Computers for HD editing

[Dave Watterson]

I keep seeing "you need a very powerful computer for HD editing ..."

Various editing suites can now handle HD in some or all of its various forms. But can anyone be more precise about the power of computer needed?

You get a lot of power for your pound in today's home computers. I will be interested to see if an HD editing system will actually cost more - in relative terms - than the early SD editing systems.

Dave

[billyfromConsett]

A powerful rig is needed to work with HD. It doesn't cost the earth though.

I've looked at this question over the last few months as I've built a three edit rigs for friends. Self building is usually cheaper than going to either a general computer store or a professional edit PC company. But there are more risks in doing it yourself.

However, the info that came over from a few forums about actual power and spec needs was varied. A few gereral tips that came over were:

There are a few high def standards that we'll use. HDV uses mpeg2, and is easier on the CPU. AVCHD uses mpeg4 and is more demanding of CPU power.

1) CPU - Dual core is utter minimum for editing HDV. Quad core or better is recommened of HDV.
- Quad core is the minimum CPU for AVCHD, whilst an i7 CPU is recommended for AVCHD. Some people use Quad cores for AVCHD and say it works - just about.

2) Memory - utter minimum is 2gb for Quad cores and 3gb for i7 chips, but a 64bit operating system allows the use of more than this. So I would guess doubling this - it's cheap -if you've a 64bit OS.

3) Hard drives - the advice here seemed to be that a raid isn't needed. For high def the data rate is 25Mbs tops and single Sata drives have no problem doing this. But three drives were most people's choices - one for the OS and apps, one for the captured footage, and one for the renders and meida cache files. I've since converted my raid for two single drives and my HDV rig still seems to work.

4) Graphics - a subject with divided opinion. Some say on-board graphics may suffice, others go for a middle of the road graphics card.

5) Power supply - a stable system needs stable power. So those made by the likes of Corsair or Seasonic etc shouldn't be skimped on.

6) Case - a case with airflow and ventilation will keep all the parts in the rig on the cool side and prolong the life of the rig.

The last rig I put together for editing AVCHD was below. It cost about £950 for the parts.

MSI x58 Pro mainboard
i7 920 CPU
3 x 1gb DDR3 memory sticks (three more sticks can be added)
Nvidia GT9600 graphics
1x 500gb drive and 2 x 1tb sata II hard drives
a Samsung 24" TV/monitor digital+HDMI+other inputs
Corsair 520w power supply
Coolermaster case with fans
Blu-ray re-write drive.
Windows XP professional.

[ned c]

I use an iMac 24 dual core Intel with 3 GB RAM and the faster video card. It works very well with FCP 5 HD for editing HDV. For AVCHD I use Final Cut Express 4 as my version of FCP does not handle AVCHD. I have no problem editing AVCHD but it is converted to AIC (Apple Intermediate Codec) with about a tenfold increase in file size so I am not editing "native" AVCHD. I am editing "full" HD i.e. 1920 x 1080 60i and creating Blu Ray compatible DVDs with standard DVD discs using Toast, get about 20 minutes on a DVD. I am also creating SD DVDs from 1920x1080 which have excellent quality and with a line doubler DVD player give excellent image results.

I also have an old PC with a dual core processor, 1 GB RAM which can edit HDV using Vegas Studio Platinum. I need to add more RAM to be able to edit AVCHD which Vegas Studio Platinum certainly can.

ned c

[billyfromConsett]

I noticed that Vegas Studio 9 only asks for 512mb of ram whilst the Adobe apps ask for 2gb of ram. Windows XP likes 1gb of ram to run at full speed! The trouble with new formats and making PC's that will run with them, is that you're feeling your way along. So-called professionals will tell you that you can't have enough ram and only the fastest will do etc etc.

[daveswan]

I edit DVCproHD on a dual-core laptop with eSATA drive. The graphics card is a geforce 7900 with 256 meg ram, running Avid MC 3.0 TBH DVCProHD, even at 100Mbps is probably a lot easier on the computer than any MPEG or H264 format. I have edited HDV on a 3 GHz P4 with a basic 256 meg graphics, but trancoded to DNxHD first. With drive-space so cheap, there's really no reason not to.
I think the equivilant on FCP is prores 422, but I'm not that familleier with FCP.
Dave

[Stephen]

If its any use... I always used AMD based PCs ... never had issues until I needed a good fast HD editing machine

The AMD 3000XP dual core chip sailed sd editing
not so with HD.... it was a laugh.... rendering times were hours for minutes of footage...

so I have gawn over to the dark side and built an Intel quad core based doobrie...

HD... pah....... no problem....

Intel definitely have the edge at the mo with number crunching which is what you need in HD...
but to be fair the mobo I had (ASUS MV2 DVI) although rated highly as a DVI product was partly to blame,
oh yes and the 500W powers supply wouldn't cut it either... (you need at least a true 650W output)
and ... ahhh.. yes the RAM... that had to be replaced also....


so there are many factors to consider when upgrading....

but with the likes of the IAC forum ... you are not alone..


all in all it cost about 650 sobs to sort.......

[Dave Watterson]

I love the notion of expressing the cost of computers in "sobs" !

