On Wed, 15 Sep 1999 20:27:56 GMT, daska@my-deja.com wrote:

>Hi gang. I've been lurking on this newsgroup occasionally since buying
>a trv9 more than a year ago. I'm now deciding on getting a new
>computer and would like to use it for some NLE hobby work. While the
>machine will not be used solely for NLE, that will be one of its main
>uses. I've checked out the information on videoguys.com page but am
>still confounded by the plethora of options out there.

We build (and more important: USE) mini-DV NLE editing computers (and just happen to have a spare older-version
at a good price...;-), so...

>Some basic questions I have:
>
>what kind of hard drives do I really need to do NLE? Are the 10 000rpm
>SCSI drives fast enough? Are the 7200rm UATA drives fast enough?

Recent 5400rpm UDMA drives work fine - we have had no
problems with the IBM 8, 16, 20, and 25-gig versions
(no RAID needed, and the drives can share an IDE port
with another device/drive without problems). It is
wise to put video files on a drive(s) different from
the program drive, though (and having multiple video
drives simplifies keeping big drives "clean").

>What kind of machine is suggested? More importantly, is it feasable to
>build a PIII system and not have to worry too much about getting the DV
>hardware (firewire card etc) to work with the rest of the system. Or
>should I simply consider one of those promax G3 bundles?

We like IBM-clones (easy upgrades, cheap parts that are
easy to get). We have built machines based on the K-6 233,
the PII-400, and OC'd Celerons at 450MHz - all ran well with
DPS Spark and Canopus Raptor FireWire cards (the latter is
less trouble to set up, though...!).

>Specifically, I would be interested to hear testimonials from people
>who have recently emabrked on a similar project.

Since we started with the more difficult DPS Spark, once we
had a set of parts that worked well with it (and found by
trial ones that didn't work well with it...! ;-), the Raptor
system was super-simple (the Raptor seems to be less
sensitive to the quirks of associated parts in the computer).

>Thanks and happy video(film)making.
>
>Daska

You're welcome, and, "likewise I'm sure"! ;-)