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.
I'd certainly look for a desktop system as $600 will barely buy you a low-end laptop and a big external hard drive. I'm assuming you can reuse monitor, keyboard, etc so you don't need to spend more money on those?
A lot depends on what kind of things you plan on editing: a 300GB drive could be enough for a DV feature and plenty for DV shorts, but even 2TB could be small if you're planning to edit Red footage at 100MB per second.
In addition, when you're talking about editing software like Avid (I presume you mean Media Composer) it can be very picky about hardware and operating system so you may need to decide on the software you plan to run before you decide on the hardware. Media Composer, for example, only really supports Nvidia graphics and may or may not work if you have an ATI card or Intel integrated chips.
Well, the PC that I'm probably going to end up buying has an Intel integrated chip, so Avid is probably out of the question for now. It will be between Premiere and Vegas. I'll download the free trials, read up on both, and make my decision later.
If at some point down the road I decide I'd like to try Avid, can I buy an Nvidia graphics card and install it on my PC?
Also, will most other NLE's (specifically Premiere Pro and Vegas Pro) work with an Intel integrated chip instead of an Nvidia graphics card?
quote:
Originally posted by Steve_in_MD
If at some point down the road I decide I'd like to try Avid, can I buy an Nvidia graphics card and install it on my PC?
Yes, assuming the motherboard has a suitable PCI-Express slot. Of course the way Nvidia is going by then they may have gone bust and left Avid having to support other cards too :).
I would add that I used an ATI card with Xpress Pro for a couple of years, but there's no guarantee that it will work and eventually they changed something that made it largely incompatible (e.g. video playback stopped working correctly).
quote:
Also, will most other NLE's (specifically Premiere Pro and Vegas Pro) work with an Intel integrated chip instead of an Nvidia graphics card?
Good question: it's a long time since I've used Premiere, but from what I remember one of the big things about Premiere Pro was that it offloaded a lot of the rendering work to the graphics card? So you should probably check Adobe's site to see what they do actually support.
According to Premiere Pro's system requirements, you must have a "1,280x900 display with OpenGL 2.0compatible graphics card".
The computer that I'm currently looking at (not the one in the original post) has an ATI Radeon HD 4200 graphics card. Do you know if this is OpenGL 2.0-compatible?
Thanks for the help, to be honest I don't know a whole lot about the technical side of computers.
The HD4200 apparently supports OpenGL 3.2, so it should be fine:
You might want to do a web search for 'HD4200 premiere pro' to see if anyone can confirm that they have it working.
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+-+Pav...&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 important question that I have.
I've heard different opinions on whether I should connect my editing PC to the internet. Some people say it's fine, others say not to do it. Does anyone have any opinions on this?
Thank you.
That sounds like a pretty good deal.
As for Internet, you'll always be better off keeping any PC you use for serious work off the Internet but I've had my editing PC connected for years with no major problems; it's only really an issue if you get some kind of malware infection from the web, or if a Windows update breaks your system (e.g. I remember one Windows security patch breaking Avid a couple of years back). If you're connected to the Internet you can't really put off applying security patches for long.
I remember being on a recording forum awhile back where that was the exact common knowledge as well: don't keep your DAW (digital audio workstation, ie. your working computer) hooked up to the net.
I really don't see what the issue is though. Sure, if it's purely an editing computer and you want absolutely nothing else clogging up the system, I guess it would make sense to keep it offline.
But, if you'd benefit from internet access there really isn't much issue. For me, with where I'm at right now, I need to access a lot of online resources while I'm working. I get a lot of sound effects from the Free Sound Project (and yes I credit everyone, haha), and I often use material from FreePlayMusic for non-profit or school projects. Both resources I need while I'm editing, and I need internet access for.
Also, there is the "in browser" software initiative that I've latched on to. I consistently use Google Docs for sharing and editing documents and now, especially with the great capabilities of Google Wave, it just doesn't make sense to cut myself off from that. Those are services I use when coordinating or even conceiving a film, and they're most often useful when editing.
And, file sharing. Unless you're working in an office or studio situation, physically transporting files is really inconvenient. Enormous files, like uncompressed renderings or source footage, of course can't be transferred online yet, but in many, many instances it's easier to use the internet.
That's the bulk of my take on the issue.
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http://vimeo.com/corax
As long as you watch what your doing on the net you should be fine. Although with anything else net related, there is no guarantee.
Bamboo Nut Productions
www.bamboonut.com
Bamboo Nut Productions
www.bamboonut.com
quote:
Originally posted by bamboonut
As long as you watch what your doing on the net you should be fine. Although with anything else net related, there is no guarantee.
The last mass malware infection I'm aware of was through a Flash ad displayed on a perfectly legitimate web site served by an external advertising service. So 'watch what you're doing' no longer works.
That said, if you don't install Flash or Acrobat Reader on your PC then you've secured it against about 80% of recent attacks.
Nope, I'm going to disagree a bit Mark.
Ever tried an ad blocker, or script blocker? I use AdBlock Plus and NoScript consistently in FireFox. I never see ads. Eventually Chrome will get a similar extension, and IE, which no one should use if they're concerned about security, has some extension options for that as well.
Many, many sites are completely Flash based now. Not installing that software would be crippling in using any of these sites. Another option that I use though is NoScript, where it automatically refuses to run Flash or Java, unless I let the site. Works pretty great.
Besides, all websites (unless they are advertising their own products) use external ad services. It's just another fact to be aware of.
But finally, like bamboonut said, "with anything else net related, there is no guarantee."
That about sums it up, and really, if you're more comfortable being offline than go for it; many of the risks have been made clear here. But my position is that the rewards outweigh the risks in being connected to the internet.
PS. Haha, right there I tried to "Preview" my post and NoScript blocked it. Tah dah! I'll just that to "Always allow," haha.
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http://vimeo.com/corax
Thanks for the input guys. I decided to hook the internet up, but I'm going to use the internet as little as possible on my editing PC. Plus I downloaded Norton Security Suite from Comcast, so I should be OK. I'm not going to be surfing the net on my editing PC for the most part.
You're obviously going with a Windows PC, but just for the sake of completeness, it needs to be said: if your computer is a Macintosh, you can safely connect it to the internet. Currently, there are no known active viruses, worms, trojans or any other forms of malware that work on Macs. Nobody knows what will happen in the future, but for the past ten years, we haven't seen any malware for the platform.
quote:
Originally posted by Vasic
You're obviously going with a Windows PC, but just for the sake of completeness, it needs to be said: if your computer is a Macintosh, you can safely connect it to the internet. Currently, there are no known active viruses, worms, trojans or any other forms of malware that work on Macs. Nobody knows what will happen in the future, but for the past ten years, we haven't seen any malware for the platform.
Well... virtually, yes. 😉
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http://vimeo.com/corax
