HD Video editing on a budget

gaming_guy

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spud17

I'd also be interested in replies.

Note, no mention of graphics card.

Was going to post almost exactly the same question.

8yr old pc, with XP and editing Panansonic mts files?

sillygoose

Funnily enough I just built a system similar to the above spec, apart from using generic 1333MHz RAM (ebuyer.com) and a very similar motherboard (same chips) but an ASROCK M3A785GMH/128M 785G. Also I selected a Samsung HD103SJ Spinpoint F3 1TB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 32MB Cache, very highly regarded, runs very cool at only £40+vat (wish I had bought 2 but had a GB sitting around already)

I would say pack as much hard drive in as possible, video eats it so quickly.

I have been pleasantly surprised by the performance of the components the 955 CPU was only £108 and can easily be overclocked at least another 20%+ with the utilities that came with the ASrock m/b although I am keeping it at +5% as it runs 38-45 degrees with the AMD cooler and I haven't been short of power. I am also interested in video, I particularly wanted good performance editing and recoding into mpegs, very happy so far. Video performance isn't really an issue for editing as not very taxing although the onboard Radeon HD4200 is easily up to such easy work. (games are an entirely different kettle to video because in games much of the creative processing is farmed out to the graphics processors)

My budget came to £400 including a copy of Windows 7 Home Premium OEM - £70, ASRock m/b, 955 CPU, 4Gb RAM, Midi tower Case, PSU 450 Watt, Front panel card reader & USB port, Samsung SH-S223 DVD Writer, Samsung 1TB HD, plus some heatsink grease and few other sundry, case fans, cables etc. Everything came from Ebuyer.com

I haven't tried the onboard graphics HDMI output yet put my monitor has an input, apparently the Radeon can output to a screen on the HDMI one output and a different output to the VGA so in theory you could work on one screen and see the actual HD video result on a second screen.

I do think this CPU is a little gem, I did my homework for it and its a quality bit of silicon, the main thing holding it back is watch the heat, although the supplied AMD copper heatsink with heatpipes is very good, if your happy to run hotter it will happily pump up as much as you like. IT wasn't happy with the pad of heat paste that came already on the heatsink. Cleaned off and applied a VERY thin layer of Artic Silver and the temp. dropped impressively, especially as this is a 120 Watt chip. I am using active power management that cranks the CPU down when idle too.

HTH

gaming_guy

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Iconic

Both of your specs only appear to include standard DVD drives. If you are dealing with HD wouldn't you need a Blu-ray writer?

I assume most of the edited content would be stored on hard disc but for the sake of a few quid wouldn't it be worth having some Blu-ray back up as an alternative? I saw a Blu-ray writer last week for less than £90 http://www.amazon.co.uk/LG-BH10LS30-AUAR10B-Internal-BDRW-Retail/dp/B0035FF066/ref=sr_1_6?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1287294276&sr=1-6....they will be £50 in a couple of months!

spud17

I mentioned the graphics card because my friend was going to use a vga monitor most of the time, but would like the ability to connect to his 32in LCD TV via HDMI.
Blu-ray player would be something to consider for the future.

gaming_guy

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