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In my first two posts on building an editing workstation, I covered the motherboard / processor and memory and video cards. In this last post, I want to cover the other really crucial component of any workstation, the hard drive.

Hard Drive

The hard drives you throw into your system and their configuration can have quite an impact on performance. The hard drive affects how long it takes to load your software and affects how fast your computer reads and writes those large video files. Since there are so many variables here, I’ll spend the most time discussing this topic.

First, let’s talk about the drives themselves.

Currently, hard drives are incredibly inexpensive. It’s common to find 1TB 7200-rpm 32MB cache drives for under $100. If you have some extra cash to spend, Western Digital has the Velociraptor 10,000-rpm drives. The latest technology is the solid state drives (SSD), but they’re extremely expensive and I wouldn’t recommend them…yet.

Now let’s talk about configuring your drives.

The configuration of your hard drives and manner in which they work with your system can be just as important, if not more important than the drives themselves. The first rule of thumb is to use more than one hard drive. You want to have one hard drive for your operating system and software with your data (i.e. video files) on separate drives. The reasoning for this is simple. If your computer gets a virus, your data is not affected and it’s easy to wipe the drive and reinstall your software. It also increases performance because your computer isn’t reading and writing to the same hard drive simultaneously.

The next common configuration that many people will recommend is to RAID your drives. There are many configurations of RAID, but the one that most people refer to (in terms of video performance) is what’s called striping, or RAID 0. With RAID 0, two hard drives are used together to create one logical drive.

For example, two 500GB drives would be striped together to create one 1TB drive. This increases the performance substantially, allowing data to be read and written faster, since the drives are working together. In the case of an editing workstation, if RAID 0 were to be used, a minimum of four drives would be required – two drives for the operating system and two drives for video storage.

Some users would go as far as using six drives in the RAID, using two drives for the operating system/software, two drives for captured video, and two drives for rendered video. Now while there is a substantial performance increase in running a RAID 0 configuration, there are also a couple of disadvantages.

The first and most obvious downside is that more drives are required - twice as many to be exact.  The second and biggest disadvantage to running a RAID 0 configuration is the risk involved. With RAID 0, if one of the two drives fails, the data is lost from both drives. This means that if one of the two 500GB drives goes bad, you lose your entire 1TB of data, regardless of if the other drive was in perfect working order. For this reason alone, many users choose to not use RAID 0.

For myself, I use three separate drives in my system. One drive contains my operating system and software. Another drive is used only for captured video and pre-rendered items. This is my “read” drive. The last drive is used only for rending projects. This is my “write” drive. This works quite well with only one drive being read from while another drive is only used to write files to. Although this configuration isn’t quite as fast as a RAID 0, I don’t have to worry about as many drives failing and losing more data.

Conclusion

I’m going to end this here since these are the most crucial components for any workstation. Although this blog is probably already outdated, I do think many of the concepts here still (and will continue to) hold true. I tried to keep this as objective as possible and for that reason I didn’t give too many specifics. With that in mind, feel free to use this as merely a guideline when building your next video editing workstation. Good luck and happy rendering!

P.S. For those of you wondering, these are the specs of my latest workstation.

Processor:     Intel Core i7 920
Memory:        6GB DDR3 1600mhz
Video:            Radeon HD 4830
Hard Drives:  1.5TB WD Black 7200rpm 32mb cache
Seagate 1TB 7200rpm 32Mb cache (x2)
O/S:               Windows 7 RC

Now that you’ve got your motherboard and processor (covered in Building an Editing Workstation Part 1), let’s take a look at memory and video cards.

Memory

This is the one area that you can splurge on without spending a whole lot. I’d recommend throwing at least 4GB of memory into your workstation. By today’s standards 4-8GB is a good place to be, especially if you’ve got a quad-core setup.

In video editing, memory is most often used while previewing video. If you use Adobe After Effects, you know what I’m talking about.

One thing to keep in mind is that if you’re using an Intel setup, you may want to shoot for 6GB since many Intel motherboards support triple channel memory. Currently, as I’m writing this, AMD motherboards don’t appear to offer support for triple channel memory, but that’ll probably change soon.

The key here is that you really can’t have too much memory when it comes to video.

Video Card

Ironically, the video card isn’t very crucial here. Well, let me correct myself – it isn’t AS crucial here.

