Reading Film and Video Makers

TECHNICAL INFO.

Personal Computers for Video Editing

Following a recent talk to the Reading Film and Video Makers (13th Dec 2005) I was asked to publish the main points that I had suggested a newcomer to video editing should consider when purchasing a computer. Although a modern 'off-the-shelf computer will probably be adequate, better performance and stability will be achieved if the PC is specially configured for video editing; the following are my recommendations, firstly for basic editing and then some added features for more advanced editing. Additionally, some editing programs and additional software with which I have had experience are suggested, but I must stress that these are my personal recommendations and no doubt others may have different ideas and views on the subject

Recommended Minimum PC spec for Video Editing

Most current PCs will be fast enough for at least basic standard definition video editing and will not necessarily require a dedicated video card (I am referring to a card that receives the video input from the camera, not the graphics card) My suggestions are:

Base the PC on an Intel P4 2.4GHz or faster CPU for Standard Definition editing; for High Definition consider either an Intel 3.2GHz Dual Core processor or the AMD equivalent. The latest Intel Core Duo processors are proving to be very efficient and would therefore be the prefered choice; the 2.67GHz version being the most cost effective.

(Avoid Celeron CPUs, but Centrino CPUs on laptops are normally good and seem to have a performance equal to about 1.7 times that suggested by their clock speed when used with Edius. Whether this performance is achieved on all editing programs, I don't know)

Have at least 512MByte RAM memory, 1GByte is better, and does not cost that much more. For High Definition editing fit 2GByte or more memory.

Have a separate hard disk for the video data, don't use the C drive. A 120MByte HD or greater will be adequate for SD. Using two drives in a RAID 0 configuration will almost double the video data throughput thereby allowing the computer to process more video tracks and effects in real time. SATA drives are faster than the older drives and are to be preferred for video editing. These too can be used in a RAID 0 configuration. Remember, SD digital video data rate is approximately 5MByte/Sec, HD is about 25MByte/Sec, so the faster the data access and throughput, the less likelihood of system crashes and better the real time performance. Most suppliers will be willing to configure the computer with a RAID, if they aren't, look elsewhere.

Ensure that the PC has a Firewire (IEEE 1394) connection. You will use this to connect to the digital output of your camera or recorder and so avoid the need for a separate video card. If the PC does not have a Firewire connection you may fit a Firewire interface card in one of the PC motherboard's PCI slots at a small cost - around £15-20. For those who use an analogue camera, then a suitable video interface will be require to receive either the composite or S video and audio inputs.

Some video editing programs require that special video and/or graphics cards be fitted in the PC. These are really a relic from the days of slower PCs when these cards provided additional video processing power. I would not recommend using such programs these days as the PC processing speeds are more than adequate for most normal purposes and the software written for use with these dedicated cards is unlikely to benefit as CPU speeds increase.

Ensure that the PC has at least a 533MHz or 800MHz Front Side Bus (FSB). This will ensure the maximum speed of data transfer. No doubt higher Bus speeds will evolve so always aim for the maximum.

Software

Operating System:

Windows XP with Service Pack 2

Video Editing and related software :

Windows XP with SP2 - includes free, simple editor

MAGIX 'Movie Edit Pro 14+' (About £60 ) this also includes a DVD burning program

Ulead DVD Movie Factory 4 an inexpensive, but versatile and easy-to-use DVD authoring program. My preference for general use where the greater flexibility (and difficulty) of Adobe Encore is not required.

Bluff Titler - An inexpensive 3d title making program - download from the internet

Audacity - Audio editing (free) - download from the internet

Blender - 3d Modelling (free) - download from the internet

Acronis Backup Use this software to make a safety backup of you C drive. The back-up copy of your C drive could be on the separate video hard disk, for example, and it would then be possible to use this copy to restore the original or new C drive to the original working state in the event of a major crash without having to reload the operating system and all other programs separately. Highly recommended!

HD Tune Use this to measure hard disk performance - This is a free download from the internet

Scene Analyzer A useful utility that captures video data into separate files at scene changes - download from the internet.

