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Originally Posted by candyflip
Not trying to stump you with this one, but what is your ideal workstation setup? Hardware and software.
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Well, here we go with the endless debate
Personnally I'm a PC guy... I've never liked MACs much. Don't ask me why, I just don't hehe.
As far as a physical setup, well, for adult based editing (straight to web video) I like my machines to be
power hungry bitches. Meaning : lots of CPU power, lots of RAM and LOOOOOOTS of Harddrive space. For my HD content I run it on a Dual core 3.6 ghz PC with 4 gb of RAM and everything works fine. I also like to have dual monitors (screen real estate is pricess when video editing) and have my comp hooked up to my TV right above my setup to view my stuff in a larger format (and to hear what it sounds like from a different source)
The
lowest specs for an editing station I would recommend would be a 1.8ish ghz with 512 mb RAM. Its what I first started out on. Its slow as a bitch, but gets the job done. Anything slower than that and render times will usually be too long to be worth the trouble.
As for
video cards, well, depends on what you want to do. If you want to capture from multiple sources (firewire, analog, S-Video and all that jazz), then you might want to consider getting an
ATI All In Wonder. If you want to have a huge, accurate setup with multiple monitors, you might want to splurge on a
Matrox card. But, I'm not a big fan of Matrox. Even though they are very versatile cards, every time I used them they ended up being buggy as hell and you can forget playing video games with them.
As for Audio, don't be cheap. Get a good sound card. Sound is 80% of an audio-visual experience, so be sure its good. Sound takes up less space than video, so don't be afraid to crank up the quality settings when rendering, its worth the extra bandwidth. Also I recommend getting a good pair of headphones (preferably open eared) for when you're editing so as to pickup any small glitches there might be.
Now for Software :
I don't want to be plugging any specific software, but I'm an Adobe slut. There full package of programs is fully bridged (meaning you can import projects from Photoshop into Premiere, then into After effects and back again). To me, this is the most conveniant and versatile tool Adobe has every developped.
Of course there is Avid which is the video industry's standard, but I've never been a big fan... so I won't talk about it.
Other progs such as Pinnacle, Final Cut, etc are just fine for your basic editing, but once you want to go a step further, things can get a bit complicated.
Personnally I always use a mix of Adobe Premiere, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Audition (for correcting and cleaning my audio) and Adobe Photoshop for whenever I want to create snazzy little graphics.
Also, if you want to just cut your shit up, I suggest videocharge for the new guys. Its easy and simple to use.
Oh, and on a final note, before anyone asks. When I encode my stuff I usually use After Effects and not Sorenson Squeeze. To me its easier for After Effects to do it cause my projects always end up there, but if you're not using After Effects, I suggest you use Sorenson Squeeze for your encoding.
Wow that was a long answer but there ya go! 