This is getting fascinating. I realise that for many people the "innards" of computers are a mystery and they want it to stay that way. But those who want to get into HD and edit it have little choice but to face up to some of the specifications they need to have in their computers. In a few years time it will doubtless be a routine part of a PCs duties ... but not yet.

More ideas, please.

Dave

[Stephen]

forgot to put a link in my last email...

if you want to know how I built my PC have a look at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OTjXFMcoYE

[Tony Grant]

Hi Dave,

For information I offer the Profile of my computer. I am working on up to 5 hours Hdv in realtime with Edius 5.1
I do not understand most of it but the info is in the profile.
Hope it helps
Tony

Computer Profile Summary
Computer Name: Ediusnx-tg (in HOME) — EdiusNX-PC
Profile Date: 24 July 2009 14:58:12
Advisor Version: 7.2x
Windows Logon: Owner


Operating System System Model
Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 3 (build 2600) No details available
Processor a Main Circuit Board b
2.40 gigahertz Intel Core 2 Duo
64 kilobyte primary memory cache
4096 kilobyte secondary memory cache Board: ASUSTeK Computer INC. P5B-Deluxe Rev 1.xx
Bus Clock: 268 megahertz
BIOS: American Megatrends Inc. 1236 07/15/2008
Drives Memory Modules c,d
2160.24 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
1442.20 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space

_NEC DV-5800E [CD-ROM drive]
_NEC DVD_RW ND-4571A [CD-ROM drive]
3.5" format removeable media [Floppy drive]

ST3160811AS [Hard drive] (160.04 GB) -- drive 0
VIDEORAID [Hard drive] -- drive 1, Not SMART
2560 Megabytes Installed Memory

Slot 'DIMM0' has 1024 MB
Slot 'DIMM1' has 512 MB
Slot 'DIMM2' has 1024 MB
Slot 'DIMM3' has 512 MB
Local Drive Volumes

c: (FAT32 on drive 0) 34.07 GB 20.44 GB free
d: (FAT32 on drive 0) 34.07 GB 25.82 GB free
e: (FAT32 on drive 0) 34.07 GB 27.94 GB free
f: (FAT32 on drive 0) 57.77 GB 50.98 GB free
g: (FAT32 on drive 1) 524.17 GB 389.38 GB free
h: (NTFS on drive 1) 1476.09 GB 927.65 GB free

Network Drives
None detected
Users (mouse over user name for details) Printers
local user accounts last logon
Owner
24/07/2009 14:01:18 (admin)
local system accounts
Administrator
never (admin)
Guest
23/06/2009 11:55:52
HelpAssistant
never
SUPPORT_388945a0
never


Controllers Display
Standard floppy disk controller
Primary IDE Channel [Controller]
Secondary IDE Channel [Controller]
Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller Radeon X1600 Series [Display adapter]
Radeon X1600 Series Secondary [Display adapter]
Samsung SyncMaster [Monitor] (19.1"vis, s/n HMEL508181, May 2006)
Samsung SyncMaster [Monitor] (19.1"vis, s/n HMEL508175, May 2006)
Bus Adapters Multimedia
Intel(R) ICH8R/DO/DH SATA RAID Controller
Intel(R) ICH8 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 2830
Intel(R) ICH8 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 2831
Intel(R) ICH8 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 2832
Intel(R) ICH8 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 2834
Intel(R) ICH8 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 2835
Intel(R) ICH8 Family USB2 Enhanced Host Controller - 2836
Intel(R) ICH8 Family USB2 Enhanced Host Controller - 283A ATI T200 Unified AVStream Driver
HX-E2
SoundMAX Integrated Digital HD Audio
Communications Other Devices
Communications cable between two computers [Modem]

1394 Net Adapter
1394 Net Adapter #3
Generic Marvell Yukon Chipset based Ethernet Controller
Dhcp Server: 192.168.1.1
Physical Address: 00:18:F3:2D:FB:97
Marvell Yukon 88E8001/8003/8010 PCI Gigabit Ethernet Controller
primary Auto IP Address: 192.168.1.10 / 24
Gateway: 192.168.1.1
Dhcp Server: 192.168.1.1
Physical Address: 00:17:31:68:71:C1
Realtek RTL8187 Wireless 802.11g 54Mbps USB 2.0 Network Adapter

Networking Dns Server: 192.168.1.1
NEC OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller
Texas Instruments OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller
61883 Class Bus Device
AVC Device
HID-compliant consumer control device
HID-compliant device (3x)
USB Human Interface Device (2x)
AVC Compliant DV Tape Recorder/Player
Logitech HID-Compliant Keyboard
Logitech HID-compliant Cordless Mouse
Aladdin HASP Key
Aladdin USB Key
USB Composite Device
USB Root Hub (7x)
Virus Protection [Back to Top]

[Dave: I edited this enormous list of details a bit - not least because some of your software licence numbers were shown. I guess you do not understand it ... there was a large number of Microsoft updates, patches and fixes shown as missing ! There was also a complete list of your software which was not really relevant.
The critical bits of information for this thread are the main processing chip, the memory and the disk drives. It looks like a very capable system.]