PC for DVD editing

[Peter Stahl]

I want to upgrade my PC and be able to edit TV programs onto a DVD. I have a DVD recorder on my TV but would like to be able to use a PC to cut out commercials, change titles, etc. What would be the minimum, P4, 2.4 GHz processor, 512mb memory. What else would I need. Are there any tuner/recorder cards for a PC? Most channels I record are analog but I do have a Comcast PVR too for the digital ones. Also what PC is your preference? I was thinking Dell. What software do you use to edit Show/movies on your PC?

thanks, Pete

[Jim Becker]

Up that memory substantially, Pete. 1gb minimum, more if you can. Editing photography and video requires a lot of memory. You also need the right video setup for display, not just for the TV card...of which there are a number of them available including a nice one from ATI. Go DVI on your display, too...makes a huge difference in clarity...no way would I go back to analog!

I am a fan of Dell Machines myself. Mine is a P4 3ghz with 1gb of RAM. That's the minimum I'd recommend and I don't even do video (yet).

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Peter, I had a Dell built for my wife who is an avid amateur photographer/videographer. Take the memory to the max! You'll need it. The first project she performed was to scan in about 1900 family photos and turn them into a 1 hour video set to music for her parents 60th wedding anniversary. You'll want all the disc and memory you can get. There is also a device I bought for her from Dell ...can't remember what it's called but it sits on the desk top and allow for all current forms of video to be inputed and outputed via this device. She can transfer video in analog or digital forms from a camcorder or vcr to the computer, edit and then transfer it back to the vcr or camcorder in either analog or digital formats. It transfers audio too! Good luck with your decision!

[Peter Stahl]

Jim, Ken, thanks for the replies.

Jim, DVI is the type of Video card I'm guessing, if so how much memory on that , 128 mb enough?

Ken, Could you ask your wife what that input device is called? I'd like to do something like that with my pics too!

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Peter....the device is called a video capture adapter and it was sold in conjuntion with Dells video editing software package. I saw other companies selling software and adapters at other computer companies like Tigerdirect. This device has a single cable running to the computer and the device is diamond shaped. One side of the diamond has connectors and is marked INPUT. Another side of the diamond has the same type of connectors and is marked OUTPUT.

[Jim Becker]

Jim, DVI is the type of Video card I'm guessing, if so how much memory on that , 128 mb enough?

DVI is the digital output for the LCD monitors that accept digital input...best thing since sliced bread. 128mb on the card will work; 256mb isn't unreasonable if you plan on working at very high resolutions and high color densitites. I believe my card is 128mb.

As to the external "box" mentioned, I believe Sony recently introduced an entry in this space.

[Peter Stahl]

Ken & Jim,

Thanks again. Looks like the Video Capture Adapter is a special adapter so you can hook up your camcorder, camera, etc. Not sure if I'll need that but will keep in mind.

thanks, Pete

[Jerry Clark]

Be prepared with lots of patiences and disappointments-- It is not as easy as copying a disk. There is a big learning curve, but will be worth it when you master it. I have done some short ones, the longer ones are a lot of work. And as has been said, get as much memory as you can, some people use 4 gig. Memory chips are a lot cheaper now because of the surplus.

[Bill Arnold]

Up that memory substantially, ... 1gb minimum, more if you can. Editing photography and video requires a lot of memory. ...

Jim,

Is there anyplace to get Dell RAM anywhere but Dell? They seem to be real proud of theirs.

I've got a Dimension 8250, P4, 2.4GHz, 256MB RAM, dual monitors (NVIDIA Geforce 4 on a 19" Dell 992; NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 on a 17" Viewsonic). The system operates well even with multiple windows open while editing images, etc; of course, it's paging quite a lot!

Regards,

[Curt Harms]

I've always had PC's, but if I were looking for primarily a video editor, I'd look at the $499 Mac. It doesn't come with keyboard, mouse etc. but I think keyboards etc. with USB connections will work with PC or Mac. Macs have been the default professional multimedia machines for a while now and if the $499 machine didn't require major upgrades to work....

I was also reading an article about Dreamworks and other studios using AMD opteron 64 bit machines. Supposed to be fast and stable.

[Jim Becker]

Is there anyplace to get Dell RAM anywhere but Dell? They seem to be real proud of theirs.

Just about any place that sells RAM can help you out...Dell uses standard parts. For a well set up site, you should be able to just use your model number to cross reference.

[Mike Ramsey]

Go to Crucial or kingston's website and look up your model,usually arrives in 2 days after you place an order.

Jim,

Is there anyplace to get Dell RAM anywhere but Dell? They seem to be real proud of theirs.

I've got a Dimension 8250, P4, 2.4GHz, 256MB RAM, dual monitors (NVIDIA Geforce 4 on a 19" Dell 992; NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 on a 17" Viewsonic). The system operates well even with multiple windows open while editing images, etc; of course, it's paging quite a lot!