Unless you do a fair amount of 3D modeling and animation, you really don’t need to concern yourself with spending too much on a graphics card. I recommend getting something middle of the road, spending somewhere around $70-$150.

Keep in mind that you’ll want to find something that has at least dual monitor support. The video card I use has two monitor ports as well as an HDMI out. This way I can use both of my monitors, while also outputting the preview to my 32” LCD TV. Features like these can sometimes be more important than the processing power of the card alone.

Now, I should make mention that the new version of Adobe After Effects does take advantage of some OpenGL graphics cards. You can see a list of the supported cards on their website. The list is quite large and many of the cards fall into the midrange I just spoke of. I’m not sure how much of a performance leap you’re really going to see by spending a boatload on one of the more expensive cards supported. Chances are you’d be better off putting that extra cash into more memory and/or a better processor.

And that will do it for Part 2. Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion of Building an Editing Workstation later this week when I cover the hard drive. And hopefully that will leave you a nice guideline when building your next workstation.

The best thing about technology is that the more it advances, the less it costs.

Today you can get a 1TB 7200-rpm hard drive for under a hundred bucks. Ten years ago, that might’ve gotten you a 10GB hard drive. The same goes for memory. Today you can get 6GB of DDR3 RAM for about what 32MB of EDO RAM went for about 15 years ago. It’s incredible.

So what does this mean in terms of video production? In simple terms, video editing has not only gotten far more powerful, but it’s also become much more affordable.

So you’ve got some money to spend on a workstation. Let’s take a look at what’s out there. For the sake of things, I’m going to assume that you’re not a stockbroker or looking to break the bank. We’ll say you’re looking to spend $800-$1200. Obviously, if you’re a MAC person, this blog isn’t for you.

Motherboard/Processor

The first thing you need to do is decide if you want to build an Intel or AMD system. Generally, Intel systems cost a bit more to build. Decent AMD motherboards start around $70-$80, whereas decent Intel motherboards can start around $200.  Similarly, Intel processors tend to be a bit more than AMD processors. On the other side of things, it’s important to note that when it comes to multimedia, Intel systems have a track record of performing better than AMD systems.

Most benchmarks clearly show Intel systems outperforming AMD systems by a substantial margin. Whether or not this performance gain is worth the price difference is up to you, the buyer. You’ll definitely want to do some research before making your decision, and remember that this blog should only be used as a guideline.

Not much has changed in terms of building a solid editing workstation. You still want to put as much money into the processor and memory as possible, since that’s what editing software harnesses the most. Now when it comes to processors, quad-cores are where it’s at.

Most of the major NLEs (non-linear editors) take advance of multi-core processors, allowing for much faster render times and faster, higher quality previewing. With prices as affordable as they are, quad-core processors are really the way to go and that’s where the future is headed. You really don’t want to cut any corners here as the processor is really the heart of the workstation.

For example, the processor will directly affect render times, as well as the speed of encoding and decoding video. If you do any amount of compositing along using multiple effects, you’ll definitely see a difference here.

I recommend taking the fastest processor that’s at the top of the line, and buying the one that’s a couple steps below it. Usually that’s where the best price point is at. If you’re going for AMD, check out the Phenom II processors. For Intel, the Core i7 processors are fantastic.

That’s it for Part 1. If you can hold out for a week or so, in my next few posts I’ll cover memory, video cards and hard drives. By then end, you’ll have an overview of most crucial components for any editing workstation. So until next time…

Video has come a long, long ways in the last few years in terms of web friendly video. High definition video cameras can now record video as progressive footage, meaning there is no need to de-interlace the footage prior to viewing it on a computer monitor. By nature, high definition (or HD) footage is also convenient for computer monitors since it uses square pixels, thereby eliminating headaches associated with pixel aspect ratios. By having similar characteristics to that of a computer monitor, HD video is ideal for the web.

But what if you’re not shooting in HD? What if you’re shooting DV footage? How do you make DV footage look good on the web? Let’s talk about DV footage first.  Native DV records at 720×480 non-square pixels. DV footage is also interlaced meaning that each “frame” of video is actually made up of two fields (each containing half of the information) that are combined together to create an image. Computer monitors on the other hand, use square pixels and display video progressively (or non-interlaced.) So as you can see, DV footage, in nature, clashes with the web.

How to get DV footage to look good on the web

Now let’s talk about how we get our DV footage to look good on computers and (more importantly) the web. There are two major adjustments that need to be made to the video. Remember that no matter how little the alteration is, you’re going to lose some quality. The amount you lose depends immensely on the methods you use when altering your video.

