Help for buiding desktop computer for photo/video editing

[swapk007]

Hello all,

I am planning to build custom desktop for photo/video editing

what are your recommendation for following things

processor
motherboard
ram
input/output connection
operating system (xp , win 7, linux ubuntu) which version

Display ( LED or LCD) things to look while buying and recommendation

for photo editing i know light room, Photoshop, gimp are advance editing tools are available
recommend any other software's available

also for video editing any free/licensed software available.
this is require only to edit and join home videos. my present laptop hangs when i load videos from HD handicam

help will be appreciated

Thanks and regards
swapnil

[Manfred M]

The requirements for a video editing machine are going to be quite different than for a photo editing machine, and even here the answer is going to be dependent on the software that you use. Photo editing is not particularly resource intensive and even a fairly low end machine will do.

Video rendering, on the other hand, is an extremely resource intensive process, but the problem is that the different non-linear editors tackle this in different ways. It is important to know which particular piece of software you would be planning to use to give a reasonable answer here. The I/O ports are again dependent on what external equipment you are planning to connect to. If you are using a video recorder that uses solid state storage, the answer is going to be different than if you are using a machine with a mechanical storage mechanism.

The only consistent answer I can give is that you should be looking at a screen that uses some form of IPS (In-plane switching) technology, rather than the lower end TN (Twisted Nematic) technology to get reasonable colour accuracy. These are all LCD screens; LED refers is just one of several technologies used to backlight the screen,

I would also not look at anything other than a 64-bit operating system as any modern PP / non-linear editor need to be able to access more than the 3.2GB available in a 32-bit system.

When it comes to a specific processor or motherboard that really depends on what you spec out. I would not go with less than 8GB of RAM; I run 16GB on my two machines I use for PP and video work. As for the operating system; that is going to be dependent on the software you are planning to run. If you are looking at any of the Adobe products; Linux is out, as Adobe does not support that platform. If you plan to use Linux, I don’t know anything about video editing software on that platform.

[Lightrider]

Regarding LCD or LED I would go with LED as it will last you longer and does not require as much warm up time as LCD. But remember what Manfred said about getting a IPS monitor. DON'T GO for the TN's.

[swapk007]

Thank you very much manfred and lightrider i will definitely go with IPS panels.

Regarding machine Budget is also concern to while building this desktop.
I have searched on net and found ultra sharp monitors by dell. but the are expensive.
what are the other thing which i have to look to get better monitor under budget

and for cpu what i am planning for I5 intel processor and 16gb ram
any suggestion for processor model.

Regarding video editing i am not going to do any major work.
The machine what i will use is only to import clips from handy cam, join it together and export it by reducing size to 1080p format which i can view on LCD TV without affecting the quality of picture.
i want to do this because any one events clips are taking 15 to 20 gb space on my laptop. Presently i am using video to video software for this if you have any other software pls suggest.

manfred may i know what are spec of your machines.

[Manfred M]

My system is a few years old now; the processor is an i7 -2600 (3.4GHz), with 16 GB of RAM. I have a nVidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti video card. It is not one of the cards that Adobe / nVidia list as tested for the Creative Suite, but the GPU (Cuda) graphics acceleration does work. I run Windows 7 Home - 64 (which limits RAM to 16GB). I have retrofit USB 3 ports for faster data transfer from my card reader and my video camera use SD cards, so this is how I transfer video data as well.

I use regular mechanical hard drives (in the 2 - 4TB range) and back up to external RAID type storage.

I run a 2-monitor setup; a 27" IPS Dell for the colour work and a cheap 24" Dell for menus etc. I use a Wacom Intuos 3 tablet for edting work

[yobenny]

Don't mean to jump in uninvited but why make another thread, is this monitor a good choice?
I photograph real estate and use photoshop. THanks.
Dell 27"

[Manfred M]

Don't mean to jump in uninvited but why make another thread, is this monitor a good choice?
I photograph real estate and use photoshop. THanks.
Dell 27"

Yes; it is an IPS display and has a good gamut range. I use an older sibling (Dell 2709W) for my work.

[Green Mountain Girl]

I run a 2-monitor setup; a 27" IPS Dell for the colour work and a cheap 24" Dell for menus etc.

Hi Manfred! Hope no-one minds me jumping in here. I have a question about the 2-monitor setup.

For my new computer I purchased the 27" Dell UltraSharp U2713HM. It is almost too big! But not complaining... My old desktop monitor is small - around 15" - but thought it would work for the menus so I can devote the entire 27" screen to photo editing.

So how do I set this up to work the best way? Right now the Dell monitor is plugged in with the white plug, the small monitor has a blue plug. I see two places to put it on the tower, one next to where the white one is, the other one up near where the speakers are plugged in.

Also, I have heard there are two kinds of setups - one mirror, the other I am not sure what it is! Need to find out which to use.

Thanks.

