Computer for Audio/Video Production

M

matius

New Member
Hey guys:

Could you give me some suggestions for a not-too-pricey box computer for audio/video production, with emphasis in music production? Say, 1K - $1,300.

I need it to run all progs smoothly and be capable of expansion. Any suggestions are appreciated.

I am looking but reviews are so 50/50 it seems when you look at a million.

M
 
I'd reccomend something with a Pentium 4 and a good amount of RAM. If you want video capture capabilities, something like a WinTVPVR150 would do fine. I just made a DVD with something captured using that card(captures directly to MPEG2) and it looks wonderful! And audio, just get some nice soundcard. Eh, if you just want something basic, a sound blaster live would work great.

Software, premiere and soundforge are what I usally use for videos and audio...

Just a quick note, nearly all capture cards out there capture UNCOMPRESSED. This means if you want to compress the video while captureing, it must relay on your computer. This will result in dropped frames(very choppy videos) The WinTVPVR series are probably some of the cheapest cards that are still decent and have an actual onboard MPEG2 encoder. Even if you don't want DVD quality, a you would like smooth video, right? ;P

I do loads of video editing, so feel free to IM me for more help ;)
 
Could you give me some suggestions for a not-too-pricey box computer for audio/video production, with emphasis in music production? Say, 1K - $1,300.
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Here's a great start
- AMD Athlon64 X2 3800 [S939, Manchester, ADA3800DAA5BV]($322)
- Sapphire X300SE 128MB($49)
- DFI NF4 Ultra Infinity($95.99)
- Maxtor DiamondMax10 320GB [16MB, SATA3.0, NCQ]($141)
- NEC 3550($38.99)
- Buffalo Major 2x512 [CL2.5]($66.31)
- Arctic Cooling Freezer64 Pro($34.99)
- Antec Sonata II + 450W [12V@32A]($99.99)
SUBTOTAL = $848.27

Would you suggest RAID?
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I wouldnt bother. The only time i ever notice RAID benifits (that is, RAID0, RAID5) is when im doing heavy video stuff ... audio data isnt that insane (to my knowledge) so I wouldnt bother.
 
Praetor. good start, but I reccoend P4's for desktop type applications due to the fact they tend to do better.

And I'd use RAID if you could find two drives that are cheaper than just one. RAID's are great, very fast, but you don't HAVE to have it for video editing. ATA33 is just fine for video editing, beleive it or not! Even the high quality stuff, it should be fine.
 
Praetor. good start, but I reccoend P4's for desktop type applications due to the fact they tend to do better.
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Unfortunately they dont. Not here and certaintly not against a X2 (note that there is TONS of room to upgrade the X2 to a higher model so the argument of low end X2 wont fly)

And I'd use RAID if you could find two drives that are cheaper than just one. RAID's are great, very fast, but you don't HAVE to have it for video editing. ATA33 is just fine for video editing, beleive it or not! Even the high quality stuff, it should be fine.
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1. Quantity ... fast HDDs dont mean jack if you dont have space to put them on
2. Per drive speed ... you can RAID fast and slow together but that means crap all
3. RAID config, security, speed ... how much buffer memory does the RAID controller have? what RAID level are you using etc :)

I get the feeling you meant to say SATA3.0 (instead of RAID?) And to counter that, sure its not needed but NCQ is very nice ... the drives are selected for their 16MB cache not for anything else.
 
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