Serif PhotoPlus or Serif PhotoPlus for Photo and Graphics work

Hardware Add-Ons

2nd PC Monitor This will probably require a new graphics card that provides two monitor outputs. Check that the card is compatible with the editing software that is to be used. Using two monitors to display your work area makes video editing much easier on the eye.

Separate Video Monitor or television Recommended for assessing colour balance - LCD screens' colour performance is not as accurate as that of CRTs

Contour Control Unit A useful control unit to supplement the Mouse. The unit provides rotary knob control for Jog and Shuttle operation plus a number of programmable keys to provide the equivalent of keyboard shortcuts when editing.

External Back up drive

Video Keyboard A keyboard with colour coded keys that relate to the keyboard shortcut commands for the editing program. Not available for all programs, but available for Adobe Premiere and Canopus Edius and others

Film/Photo Scanner for bringing in still images from 35 camera slides or photographs

Canopus Edius A really first class, stable editing program. Highly recommended

Imaginate Canopus's digital rostrum camera software - very effective for use with scanned images

For those of you who need a more sophisticated editing program there is Adobe's 'Premiere', Sony's 'Vegas' and Canopus's 'Edius'. I make no apology for stating that Edius is my favourite although Vegas has some very nice features.

Edius A first class editing program from Canopus capable of editing both Standard and High Definition video. Although it does not yet have all the 'bells and whistles' of Premiere, its stability is impressive. For those who wish to edit High Definition video, Edius NX together with the HD extension card is presently the only package to offer a full resolution display of High Definition transitions and effects made on the video timeline. The program is developing rapidly, the next release promising many additional features. All present HD editing programs require that the timeline be rendered before output to tape or other storage media. Canopus has developed a software accelerated codec that greatly improves rendering times of HD video. Highly recommended!

If you require greater audio editing capabilities than provided by the standard video editing programs Adobe's 'Audition 1.5', Steinberg's 'Wavelab 5' or 'Nuendo 3' are to be recommended. Nuendo is undoubtedly the most sophisticated.

There are a number of recommendations that help to ensure the best performance and least likelihood of system crashes:

Turn off all other programs that may be running in the background

Turn off Internet Access - If possible, don't use the editing PC for internet connection.

Turn off Security - Virus/Firewall when editing

Turn off CD Auto Play. Auto Play requires that the CPU periodically checks whether a CD has been inserted and, if so, automatically runs the program on the disk. This takes up valuable CPU processing time which can be better used in the video editing program.

Enable DMA (Direct memory Access) This will allow hard disks to transfer data using less of the system CPU power, typically about 40%, thus leaving that power or video processing with no adverse effect on hard disk performance.

Use separate drive for Video Use a SATA drive if the PC supports this type of interconnection. Consider using two hard disks in a RAID 0 configuration to improve data flow.

Defrag (de-fragment) the video hard drive regularly (Select Disk Drive > Right Click and select Properties > Tools > defrag) This will ensure contiguous data files on the hard disk and will maximise data access.

Disable write behind memory caching This is an option on a disk drive and may be accessed via the Properties page in the Device manager

www.Videoguys.com list a number of tweaks that should be made to Windows XP to ensure the best performance. These have been found to be beneficial and have produced no unwanted side effects on any of my editing PCs.

Remember to use the Windows XP System Restore utility whenever installing new software programs and device drivers. Set a system restore point before you install the new software so that should you suffer problems following the installation you may return to the previous settings.

For any of you who are intimidated by all the above 'techno speak' please don't be put off using a PC to edit your video. I recently edited a short High Definition video using an off-the-shelf computer from PC World. The computer had a single 3.2GB processor, 512MB RAM, a single 250GB hard disk and standard Firewire input. The video was edited in HD using Edius, rendered to SD then converted to MPEG2 for DVD playback. The rendering took time, but was without a problem. Additionally, I also rendered the HD timeline to 1920 x 1080i Windows Media Format for HD playback from the PC. Again the rendering took time, but the quality of the final WMP playback is outstanding.

Please feel free to contact me should you have any questions relating to editing. I can't promise to be able to answer all questions, but I will do what I can. Happy editing.!