Susan

[Abitconfused]

The book that may be found using the link below is a very helpful guide about building dependable and powerful computers for image editing. I know because I wrote it and I learned a great deal in doing so. I have sold many copies over the last two years but do not have twenty positive reviews like many other computer books sold at Amazon. How does that happen? How does a recently published book get numerous four and five star ratings during its first week of publication? Scratch my head...I just can't figure it out.

http://www.amazon.com/kindle-store/dp/B005WKHHDG

[RustBeltRaw]

So how do I set this up to work the best way? Right now the Dell monitor is plugged in with the white plug, the small monitor has a blue plug. I see two places to put it on the tower, one next to where the white one is, the other one up near where the speakers are plugged in.

Also, I have heard there are two kinds of setups - one mirror, the other I am not sure what it is! Need to find out which to use.

The "white plug" is a fairly modern DVI connection. The "blue plug" is an older VGA connection. DVI supports much higher resolutions, so you'll probably need to continue using it for the 27in monitor. The two dual-display modes are "mirrored," where the same image is displayed on both screens, and "extended," where the computer treats the monitors, regardless of their sizes or resolutions, like one big one. Extended is the mode you want, since it will let you display different things on both monitors.

I can provide instructions for setting up an extended display, but only if you use a PC. I remain stubbornly in the Windows camp.

[Manfred M]

Lex beat me to the answer; to some extent it depends on how your computer is set up (i.e. the number and types of ports on your video output) and what the capabilities of your old monitor are (some really old ones only have a VGA input). You definitely want to run your new monitor with the DVI connection and you would be fine running the old one on the VGA setting.

You definitely want to run the extended display as with mirror, both screens will show exactly the same thing. Your display setup screen will let you chose all this and will let you determine which screen is on the left side and which is on the right as well as letting determine where the menus reside. Unfortunately, there are a number of different ways this can be set up on a specific machine; sometimes withing the operating system itself and at other times with software provided by the video chip / card vendor.

I have a Windows XP machine and a Windows 8 machine in front of me right now. The XP machine links to an Intel supplied piece of software and with the Windows 8 machine, I get a Microsoft screen to make the adjustments.

[Green Mountain Girl]

The "white plug" is a fairly modern DVI connection. The "blue plug" is an older VGA connection. DVI supports much higher resolutions, so you'll probably need to continue using it for the 27in monitor. The two dual-display modes are "mirrored," where the same image is displayed on both screens, and "extended," where the computer treats the monitors, regardless of their sizes or resolutions, like one big one. Extended is the mode you want, since it will let you display different things on both monitors.

I can provide instructions for setting up an extended display, but only if you use a PC. I remain stubbornly in the Windows camp.

Thanks Lex!

My 27" monitor came with both white and blue plugs, and I figured out the white one was the way to go. My older monitor only has the blue plug. The extended display does sound like what I want. Here is what I thought to do: minimize the left-hand panel (history, etc.) unless needed during editing, and have the right-hand panel on the smaller computer (editing functions). That would maximize the size of the image on the 27" screen. And my computer is a Windows 8 PC! I've had it about a month now, since my laptop broke down, and I had it custom built by a local computer guy. (Internal 120GB SDD and 2TB HDD with external 2TB WD Passport. Also have a NVIDIA GeForce video card, which I understand is necessary for using a second monitor.)

Lex beat me to the answer; to some extent it depends on how your computer is set up (i.e. the number and types of ports on your video output) and what the capabilities of your old monitor are (some really old ones only have a VGA input). You definitely want to run your new monitor with the DVI connection and you would be fine running the old one on the VGA setting.

You definitely want to run the extended display as with mirror, both screens will show exactly the same thing. Your display setup screen will let you chose all this and will let you determine which screen is on the left side and which is on the right as well as letting determine where the menus reside. Unfortunately, there are a number of different ways this can be set up on a specific machine; sometimes withing the operating system itself and at other times with software provided by the video chip / card vendor.

I have a Windows XP machine and a Windows 8 machine in front of me right now. The XP machine links to an Intel supplied piece of software and with the Windows 8 machine, I get a Microsoft screen to make the adjustments.

Thanks Manfred!

See what I wrote above about my computer. I guess what I need to figure out now is where to plug in the old monitor. There are two white plug receptors on the back of the tower - one up where the UBS ports are, and one down beside where I have the 27" monitor plugged in. I was using the old monitor with my laptop that broke down, and it worked fine, so I don't anticipate any problems with using it for the panels part of the screen.

Susan

[Manfred M]

There are two white plug receptors on the back of the tower - one up where the UBS ports are, and one down beside where I have the 27" monitor plugged in. I was using the old monitor with my laptop that broke down, and it worked fine, so I don't anticipate any problems with using it for the panels part of the screen.

Susan

Check with your computer guy. Most modern video cards have DVI outputs as standard and you can get a DVI to VGA adaptor. I haven't bought a video card in a few years, but they used to be packaged in with the video card to take care of older monitors, and in fact if you look at my setup, I have one monitor with using a DVI adaptor and the second one is running with the VGA adaptor.