I am currently using a custom-built video editing PC which is fitted out for video capture (from any source) roughly as follows:

3 Ultra-SCSI 10,000RPM drives, 2 X 17Gb Ultra 160-SCSI, 1 X 36Gb Ultra 320 SCSI.
Adaptec U2940 Host adapter (ultra 160 and Fast-SCSI 2 support)
Canopus AceDVIO capture card
Sony Vegas 4 editing software
Sony DVD Architect v1 DVD authoring software
Nero burning software
Plextor 708A ATAPI CD/DVD burner
Windows XP home
1Gb RAM
256Mb AGP graphics card
2.3Ghz AMD Athlon processor
Soundblaster Audigy sound-card
Antec 550W power-supply (all these devices draw rather a lot of power, and I added an additional cooling fan inside the tower case.)

This is just an edit-box, it doesn't go on the 'net, it doesn't keep business records, it just captures, edits, renders and burns. It works flawlessly, although rendering time is approx 1.4 ttimes actual production length 1. e. a 1 hour video takes approx 1.4 hours to render to MPEG2. Rendering is hugely processor-intensive and you can't use the machine whilst it is rendering. I am using standard 4:3 aspect ratio, 720X576 pixel PAL frames at 25fps.

You need very large hard-drives to capture uncompressed video. Some capture cards encode on-the-fly to MPEG2, but I prefer to work with uncompressed files because after my editing is finished I can choose the average bit-rate for the rendering software to use when it converts the output file to MPEG2 before it gets chopped up into the .BUP. IFO and .VOB files which have to be burnt to a DVD to make a playable Video-DVD. I work with MPEG2 a lot on satellite transport streams and am quite familiar with what quality is sacrificed to compress 1.5 hours of video onto a 4.7Gb single-sided DVD, hence my preference for editing uncompressed frames.

The Ultra-SCSI drives at 10,000rpm spindle-speed will not drop frames, but you need a very fast processor and a lot of RAM. Already I am thinking of upgrading all the drives to 80Gb Ultra320 SCSI...which will cost about three times what most people would be prepared to pay for a complete system!

Video capture from TV is easy - I just plug the output of an S-VHS VCR into the capture card (y/c video, stereo audio) and start the capture engine. The VCR is just used as a tuner in this case. THis system also works direct from Satellite IRDs as well as all flavours of Betacam machines, although the capture card doesn't have an input for SDI video with embedded audio.

This was built as a serious production box, and so far it has given every satisfaction. The burner has surpassed the 500 DVD burn mark without a problem, although I have had some DVDs fail the burn process, or purn OK but glitch on a playback test. If you can afford it, use the best quality CDs/DVDs you can buy.

The biggest, fastest hard-drives you can get will go a long way to easing any worries about direct capture. I stick with SCSI because that's what I have always used, but these days the ATAPI/EIDE and SATA hard-drives are pretty damn good, especially at 10,000RPM.

Slightly off topic, but I have just found out that Argos are selling a DVD player, that will play AVI and DIVX etc (I just had to buy it at £50). This is great as recorded movies, or similar, can be played straight from a disc - no need to render, just plonk the AVI file straight onto the disc and hey presto. AVI is good because it is highly compressed and if you get a decent enough size, you will get good quality.

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