Video editing and video encoding

D

deadman_uk

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jun 30, 2003
Messages
2,036
If someone wanted to do video editing and video encoding, what would be the best CPU for this job? and would getting more than 1gb of ram and having a faster hard drive help?

thanks
 
deadman_uk said:
If someone wanted to do video editing and video encoding, what would be the best CPU for this job? and would getting more than 1gb of ram and having a faster hard drive help?

thanks
Click to expand...


I would definitely recommend the new dual core chips from AMD if you want to edit and yes having more ram and a faster hd will help with speeds.
 
Intel chips are usually faster than the AMD offerings for video related tasks, though the HT bus on the AMD chips makes them no slouch for high bandwidth tasks... If Intel had an onboard memory controller, the P4 Prescott's would be slaughtering the X2s, alas, they are severely bandwidth limited at the moment.

For video work I'd recommend at least 2 gigs ram, and a several drive Raid-0 array of fast large buffer 7200rpm drives, or SCSI if you want to get really hardcore. As far as the proc goes, I'd lean towards an Intel Pentium4 840EE, but an X2 4800+ would be similar in performance (though higher in price).
 
Depends how [h]ardcore of a video editor/encoder you are. For me, my p4 3.2 Ghz 1 Gig Ram machine works fine....You could just leave the video encoding on overnight..also...

But the dual-core processors/FX-57? are going to be better......
 
i would not use raid-0 for any critical work that you MUST keep. One disk fails are you are shit up a creek with no paddle. Raid 5 even if it is a tad slower it still faster than one disk. And offers data protection (unlike raid-0)
 
First of all you don't need an uber machine to do video editing unless you are doing professional work. And I assume that if you were a pro then you'd already know the answer.

Anyway, you don't really need ultra fast cpus, loads of ram or multi raid configurations. An athlon 64 3500+ with 1gb ram and 1 or 2 SATA 200+ drives are more than adecuate for video editing/encoding.

I know people who spends thousands of dollars on a pc for video editing (I actually built one for my neighbor) and only use it to burn the dvds of their childs birthday. No need to throw away money like that.
 
Well just say I wanted to get more performance out of my system for video editing... what would I need to change? Could any software changes be made?
 
well then you should do some tests. and actually use your pc for editing. That way you'll "feel" if you need more power.

Benchmarks don't tell the whole story, also some codecs are slower than others and have different quality. IMO nerovision mp4 codec has very good quality and its quite fast compared to divx for example. Xvid's speed/quality varies a lot depending on the version. WMV generally performs better on intel and the IQ is quite good. You can also use a lossless codec like Huffyuv which is very fast but the files a HUGE.

One thing is for sure, you need a bigger Hard drive.
 
Well, Raid 0 is good for video capture because it is non-critical data. Once you capture, you tend to get it edited and outputed to a secure source fairly quick. In the event that a drive fails before that, you still have the original source and can start over again.
 
Athlon 64 X2 for anything Adobe related. Also, for DV editing, even one hard drive has enough bandwidth.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top