I'm planning to buy an AVCHD camera soon, and will also need to buy a new computer for video editing. I'll probably go with a desktop PC. Any suggestions about good systems to get? Which characteristics will give me a substantial boost in performance, and which ones -- only marginal? Fast quad-core CPU? 4-8-16 GB of RAM? 10,000RPM hard drive? A top-of-the-line graphics card?

I'm willing to spend $$ on parts that will really make editing faster and smoother, but don't want to spend extra on those that will only produce a small improvement. Most of my editing will involve cutting and re-ordering things and converting video from AVCDH to other formats (e.g., to regular DVD to share with friends and relatives, etc.)

Any suggestions? If you've recently purchased a computer for these purposes, what configuration did you get? Are there good systems from Dell/HP/etc., or do I need to build one on my own?

Thanks!

I'm also very interested in this, wanting the best "bang for the buck."

I'd also add the question of which Operating System, and 32 vs 64 bit. I've really been reluctant to switch to Vista, preferring the proven stability and driver availability of XP, but this may no longer be feasible.

Thanks.

Also anxiously awaits answer....

A few points, things that I've considered.

Quad cores are generally recommended, but depends on the software you're using (Sony Vegas, for example, utilizes all 4 cores, but other programs don't).

64 bit os will be necessary to get the use out of any more than 3 gigs of ram.

Processor speed is most important (might be better off with a dual-core CPU for now, but it depends on the software you'll use). Consider overclocking just a little bit to get more bang for your buck.

Video cards don't make much of a difference, but might in the future. Look into (google) NVIDIA/CUDA/Badaboom and ATI/powerdirector/gpgpu. Software developers are looking into unlocking video cards to help out with decoding/transcoding/rendering footage.

I'm thinking of a 10,000 rpm primary drive (os and programs) with a couple of drives in RAID for storage of footage. (Trying to work it into a budget).


Those are the many things I'm considering with my system, but I'm working on a tight budget. My picks currently (but haven't bought yet) Intel Q6600, 8 gigs of ram, vista 64, ATI radeon 4850HD, and a Western digital 10,000 rpm 150 GB HD (add on the two RAID drives in a couple of months). Also have been picking between a few different motherboards...

Another thing I'm debating is monitors, which is a whole other topic.

(I have a HF100 currently, and am archiving footage using my Laptop and an external HD (only 160GB)

The points you make remind me of early video capture devices, where every part of a system had to be optimized for high quality video.

Just imagine what high def will be in 10 years when flash drives are the norm, and SATA 6 is the 'low' end.

Also anxiously awaits answer....

A few points, things that I've considered.

Quad cores are generally recommended, but depends on the software you're using (Sony Vegas, for example, utilizes all 4 cores, but other programs don't).

64 bit os will be necessary to get the use out of any more than 3 gigs of ram.

Processor speed is most important (might be better off with a dual-core CPU for now, but it depends on the software you'll use). Consider overclocking just a little bit to get more bang for your buck.

Video cards don't make much of a difference, but might in the future. Look into (google) NVIDIA/CUDA/Badaboom and ATI/powerdirector/gpgpu. Software developers are looking into unlocking video cards to help out with decoding/transcoding/rendering footage.

I'm thinking of a 10,000 rpm primary drive (os and programs) with a couple of drives in RAID for storage of footage. (Trying to work it into a budget).


Those are the many things I'm considering with my system, but I'm working on a tight budget. My picks currently (but haven't bought yet) Intel Q6600, 8 gigs of ram, vista 64, ATI radeon 4850HD, and a Western digital 10,000 rpm 150 GB HD (add on the two RAID drives in a couple of months). Also have been picking between a few different motherboards...

Another thing I'm debating is monitors, which is a whole other topic.

(I have a HF100 currently, and am archiving footage using my Laptop and an external HD (only 160GB)

Any thoughts on the following system I'm considering:

Dell XPS 630
Vista 64-bit
Quad Core Q6600
6gb RAM
640gb 7200 SATA Drive
nVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT 512mb Videocard
(I plan to add another 640 drive in a Raid 1 configuration)

I can get this for about $1329, including $50 dell gift card toward the purchase of the extra 640gb drive.

Any red flags on this, or suggestions for a better system?

Thanks.

i'm an xp guy, and the max ram that the 32-bit version of xp will support is ~3.5 gigs at the most... so 4 gigs is all you need for that o.s.

the problem with the current state of h.264 editing is that video card support for the format never materialized... in a perfect world, sony vegas(and others) would have purevideo support for decoding the footage.

without video card support, cpu speed is really important... so a fast quad core is mandatory, probably the faster the better, or put on a big cpu cooler and overclock it.

since avchd is only 25Mbps vbr at the max(same as dv), you won't gain much with a 10,000 rpm drive... better to spend the money on a second big hdd, so that the video files are on a seperate drive from the operating system files.

I second what osv said, with the current state of AVCHD support, you just need the fastest CPU you can afford. All the rest is an order of magnitude less important.

Most video editing software can't use more than 3 or 4Gb, I think only Vegas 8.1 is a 64-bit app that can use more. You'll see the benefit only for fairly large projects, though.

reading that sony takes advantage of all 4 processors in a quad core, does anyone know if takes advantage of AMDs triple core processor? its been awhile since i did any research in this but i usually like AMD products. where can i find this info?

There's nothing in Sony's software (or anyone else's) that distinguishes between types of cores available -- the software fires off the treads or processes, and Windows schedules them on multiple cores in what it deems the most optimal way. AMD's triple and quad cores will work just as well as Intel's.

There are core vs. core differences that will result in different performance levels depending on the type of application, but have no worries, all 3 of your AMD cores will be used if the software is written to take advantage of multiple cores.