editing dream machine

[7734]

the next $7000 i pick from my ripe little money tree will go towards my editing PC.

Dell XPS 700, Intel Xeon Quad Core 3.6Ghtz processor, dual Terabyte Hard Drive (one for windows and Adobe Premiere Pro 2 and one for video storage) and as much RAM as I can stuff in the bastard.

Right now it's Vegas on my girlfriends' XPS 410 (actually I bought it, but go figure).

What do you guys use?

[DjfunkmasterG]

Get a board that supports DDR2 Ram. Although I am not an INTEL fan... I prefer AMD. Asus makes this awesome motherboard that has oil cooling. A Copper pipe filled with oil goes from the north to south bridge on the board and the only fans on the whole board is the one to cool your processor.

My current motherboard was the heavy weight champ a year ago. The ASUS A8n32-SLi Deluxe, but they just came out with a newer version of it to support DDR2 Ram. This board runs at a flat 30 degrees Celsius and it never raises temp, not once. The SLI system is outstanding and coupled with my AMD chip it just rocks cock. So whatever you look at make sure it supports DDR2.

Are you going SATA for the HDD? Also which brand HDD are you getting? For externals nothing beats the BRICK. I use one of those and 2 SEAGATE 300gb drives for the storage of my film. I even added Firewire ports to the PC so I could support faster data transfer.

[7734]

don't know much about hard drive brands, all I can afford is Western Digital or whatever comes with the PC, but I definetely want SATA 10000 rpm drives. Oil cooling is a sweet technology, I'm going to have to learn more about motherboard options.

Have you (or anyone else) used Adobe Premiere Pro? That **** is friggin complicatatining. As for deinterlaced frame modes, I tend to like the visual trails it leaves. Interlaced seems too flat.

[DjfunkmasterG]

Adobe Premiere Crashes a lot. Everyone I have ever talked to whom has used complains it constantly crashes or is unreliable. In the PC world of Editing VEGAS is the top chosen program now a days.

[7734]

APP2.0 does suck. i think it slowed my comp down a bit. Vegas is sweet, though i've used it just once for about 0.5 minutes (got it yesterday). Have I ever mentioned how much I love bearshare?

[DjfunkmasterG]

I downloaded a trial, fell in love with it immediately and spent the $500 to get it. It is one of the easiest programs to use.

[chukrok]

I'm going to save my beans and get a Mac with FCP.

[DjfunkmasterG]

MAC's are nice, but I can't see owning a rig that to me would only be good for editing. I want something that will do both editing and net surfing with no issues. I am not a MAC fan, but I am a major fan of FCP.

[coma]

I downloaded a trial, fell in love with it immediately and spent the $500 to get it. It is one of the easiest programs to use.
Sonic Foundry/Sony Appz are top notch
Sound Forge, Acid and Vegas are all very useful and the learning curve to do basic duties is very short.

[DjfunkmasterG]

Which is why I love them so much. I played with AVID and INNACLE for editing and they were a PAIN in the ASS... I got that trail of VEGAS and picked it up in 10 minutes. I am no expert in vegas, but I know enough to get me by. I learn more and more everytime I use the program, plus the help files are pretty detailed as I am not the type of person to hit F1 very often.

[Mister Chrome]

If you want to learn a system that is used by professionals, then AVID is your primary choice. If you are an amateur user or an independent guy, then Final Cut Pro is the closest thing to AVID. Adobe Premiere is a second to FCP, and definitely no match for AVID.

If you don't care about what the professionals are using, then by all means use whatever works for you. Some people like Pinnacle, some people like Vegas, and some like Studio Edit Pro (Magix).

I've tried all of the above. I used Adobe Premiere quite a bit a few years back, and I worked on some projects with editors using Final Cut Pro. Now I do everything on AVID.

[Mutineer]

$ 7000 for a computer ? Jeez

I use a Dell Precision 470 Workstation that ran me around $3000

Granted i already owned a monitor and keys but my GC is also a grand

-

I use Vegas to edit.

-

These days you can use Avid, Vegas, Premiere or FCP.

Michael Khan still chops on a flatbed

[lifelikecarcass]

MAC's are nice, but I can't see owning a rig that to me would only be good for editing. I want something that will do both editing and net surfing with no issues. I am not a MAC fan, but I am a major fan of FCP.
Mac's aren't ONLY for editing, they're just better because it's the only platform that can run Final Cut.
They do everything else that a PC can do, only better.
Except games.
Gme developers don't usually venture into the Mac world because most Mac users are more into the artistic aspect of things.
Such as FCP, Photoshop, Illustrator, Maya and Cinema4D.

A good Mac workstation equipped with a tablet and a shuttle, FCP and Photoshop, you got everything you need to churn out whatever kind of art you do.

