building new pc system for sony vegas any suggestions?

[Neil Moxham]

I have built 6 towers in my time and have learned the hard way

I would put a Matrox Parhelia PCIe triple head video card in it.
They’re awesome. Designed specifically for this stuff.
HP 8400 workstations get very good reviews.
If your building it from scratch then I’d go with Intel Mobo
Good Bios helps alot
Intel chipsets. stay away from Via
Obviously good quality RAM. Crucial for example
WD caviar or Hitachi hard drives..no Maxtor
External firewire drives as well ..maybe LaCie or WD. Something with an Oxford chipset in it
get an external USB sound card box. Edirol ua-24 or an alesis io-2
cuz theres a nice mixback feature. Edirol unit has a nice comp/limiter for VO work !!
It’s the only way to go.
PCI firewire card with a TI chipset only !!
theres a long list.
Most importantly is setting up XP pro to optimize for audio/ video

I’d stay away from big company’s that are highly proprietary.
I wont mention names… but it can make servicing and updating a nightmare.
I’m not alone on this opinion !!!!
Happy building

Zipedit

[Neil Moxham]

I meant Edirol-ua25 not 24
Sorry

Zipedit

[Dave Petteruto]

Just out of curiosity, what does a system like the one mentioned above cost for all the parts?

[Neil Moxham]

well… I’m guessing $1600 before I add anything up.
I’m gonna leave out monitors , mice, keyboard et.. cuz you already have all that. Of course there’s nothing wrong with salvaging a lot of the older parts as well
Lets see …

Case…a decent antec case with quiet fans ,350wPSU- $100
A stripped Intel MoBo with core 2 duo processor $600
2 gig of decent ram…$190 ish
smaller os HD $80
Bigger 200G sata HD for video data $150
DVDRW-DL drive $90
CDRw drive $50
External USB sound card $150
Matrox parhelia triple head card $350 (dual head is less)
Fire wire card with TI chipset #40 or less
External 200gig drive $160ish.

This is without raid or pushing the Video envelope.
But I’ll tell ya . I could get a lot done with a machine like this.
Of course your choice of processor will greatly affect the price.
Realistically a really decent motherboard bundle with a great chip is around $400 or less
I think that rounds it out.

But if you find a prebuilt tower with the right guts you can shave off about $400 off the total price.

I found a gateway tower on sale with all intel guts and real p4 3.2 gig processor.
Gig of fast ram, 200 gig sata seagate HD, Dual layer DVD burner, DVD rom, usb2.0, network card and all the other sprinklewith XP pro for…
…$700 !!!
I added the remaining necessities and came in around $1100 or so
So It can be done.

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[Marmels]

thanks for your help zipedit, iv got couple of more questions if i may.

1 – do you have all the equipment that i mentioned and do they all work together fine? especialy black magic deklink card

2 – what graphic card was used in your system

3 – is Matrox parhelia triple head card a screen spliter or graphic card?

4 – why work with such a low wattage power supply?

[Neil Moxham]

<1 - do you have all the equipment that i mentioned and do they all work together fine? especialy black magic deklink card

I have all the gear that I mentioned and it all works fine.
I do not have black magic card.
The key seems to be complient chipsets, firmware...well software of course

2 - what graphic card was used in your system
I have a matrox g550 dual head and am going to get the parhelia soon!!
I recommend you go to their site and read a little.
Link below
https://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/corpo/support/drivers/home.php

3 – is Matrox parhelia triple head card a screen spliter or graphic card?
Best answer is to read the about the different models from link above.
But basically they are graphics card with 2-3 out puts that accel at this type of work.

Video is primarily 2D work. Unless you are doing intense 3D with another program or gaming than this is the way to go.
Why pay for intense polygonal vertex chader etc… when thats not what you need. ATI cards are a gamers dream and you pay for those features.
actually they are very good at 3d as well now.
Photoshop people love them !! many screen outputs with auto zoom to a different moniter etc..Read …,you’ll see what I’m talkin about

4 – why work with such a low wattage power supply?

You can go up..the higher the better . Its just that my 350 watter handles a motherboard, 2 drives, ext drive and a external sound just fine. whats left ?

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[Neil Moxham]

This gets you to the right page. They mow have the GXM “to go” series which looks great for laptops !!

https://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/corpo/products/home.php

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[Terje A. bergesen]

Just out of curiosity, why Matrox? I know it is recommended by video editing people everywhere, but why? To me it seems expensive compared to cards from nVidia and ATI, and I don’t see what the extra features are.

I use a dual-head nVidia with S-Video out. It costs nothing compared to the parhelia. What does the parhelia give me?

—
Terje A. Bergesen

[Neil Moxham]

I too have a Ati dual head and a cheaper “PNY” dual head.
But there was something about the Matrox G550 that I have that just says
“work better”. Thats the vibe part of it.
Very crisp and warms ups quickly. My other cards drift a little over time.
Corners get a little fuzzy.The s-video out is an an either/or setup
No analog video input, no output to NTSC with correction. Not Ultra sharp text rendering et..

My G550 card is around $100 and is 6 yrs old. only 32 megs and outshines my newer ones.\It just behaves really well .
Good color setup features without a lot of bloated software, gaming features.
That medium to upper Matrox cards have dual, triple view plus S-vid out. Not either or.
Some are quad outputs.
If you do photoshop then the full zoom feature is great.
(what you highlight on the left is full screen on the right)

These products are specifically designed for videoediting, medical research, surveillance, graphic arts work.
The full list of features that are specific to your needs are listed on their site.

See the link below…read carefully top to bottom ..and drool.
https://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/crepro/products/parhelia/apve.php

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