Any advice on a Video editing pc?

[Technical Ben]

Someone asked me what they should look for in a video editing PC. I guess I can look at mid range and top range. About £500 for mid, £1000 for top. I'd guess a quad core would be good enough for home video editing. Would it be worth going for AMD (cheaper) or intel? Is the Intel chip going to give a better performance?

Should I tell them to get more memory or a faster CPU? I'm guessing more memory is going to do better for the time a conversion takes. Same with live editing, it would be smoother with 8GB of ram vs 4GB, right?

Normally I build a gaming PC, which is easier to fit to the games needs. But video editing, the sky is the limit (you can always get faster!).  So any ideas?

[Steve]

I guess also you need to know what he/she is going to be editing i.e. HD etc and what software is going to be used.

[Technical Ben]

Oh, yep I do know. 
Just did not think about that. It's for HD video home movies. Pinnacle Studio or whatever it's call in the latest version. They have a 500GB external drive and an external BR writer. So they are not needed. Probably a Tower + OS or a full system is needed though.

[.Griff.]

Video encoding is very processor intensive and the more memory available the better.

If I was building it I'd go for the new Z77 chipset, an I7 3770K (supports Hyperthreading which really aids in encoding), and stick 16GB of ram in it.

[Technical Ben]

Lol. I am not sure the budget stretches to that. Any links to a system that would be recommend, I7 or whatever?

[.Griff.]

You said £500 - £1000 in your opening post. A system built around the components I listed is easily achievable in that price range.

I really don't see the point in paying someone else to build a PC and inflate the price so I can't really link to a system as I've always built my own.

[pctech]

I assume Griff that if the person is using it for a business they may want the reassurance of a guarantee Griff.

[.Griff.]

"Home video editing" suggests amateur home use.

[Technical Ben]

Thanks Griff. I did not know you could build one for that price.
I'll have a look at what could be done then. I've looked at an i5 system. With the price just topping £450-500. I'll quickly check an i7 system this weekend. If you have a quick idea for a build, I'll be welcome for the help with the learning curve. Things seems to be changing so fast.

[.Griff.]

I'll gladly put together a spec but before I do are they upgrading from a previous PC? In other words do they require everything from scratch or will be the recycling any old components such as case, PSU etc?

[Technical Ben]

Oh, no need to spend to much time on it. I can use the graphics card (GF8400 256mb) and the DVD drives. I think the HDD might be a bit slow, but it could be salvaged too. So barebones? At the moment it's just to help decide if it's worth making one for them. The main reason I'd not recommend getting a store bought one, is although they just have a core duo currently, the store (PCWorld) is likely to recommended something less powerful as an "upgrade". 

If they have special requirements (video editing) they need the special consideration. If it was just to browse the internet, then we know just about any pc would do.

Your help with what kind of mobo and Intel CPU to look for would be much appreciated. As I only kept up to date on AMD stuff for my own system.

[edit]
Ok, I've specced up an i7 system. I'm still a bit confused about Ivybridge and Sandybridge, and I've never seen so many socket types. But I think socket LGA1155 is ok, right? It came out a lot cheaper than I was expecting (using bog standard parts, not top of the range).

Intel Core i7 2600 3.4GHz £225
Gigabyte motherboard (6GB sata x1) £60
4GB DDR3 ram x2 (8GB) £34
PSU 450W £33
1TB HDD (optional) £70
Windows 7 £65
Case ~£10

So about £500 for an i7. The i5 system I was speccing up was coming out at around £355.

[.Griff.]

In a nutshell video editing/video encoding comes down to three factors; processing power, memory and storage.

Encoding video is extremely processor intensive so the more cores the better. An i7 3770k while similar in many ways to an i5 3570k has the advantage of hyperthreading so in essence another four cores to utilise.  DDR3 ram is relatively cheap at the moment so 16GB isn't going to break the bank and while it would be overkill for a gaming system it would certainly benefit video work. Finally depending on what video formats they'll be working with a lot of storage is required. As an example I do some of my own video encoding making videos of ingame play. The raw video captured by Fraps is absolutely huge with one minutes worth of footage weighing in at 600MB - 800MB.

If money were no object then a rig built around the X79/2011 platform would be ideal for this type of use but with motherboards averaging £200 and socket 2011 processors starting at £300 and going up to £800 the budget is blown out of the water already. So Instead I'd build it around the new Z77 chipset which gives you the choice of opting for an outgoing Sandybridge processor and saving a few quid or the new Ivybridge processor which has a few advantages over it's preprocessor.

As it's not going to be an enthusiast or gaming rig then a top end motherboard isn't going to be necessary. Something like a Gigabyte Z77-D3H has most of the features of a top end board but is still relatively cheap.

In essence -

Intel Core i7-3770K 3.50GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail      £259.99

Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM (ST2000DL003)      £89.99

Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard      £84.98

Corsair Force Series 3 60GB SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive (CSSD-F60GB3A-BK)      £64.79

Samsung Green (MV-3V4G3D/US) 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz 30nm Dual Channel Kit      £53.99

I've not listed any optical drives, case, PSU, GPU or peripherals but I have added in an SSD for the operating system and media software which in my opinion makes a massive difference. If the budget doesn't allow then it's as simple as taking it out of the list and using the remaining mechanical drive.

