Thank You

[johnnyelvis]

Hello Rob,

I'm currently in the process of building my very first computer; with your guidance. I appreciate all the information you provide, it is extremely helpful.

I'm looking to buy the right video card. I read through 'How to buy the right video card' & 'Best video card choice' but still don't know the best card selection for video editing would be. What should I look for in a video card if I plan to be editing videos?

Thanks again,

Johnny Elvis

[chunkylover53]

I'll let Rob answer, but in the meantime might I suggest you give a little more detail as to how complex the video editing is that you plan to do, and also what video editing software you plan to use. For example, I use Pinnacle Studio 11 and do a lot of amateur editing (family movies, music videos for work events, etc.) and that doesn't require a beast of a video card. If you are doing professional video editing, like multi-screen work where you'll need to stretch the timeline across screens, you might need a bad_ss Quadro card with Open GL.

It's an important distinction becasue option A would mean you build the system and include the card, and option B would mean you might build the system around the card.

[johnnyelvis]

I'm open to the software that I may use to edit videos. You see, I've had this dream (I'm trying new things with this computer I'm building) of being able to put together video clips to go along with my music tracks. I guess what I'm looking for is to be able to seamlessly and creatively weave video clips together. The videos might possibly come from my physical video collection and such.

Also, I'm interested in creating visuals like the ones you see in the audio players, you know, the real trippy ones (I don't know if I can do this with Option A).


Thanks for the quick response,

Johnny

[Rob]

I don't really have a great video editing recommendation. I'll relocate this post and maybe others will have something to suggest.

[shyster]

So basically you want to make music videos?

I do not know if you are using home videos, or like clips from movies, but for those purposes the only thing that would matter would be copywrite law and original source video.

I do not know how much you know about video editing, but it is a pain in the ass if you know very little.

I also do not know how complicated, and in depth you want to go with this process of yours, but a great free program for video editing, that could do what you described as I understand it is virtualdub.

Basically that program lets you cut out pieces of a video that you have taken from a dvd, vhs, or video camera and it will let you cut out parts, put parts together, and add in sound.

It sounds like Chunky knows a good deal about video editing so I am sure he can tell you more. But basically video editing is more processor intensive than video card, at least I believe that is what was causing slowdown during my video encoding back in the day. The video card as I understand it, for video editing is more important if you need like two, four, orten screens all up and running at once. If you only plan to have a single monitor then you probably would not need as high end of a video card.

That being said do not take my words as law, I used to do some video editing and encoding, but I just did it on my home dell and ran the encoding overnight when I was not using it. I never really did it professionally and do not know how much of a factor the video card actually is in it.

[chunkylover53]

Well, it really comes back to the first question. From your comments, it doesn't look like you're doing anything yet, but you want to get into it. I use Pinnacle Studio software, and it will be a long time before I reach the limits of what it can do. Take a tour to see what it can do:

http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSite/us/Products/Consumer+Products/Home+Video/Studio+Family/Studio+Plus+11.htm

I'd start with something like this if I were you. It can do everything you described (music videos, etc.) and then some, though I can't comment on creating trippy visualizations. I built my PC mostly for video editing, and I have an Intel Q6600 and an EVGA 8600GT. It is more than enough to handle intermediate video work, but it can also play games at a medium settings as well. MSPC is a great place to learn how to build a system like this.

As far as Option B, I'll post some links to show you what I mean when I say professional. If you are looking to build a Dual Xeon Workstation that can handle 3D Mechanical Design and CAD, you will probably have better luck at another site.

http://www.videoguys.com/system.htm

http://www.solidworks.com/

http://dvinfo.net/conf/index.php

http://www.pcsforeveryone.com/System/ESX_Intel_2000_Series

[johnnyelvis]

I decided to with the eVGA GeForce 7600 GT 256MB DDR3 video card that Rob recommended. I ended up buying Pinnacle Studio Ultimate Version 11. Thank you for all of your input.

J. Elvis