Apple has the Safari browser, but Firefox is the best you can get IMO.
Firefox has Mac, Win, Linux versions.
A Mac can do everything a PC can, and will do most of it beter.

OSX is leaps and bounds ahead of Windows!
OSX is setup as an artists computer.
The way the OS works, the apps that are built into it, the way it handles files.
It's built for digital art.

Macs are the only computers that implement a system wide color profile system.
Called Colorsync.
The way Windows does it is that only apps that use color profiling have it enabled.
With a Mac, the color profile applies to the entire system, even files downloaded use the color profile.
So if you have an HDD full of images or video you shot yourself, you use colorsync to match the profiles, and even when you're just going through those files the color is exactly as you set it to be.
Your desktop uses the same profile, webpages use it, DVD's use it.
It gives consistent color everywhere.

As opposed to windows where the only time you can use color profiles is in an app like Photoshop, Premiere, After Effects, Sony Vegas, etc..
So you have to load your images or video into that app to see what the color actually looks like, you can't just open the video in quicktime or a preview utility and get accurate color.

Apple computers have always been better at handling color, and media in general.
So to say you're not a Mac fan just means you don't know that much about them.
It seems like everyone who actually gets used to using a Mac is totally won over by their stability, functionality, the quality of their built in applications, the ease of use.
With a Mac, software is easy to learn, and it just works the way you want it to work.
No f*cking around, and since Apple is picky about the hardware they choose to support, you know you're getting very good components.

And once you get to the point where you're color grading, this is an essential feature.

[Danny]

nice rig, i'm waiting for my student grant to come through next month so i can get myself a sweet ass mac-pro.



They do everything else that a PC can do, only better.
Except games.

it plays WoW and thats the only game i play on pc's

[lifelikecarcass]

Oh yeah I forgot about WoW.

I'm not much on games myself.
I love the resident evil games, and have been known to buy a console just for an RE title.

In general though, I see gaming as time spent in a totally non-productive manner.
For myself, I don't impose that on others.
I know alot of people who spend ALL their time outside of work playing games.
Which is their choice, I don't have an opinion on it except as it pertains to me.

It does kind of suck though when I've tried to get people hyped about doing a short film just for the fun of it, but they can't tear themselves away from the game.
But oh well, their loss I guess.

I think you'll really like the Mac Pro.
Especially now with Leopard.
I'm still running Tiger because Leopard has issues with a couple of the apps I use all the time and count on for one of my income streams.
As soon as that's resolved I'll either upgrade to Leopard or get a new Mac Pro.
My machine is an older G5 Quad on the PowerPC architecture.

[Danny]

ive been using a macpro since november for my degree, soooo much better than a pc i cant stress it enough, its like the difference, capabilities wise, between a GBA and a PSP, plus its much more user friendly.

[Moon Knight]

WOW is my second life!
In fact, my server is down that's why I'm on the boards atm :(

I just got a MAC and it's great so far. No complaints.

[Danny]

WOW is my second life!
In fact, my server is down that's why I'm on the boards atm :(

I just got a MAC and it's great so far. No complaints.

i enjoy it but ive never found it addictive myself, i mean its great fun to run around darkshire withmy dwarf paladin killing skeletons and zombies (i know...just let it go folks...) but i wouldnt play it every day.

[lifelikecarcass]

I have a friend who lived at my place for 8 months last year who was totally addicted to WoW.

I got him a job at my girlfriends families restaurant and that's all he did was work there, then come home and smoke pot and play WoW.

Needless to say, he doesn't live here anymore.

In my house, the basement is the designated "Dungeon for the technologically inclined".
It has everything anyone would need to do whatever they wanted to do(within reason of course). It's not a Hollywood editing room or anything, but you could cut a smaller scale film there, color grade it, then output it to DVD or tape.
I have a couple older broadcast monitors I got for free.
I have a few other friends who have a key and they'll come and go when they need to use the resources here, but they are actually accomplishing things for work or education.
This guy abused the resources available. He claimed to want to learn things so he could get better educated and do something with computer graphics.
All he did was ate food, smoked weed, drank coffee and soda, and played WoW.
It was amazing to me that he would stay awake for days playing that game.
I've been known to be awake for days trying to finish a project or something.

But with him, he would do it and not actually accomplish a thing outside of improving his characters abilities.

It's one thing to not sleep when trying to accomplish something, but when you're that addicted to a game, there's probably bigger issues going on internally.

Don't misunderstand me, that wasn't the sole reason I had to ask him to move on, but it kind of represents the problem pretty completely.

[lifelikecarcass]

Just to clarify, I don't have anything against smoking weed.
I smoke myself.

But when someone smokes so much they dissolve any ambition they have to do anything besides what's needed to get weed, there's a problem.