[GazzaT]

Hi all.

I am using Pinnacle Studio Plus 9 media suite. Its very unhappy making tape or DVD at with new projects. I think that I need to upgrade my graphics card from the on-board SiS chip. I have trawled endless reviews and it seems that most greaphics cards are aimed at high end gamers. Pinnacle seem to be in bed with ATI in terms of what they have tested as compatable. Can anybody recomend the best graphics card for video editing with this software and my system.

I am running XP home SP2 with Norton AV.......

my pc is as follows, but I have 1G of DDR RAM.

CPU Intel® Pentium® 4 570 Prescott (3.8 Ghz) Memory 512 MB DDR RAM - PC3200 Motherboard ECS SF2-M7 Hard Drive 250GB DiamondMax Plus 10 SATA 6B250SO CD / DVD Drive Lite-On® SOHW-1633S DVDRW CD / DVD Drive Lite-On® SOHD-167T DVD drive Floppy Drive Floppy disk drive Video / Graphics Card SiS 661FX Sound Card Realtek AC'97 audio Modem C-Com 5619PSV-R Network Card Realtek 8139 / 810X (Onboard) Ports Patriot "D2" series Mouse Standard PS/2 mouse Keyboard Standard PS/2 Keyboard

Any help appreciated.

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ATI are among the better cards, and if Pinnacle recommend a particular one, go with that

You could add more memory

1 GB plus is good for editing

[Retired Tech]

ATI are among the better cards, and if Pinnacle recommend a particular one, go with that

You could add more memory

1 GB plus is good for editing

[GazzaT]

Thanks for the response Keith.

Unfortunately, Pinnacle list about 20 ATI cards and I really would like to know if any particular one is particularly good on the DV editing front. I've read about the "All-in-wonder" range but even the ATI site is a bit difficult to get a straight answer from.

On the RAM front, I have stuck an extra stick in so its upto 1G now.

Edited by GazzaT, 07 October 2005 - 10:32 AM.

[Retired Tech]

Try here

http://www.pcworld.c...d,120794,00.asp

You can compare them

Post back if it does not help

[st22]

do graphics cards even effect video editing?
i use a GeForce 6600 on this computer, but I have edited videos without graphics cards and its... no different. are you sure the graphics card is your problem?

when you say

"Its very unhappy making tape or DVD at with new projects"

what do you mean? like does a sad face pop up

But yeah you should get a graphics card if you dont have one, something cheap is all you need.. maybe the Radeon 9250 128MB?

Edited by st22, 07 October 2005 - 04:41 PM.

[GazzaT]

Thanks for the link Keith.

st22. From what I have read regarding "the graphics needs" for video editing, the general concensus seems to be, the more the merrier! However, when you look at the on board memory spec for a Matrox card, they seem to be 64Megs. I dont know is the answer, hence the question. As most of the reviews on graphics cards seem to be focused on gamming abilities, its difficult for a novise to buy the write card, with the best options in terms of VIVO, S-Video in/out etc, without paying for performance that I will never use.

As for Pinnacles unhappyness. I have loaded and burned projects created on a previous machine with minor problems. However, I have tried to collate some stock footage, just drop it onto the timeline so no rendering, and in "make tape" it will freeze playback after about 30mins and in "make DVD" it just cant make it to the burning phase without freezing up.

If anyone has a specific recommendation, I'm listening.

Thanks again all.

[st22]

Have you heard of the Matrox RT.X10? its a top range video card. I just came across it then.
http://www.videoguys...p?idproduct=688

What format is the stock footage file you add to it? I have seen in premiere that when you import say a VCD file it wont play in real time and often the program crashes, what I do is export it as an AVI file then reimport the avi file and it works smooth. I don’t know if that’s your problem, but it’s a solution if it is.

Maybe try rendering the timeline then reimporting that footage on the timeline then make tape/DVD? Or render it in another program then reimport it into pinnacle?

Of course a graphics card will make preview a little better, all you need is a mid range one (unless your doing 3D) but the graphics card has no effect on the rendering (which is what it would be doing before it gets the to burning phase) so that’s why I don’t think its the graphics card, just a file type that chews the backbone off the CPU and RAM when trying to convert it, but then you have a great CPU and plenty of RAM, so it could be the software that cant handle the file, but if the file is normal but im thinking that it is an incompatible file type... tell me if this aint any help and ill try and think of something else.

[GazzaT]

I'll have a look at that link in a mo. Thanks.

The footage I am loading is DV straight off the camcorder, onto a Maxtor one-touch II and then I try to either "make tape" or "make DVD". I just downloaded a program called End-it-all 2 which closes non essensial apps and I still get a freeze. This is without any transitions or effects. It could just be the software. I beleive that version 10 is based on the liquid platform which is supposed to be more stable, but it only seems to be available to the US at the moment and I'm still not sure if it will work. Maybe I should consider a Matrox bundle with one of the Premier pacakages.... I just want to be able to sit down and start a project without the nagging doubt of whether it will actually burn after all the editing.

[st22]

Maybe I should consider a Matrox bundle with one of the Premier pacakages

That’s a great idea, but remeber it comes with the standard bundle (the one on the site i linked to), see if you can get it with the pro bundle, that way you get Photoshop and after effects 6.5 pro as well, which comes with an awesome green screen keying plug-in called "key light".

When you export from premiere pro 1.5 as a microsoft dv avi and import it into the DVD authoring software (DVD movie factory 4) it works like a charm, its a better editor then what you’ve got at the moment so its not a bad idea to switch over.

If your loading off an external drive (which I know nothing about, I have had problems with transferring large video files on my external drive, which I snapped the pins on.... so i never got a chance to figure it out) that might be the problem, does it work when the files are on your computers hard drive?

what country are you from? Here you can find the version 10 (pinicle) in Australia
http://www.videoguys...p?idCategory=77

You should be able to get it world wide.

[GazzaT]

I think I will try a little longer trying sort Pinnacle Plus 9 because of a. Money, cheeper buying a basic card and persisting to try and get the system set correctly. And b. Familiarity, re-learning. I will probably move up but if I can avoid the outlay, I will for now. If I get a new card and still can't sort it, then I will bite the bullet and upgrade.

Someone did mention that my on-board graphics (SiS 661FX) may not be upto the job?

Thanks for the response