Help - Building a DV Editing System

[rbb]

I am putting together a system for editing digital video. I have decided to use a Matrox G400 Max DH as the video card. For editing, I plan to use Digital Origin's EditDV along with their 1394 card. For now, I will use Win 98 or NT 4. Memory wil be 2 sticks of 128 meg CAS 2 SDRAM.

Now for the questions:

First, Intel or AMD? I know Intel is always the safe, yet expensive route. But, as far as bang for the buck, an AMD Athlon looks good. If I go AMD, which board would you recommend? It looks like ASUS or ABit. Oh - and I need 6 PCI slots - SCSI, sound card, Promise Raid Controller, 1394 card, NIC, and possibly a Rainbow Runner

Although I will be using my miniDV camcorder to make my own tapes, I will have to make many copies for the relatives (baby shots). Rather than put my camcorder through additional stress of making dubs to VHS, can I use the output from the G400 to record directly to VHS? Or would a Rainbow Runner be the way to go?

Thanks.

RBB

[DrMordrid]

Your need for 6 PCI slots dictates Intel boards. They are at a higher state of development than the AMD Athlon boards at the moment. For the CPU I'd go with either a PIII or CeleronII processor (a new one with the PIII coppermine core). A 533mhz Celeron FC-PGA (CeleronII) runs about $110-130.

The high PCI count means the board also needs to have a high PCI bus performance. This dictates a board akin to the Asus P3B-F 6 PCI. I have one on my RT-2000 machine and it's flat out excellent, fast and stable. These run about $130-140.

*SOME* DV or D8 camcorders can pass the video through from the IEEE-1394 to their composite or S-Video outputs. This could save a lot of wear & tear.

An alternative would be to use the DualHead of the G400. Setting the DualHead options to DVDMax will pass video played in Media Player or most editors preview window to the TV-Out for recording.

If the video out looks cut off or off center just set the DVDMax Options to "Always Scale to Full Screen" instead of 4:3.

Dr. Mordrid

[rbb]

Dr Mordrid -

Thanks for the reply. The PCI bus info is very helpful.

ASUS makes 6 slot PCI boards using the BX chipset and the VIA chipsets - both w/ 6 PCI slots. Is the PCI bus issue handled well by both chipsets or does the advantage go to the BX? And is it even worth considering 4x AGP (VIA) vs 2X AGP (BX).

Unfortunately, my JVC does not pass through the analog signal. I'll give the DVDMAX route a try to see if the results are satisfactory. Although, with a Rainbow Runner, I gain the capability to import analog video sources to mix with the digital sources...

RBB