You said you already had use of a GPU but the i7 3770k has a very decent oboard GPU. While it won't playing the latest games at massive frame rates it's a very capable GPU when it comes to encoding.

I hope that gives you some ideas to work on but if you need any other help or advice feel free to ask.

[Technical Ben]

Thanks. What I'll do it note your advice (it's priceless!) and then get a budget idea from them. I can ask what the current pc cost. As that's a price to aim for or from. Or go with what they'd be happy spending (so it could be reduced to an "upgrade" although that's not likely on the systems spec ).

If the budget does allow, I'll go the 16GB and save on having no SSD. I don't think on chip graphics are compatible. Most software does not support Intel HD (integrated motherboard gfxs), let alone the on chip stuff.

Now I have some ideas and a system or two to go back with, and can see what's wanted. Thanks.

[esh]

Just my usual 2 pennies.

If you're talking a lot of video editing, particularly at higher resolutions, avoid the green drives. I get much higher throughput say on WDC Black drives than WDC Green ones. It's supposed to spin up to the same rpm as the black drives but in practice I find the green ones have a measurable throughput difference.

[Technical Ben]

Oh, you mean "power saving eco friendly green drive"? I would not touch them with a barge pole unless the power draw was a legitimate restriction (car pc etc). 5400rpm vs 7200rmp has a massive difference, so I hear from all the complaints on forums. Thanks for the warning though.

It might be "green" is the new excuse for "rubbish".   

[.Griff.]

You said you already had use of a GPU but the i7 3770k has a very decent oboard GPU. While it won't playing the latest games at massive frame rates it's a very capable GPU when it comes to encoding.

I don't think on chip graphics are compatible. Most software does not support Intel HD (integrated motherboard gfxs), let alone the on chip stuff.

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/quick-sync-video/quick-sync-video-general.html

Many independent software vendors (ISVs) have begun optimizing their products for this new technology, including:

Arcsoft MediaConverter*

Arcsoft ShowBiz*

Arcsoft TotatMedia Theater*

Badaboom Media Converter*

Corel Digital Studio

Cyberlink Media Espresso*

Cyberlink MediaShow*

Cyberlink PowerDirector*

Cyberlink YouCam*

Daum Pot Encoder

Gom Video Converter*

GoPro Cineform Studio*

Magix*

MainConcept*

Nero*

Roxio

Tencent QQ*

[Technical Ben]

But not Pinnacle.

Really, it's a massive worry for compatibility IMO (on chip graphics, not the media acceleration, that's fine). I'll have to wait until they either offer full Nvidia support (They are owned by Intel now, right?) or DX11/Windows/Software in general supports it more. At least before I could recommend it to someone else. I might be able to trouble shoot drivers, I'd not give that worry to others though. 

[.Griff.]

But not Pinnacle.

This Avid testimonial suggests otherwise - http://software.intel.com/sites/billboard/sites/default/files/PDFs/Avid-Solution-Brief.pdf

Avid will be able
to take advantage of Intel® Quick Sync Video, which allows encoding
to be handled directly by specialized hardware in the 2nd Generation
Intel Core processor platform.

With their competitors already jumping on the quicksync bandwagon even if Avid are still at the developmental stage it can't be long before support is added if it hasn't been already 

[Technical Ben]

As said. I'll consider it for the processor instruction set and features, but not for the graphics (your link is not about the graphics, unless I'm mistaken). At which point it comes down to cost and budget as to the performance envelope that can be afforded. There is no point in getting a 10% boost in performance, if you can only afford the CPU that's running at 80% the speed. 

But by the time it comes to speccing out the final build, the prices of Ivybridge might be on par with Sandybridge. In which case, there is no reason not to get the more feature full chip.

PS, it's also "will be able to" not "is able to."  I've lost too many eggs that way.  Although, by the looks of the brochure (I hate advertising brochures) it is implemented in the latest release?

[Technical Ben]

Well, as an update we decided to go through with it. I'm hoping there are no surprises when I get it put together. 

[D-Dan]

I'm late to the party on this, but I should point out that video editing and video encoding are two different things.

You can run something like After Effects on a fairly modest machine and do all the editing, effects, transitions etc. that you want without an issue. the horsepower is needed when you come to render out the final composite, and by then whether or not a time limit is imposed will determine how much CPU grunt you need. If you are working to time limits, grunt is important. For amateur home use, probably less so since you can start the render at bedtime and leave it to it while you "work in your sleep".

[Technical Ben]

Yep. The main thing is his current setup does not even cope with the editing. Editing HD video (in quite uncompressed format) is a strain to the old system. Also he sounds just like me that most of the time watches the pc progress bar increase. 
I did do a render last night (only 60 mins per render) and forced myself to bed instead of watching the pixels move. 

[Technical Ben]

Final update. The customer is pleased with it, and all went well.

So thanks lots everyone.