First, we need to de-interlace the video.

As I said before, computer monitors display video progressively. What this means is that each “frame” of video is one image, unlike interlaced video that is broken up into two separate fields. So what we have to do is make the video progressive or “de-interlace” the video. This will eliminate those annoying “saw teeth” or jaggy edges you see on footage that wasn’t de-interlaced.

Most NLE (or non-linear editors) contain built in de-interlacing methods or filters. In most cases, the software will either blend the fields together or interpolate (eliminate half the lines and use the average of the two lines to fill in the missing data.) There are also a large variety of third party plug-ins and filters available for specifically de-interlacing video footage. 

For example, Virtualdub, a free video utility, contains several advanced de-interlacing filters that can provide very nice results. For myself, lately I’ve been using a plug-in for Adobe After Effects called Topaz Enhance to do my de-interlacing. It’s made by Topaz Labs and is by far the best I’ve used. A free 30 day trial is available. 

Second, we need to change the pixel aspect ratio.

Since DV footage natively records in non-square pixels, we need to change it to match the square pixel ratio that computer monitors use. Without doing this, the footage will look stretched and disproportional. There are several ways this can be achieved.

For myself, I use Adobe After Effects. I like to import the footage and change the interpretation to “square pixels.” Then I’ll move the footage into a new composition and render it out at 640×480. This tends to work very well and is quite easy to do, especially if I’m already de-interlacing the footage.

Many NLEs will also contain presets for doing this. For example, Sony Vegas contains a specific video size preset for “640×480 square pixels.” [Note: 640x480 is the resolution at which DV footage will look correct when using square pixels.]

Again, remember that when applying these changes you’re going to lose some quality. Therefore, be sure to experiment a bit and figure out which method works best for you.

So now you’ve got yourself some footage that was once native DV and is now 640×480, using square pixels and de-interlaced. What are you waiting for? Upload that!

I’m going to try to keep this blog as short and simple as possible. So what is the best video editing software out there? For those of you looking for that answer, you won’t find it here. It’s a trick question.

The truth of the matter is that most professional level NLEs, or non linear editors, do the exact same thing. Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere, Avid and Sony Vegas will all splice video, add dissolves, titles, and composite several layers of video and audio just fine. So the question is not so much “what’s the best NLE?”, but rather “what’s the best NLE for you?”

The easiest way to determine what NLE works best for you is to simply try them out. Almost all of the NLEs offer a trial version that you can download and test out before buying. I’d recommend doing this and getting a feel for how each of them function, how their graphical user interface works, how they manage the media, how simple tasks are accomplished, etc. Sooner or later you’ll find one that seems to fit your style.

For me, Sony Vegas suits me well. It has a fairly intuitive user interface and isn’t as keyboard based as say Final Cut Pro or Avid, since I’m more of a mouse guy. It also works really well with my Shuttle Express, a job/shuttle controller I use in conjunction with my mouse. I also like Vegas for its powerful set of audio tools. It’s extremely easy to edit audio in Vegas and for me, that’s a necessity when it comes to any NLE.

Now that’s just my personal preference. As I said before, every professional NLE will do the same thing and each carries its own perks. Final Cut Pro and Avid are commonly used in the film industry and considered by many to be the standard. Both NLEs revolve around keyboard shortcuts – in fact, special keyboards containing colored keys are available for serious editors.

Aside from those two, Adobe Premiere is another very solid NLE. Probably one of its greatest strengths, like all other Adobe products, is the ability to easily integrate with other Adobe software titles. For example, you can do some advanced compositing with After Effects, and then export your project and bring it into Premiere without having to render your project out. The ability to work between multiple software tools without the need to render is a tremendous asset to have. This type of integration is typical with all Adobe products and can really save a lot of time and headaches.

Now there are a ga-zillion other NLEs out there, especially for PC. Don’t let anyone tell you that one NLE is the best or better than another. It all comes down to the editor, not the software. Heck, you could make an award winning movie using iMovie. The point here is, download all of the trial versions, try them out and get a feel for which one fits you.

Here’s a few links to get you started:

• Final Cut Pro
• Adobe Premiere
• Avid
• Sony Vegas

Once you find it, you’ve got yourself the best NLE. It’s that simple. Good luck and happy editing!