down the line, I'll be able to actually go on a vacation across a payday, and run it remotely. No one else is willing/able to learn to run certain steps of payroll. I bet they'd learn quick if I get hit by a truck.

Still - buy vs build concerns under VISTA?

 

[navychop]

I guess I should add, I'm intrigued by the "instant on" Linux option being offered by certain motherboards. ASUS, I believe. But is this a feature only available for AMD processor based boards?

 

[JAG72]

For what you are doing I would build your own PC. Bought systems normally do not have the quality parts that you will need and demand of when doing video editing.

The instant on Linux sounds like a cool idea. I am not sure but if the system board manufactures include it, it should not be processor specific. If the manufacture makes AMD and Intel based boards I would hope they would include it for both.

 

[Kevinw]

For video editing Mac is the industry leader. However 4k for a dell?? You might want to start all over again on your build. A good Dell can be had from around 700-800 dollars that will do video editing just fine.
Keep an eye on www.slickdeals.net for Dell specials. Last year I got my son a Dell Inspiron 530 w/ Intel Core Duo e4600, 300g HD, 3G of memory, NVIDIA GeForce 8300GS vc and a 22 in Samsung monitor for less than 600.
He use this for video editing with out any issues.

 

[Grandpa J]

I have an HF 100 as well for about 9 months. I used an Intel Quad 32 bit Windows and Sony Vegas editing and it seemed to work well. I just upgrade to an Intel I 7 Windows 64 bit machine which does speed editing up a bit. But most editing programs at the moment are 32 bit so they don't take advantage of the 64 bit power. But what ever you pick get as much computing power as your budget allows. Editing takes a lot of computing power.
P.S. I like the HF 100, at CES I saw the new versions of it which added a bit of zoom and internal editing options, other wise same camera.

 

[dfergie]

An AVC HD DL disc takes my current pc 16 plus hours to encode and burn, go for the best you can get...

 

[navychop]

Well, I'll admit I was spec'ing that Dell with Hot and Cold running cup holders.

Since I'm not hearing anything here about problems with building it yourself and having Vista device driver problems, I guess I'll go that route.

When I build, I use PC Power & Cooling power supplies. That, and other choices, always means I build more expensive machines than I can buy. But then, I don't worry about power supplies. Or have to remove trialware.

I guess I'm looking at an AMD Phenom II X4 or an Intel PGT series, under ASUS. Got to check on if these boards have the Linux feature.

I don't think I'd be happy with 16 hours!

BTW the follow on models to the HF100 have smaller CMOS chips, so their low light capability might be worse.

 

[TheForce]

I have a Canon HF100 HD camcorder on order, for use during an April vacation in Key West. This camcorder writes a separate file to an SDHC card each time you stop filming. I'll need a fairly high powered PC to stitch these together to burn DVDs, DVDs readable only on BD players, and BDs. I probably won't get too fancy with the movie editing software.

I need to decide whether to buy or build. I've built for myself, others, and where I work since DOS days. Heck, I built some Heathkit H89s. But now, with Vista concerns and having everything play nice together, I wonder if I should buy off the shelf.

I looked at Dell, and stopped when the price topped $4,000.

I've been partial to AMD, but have no problems going back to Intel. What do you recommend? Quad Core? 2 GHz? 3GHz? 4GB? 8GB? Probably go with a dual HDD RAID array.

Most computers today will handle SD video editing very well but if you want to do HD editing either mpeg2 or AVC HD then you need a big machine. Not just the cpu but also the memory and the hard drive array.
I too found the best machine from Dell was out of my budget so here's what I did:

Bought an HP Pavillion Elite m9280F PC. Then I upped the memory to 8Gb. Next I added two additional 1Tb hard drives internally and set them for a raid 0 to improve performance. Then I added a second Optical drive a 4x BluRay sata burner. Then I discovered I need additional power supply so I put in a much larger supply. Happy? Yes indeed. This machine now can edit two AVCHD streams on a vegas 8.1 64 bit video edit software in real time at full HD resolution. The rendering time is not quite as fast as I had hoped but much much faster than the 32 bit windows XP boxes around here. The box will play both HD DVD and Blu Ray and will burn Blue Ray disks. Software loaded is Adobe Production suite CS3 and Sony Vegas 8.0c and 8.1. DVDArchitecture 5.0.

 

[navychop]

Thank you. I'll have to look at that option.

 

[Kevinw]

If your building then look at Slickdeals.net - The best coupons, lowest prices, and hottest deals. for deals from most parts suppliers like New egg etc. There is always a coupon for something.

 

[JAG72]

Since I'm not hearing anything here about problems with building it yourself and having Vista device driver problems, I guess I'll go that route.

As long as you don't go cheap or with generic brands you should not have any Vista driver problems. It has been out long enough that all new hardware is supported.

 

[JAG72]

I still say grab a Mac and boot Windows on the machine for the things you need for work.