Regards,

[Perry Schmidt]

Peter - I did this very exercise about 9 months ago...and learned a lot I ended up with a 2.8GHZ P4 and that has plenty of power for video editing. Rendering isn't blazing fast, but good. Memory - I have 512MB and some editing programs don't use all 512MB, others chew it up fast. But the general recommendation of others to get more is right on the money.

The two biggest areas that will make more of a difference than more than 512MB memory and faster processor are your video card and disks.

Video card: For video capture and edit the the ATI All in Wonder with the Theatre-based chipset. This is a very good chipset for capture. Other chipsets (in the less than $500 range) for video capture seem to have many problems except this card. The key isn't the card, it's the Theatre-base chipset. I don't know of any other cards that use this chipset, but I'm sure there are others. The ATI TV card does not use this chipset. 128MB on the video works well. Your higher video memory really comes into play for graphics/gaming, not video capture/edit. The biggest advantage a good card will give you is less dropped frames. With my setup I can capture a show and drop virtually no frames, and still do some small tasks in the background. A smaller CPU, or less memory or a video card that does less processing will really tax your computer and you will drop frames when capturing.

Disks: You want two very large (160GB and up) SATA disks. These are good through-put disks. When you edit you will increase your render time significantly by having your source on one disk and writing your finished video onto the 2nd disk. IDE disks will be very slow. SCSI disks are faster, but very expensive!

Software: If you are having to render your video, there's lots of products out there. Adobe makes a good one, Ulead has it's problems, but is generally good. Roxio is good, but limited to your output formats. Others that I've used (Pinnacle, Nero, Sonic) are really buggy. Pegasus makes VERY Good products but I haven't used their video editing/rendering products much. But lots of people say good things about them. For me ULead wasn't necessarily the best, but it was the least buggy, most complete package. I don't use it much for editing anymore, but still use it for DVD authoring.

Pegasys (www.pegasys-inc.com) has a very nice, fast 'editor' that does nothing but cut clips of video out, and allows you to rearrange the clips. VERY useful tool.

So if you're going to be editing tapes/TV shows, this TMPGEnc Editor (the Pegasys-inc tool I'm talking about above) works great! You capture the show/tape in MPEG format (which is what the ATI card does very well) at the final settings you want, edit it and write it out. The editing tool doesn't re-encode the MPEG file. All it has to reencode is the endpoints of your clips. So what you get is a finished file that has no quality loss from the captured MPEG, and writes out about as fast as your disks will copy the file. If the whole file is re-encoded - like most software does - an hour show took from 1-2 hours to reencode after editing, depending on the software.

If you are going to be editing home video and adding effects, then that's a lot different. Here you'll probably download from your camera via a fire-wire or USB port, so no video capture card is even needed. This will transfer the file in AVI format - raw, uncompressed video. VERY large files. You edit it, add effects, text, scene transistion, etc. (which ULead, Roxio, and Adobe all make good programs for this) then the finished product is rendered and encoded into MPEG format. This takes raw CPU power, memory and fast disks. The faster you have of this combiniation the faster it will render. My system (2.8MHz, 512MB, 2 SATA drives) will render in almost real-time speed depending on the software package, which is pretty good. But that's still a long time (2 hour video takes 2 hours...)

Both types of editing really require two differnet sets of software, and some hardware differences. The software isn't cheap, so take advantage of the trial software and really test it out. I loved the features and interface of Pinnacles software but it would never render a program without crashing. Roxio was very nice and not buggy, but the MPEG output options were very limited. ULead was very nice software...the interface wasn't quite as nice as Roxio or Pinnacle, but it was the most feature rich and not too buggy. And Pegasys software is very good...but you have to buy 3 different programs to do what one of ULeads programs will do. So there's a lot out there. I made the mistake of not really putting the trial software through it's paces before buying and ended up buying an 'extra program' I really didn't need in the end. Today I have two differrent programs for two different tasks - editing commercials out I use TMPGEnc Editor. For cam-corder video I use ULead. I've used Adobe's some, and it seems really nice, but it was very slow. Their professional product is VERY good, and VERY expensive. The 'average user' software is a trimmed down version of the pro product. I think some day it will be a very good product.

So there's lots of choices.

Check out these sites for more info:
http://www.digitalfaq.com/
http://www.videohelp.com/

There's a ton of info on these sites, especially the 2nd one. The first site is a good 'how-to' site, the 2nd one is a good reference site for tools, etc.

Hope this helps.

Perry

[Peter Stahl]

I've always had PC's, but if I were looking for primarily a video editor, I'd look at the $499 Mac. It doesn't come with keyboard, mouse etc. but I think keyboards etc. with USB connections will work with PC or Mac. Macs have been the default professional multimedia machines for a while now and if the $499 machine didn't require major upgrades to work....

I was also reading an article about Dreamworks and other studios using AMD opteron 64 bit machines. Supposed to be fast and stable.

Curt,

Thanks for the reply but I'll be staying with a IBM clone.

Pete

[Peter Stahl]

Perry,

Thanks for the reply. Looks like you've got a nice setup. Lots of good info there,

Pete