On Sat, 12 Jul 2003 12:38:03 -0500, "Danny Deger"
wrote:

I am seriously thinking about buying a Sony desktop from Tiger Direct for
$899. It is marketed as an entry video machine.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...ls.asp?sku=S16
7-3152%20P

I couldn't come close to buying the components and putting a machine
together for this price. But, I am concern about its video "card" which is:
"64MB Intel 845G Integrated Graphics [shared]" and its DVD-RW burner.

First, it doesn't have a DVI output. I have a DVI monitor and a DVI cable
that I plan to use. If I go to analog VGA, will I loose much?

Depends on the analog output and the monitor. Some will work OK
with analog, others not so hot. If your monitor is sharper fed from
DVI than analog, I'd say make sure that you have DVI out on your video
card.

Second, is the built in "shared" video OK in the long run. I have been told
to watch for built in video, it typically doesn't have anywhere close to the
power of a dedicated card.

It isn't power so much as the bandwidth just isn't quite as high as
with a separate bus/memory. The actual chipset is about the same
(845G is similar to GeForce2 from Nvidia).

Third, the machine doesn't have an AGP slot for a video card is I don't like
the lack of DVI and current video performance. It only has PCI slots. I
current have a Radeon 7000 PCI on an older machine, that works OK. But I
don't do video processing and games? Will PCI only video card be a problem
for video and games? I don't plan on doing sophisticated video processing.
Taking my digital camcorder video to a DVD is about all I need to do. I
don't need superb video performance, but don't want to be stuck with a dog
if PCI is a dog.

PCI only is just about the same as having no expansion slot for
video. The PCI bus limit will mean that you can never use a fast AGP
card. If you don't care about fast frame rate 3D games, it doesn't
matter.

Working with camcorder video, AGP doesn't matter at all. Or almost
not at all -- there are some apps which can use the AGP video card as
a 3D effect render engine. But as far as general work with video,
that is all 2D video, not 3D, and not only is PCI just fine in
general, unless you need a 2nd video card you can do just fine with
the built-in video.



Fourth, I have an Emerson DVD player. Is there anyway to check
compatibility of the DVD writer to my player (the computer comes with a
DVD-RW, which isn't as good as DVD+RW for compatibility). Compatibility
with DVD players is important to me, but how can I spec a computer to burn
compatible DVDs? Should I insist on DVD+RW?

I'd say yes, if you need DVD compatibility with everyone. If it is
just for your own stuff, you can get by with whatever comes with it,
as long as it works with your player.


As a general rule, though, serious video editing means not skimping
on the base machine. Other stuff to think about:

Dual monitor, TV monitor output for your video editing: A full
screen TV video out is very useful for video work. While you can work
that out if you have a DV VCR with analog out, and hook it to a TV
monitor, if your video editing app runs firewire preview out live, a
video card with proper video overlay out can show any window out to
full screen video. Dual monitor setup gives you more screen space for
editing apps, and that can make editing faster, less stressful, and
easier on the eyes. Matrox makes very nice dual head and triple
(separate TV out) cards, but there are others.

Hard drive space: Adding hard drives for video makes it easier to
do big projects, and more than one project in the pipe at a time.
Most package PCs can only add one hard drive easily. A bigger case
costs little more if you get a custom-built machine, but are rarely
provided with store package deals.


The price of the PC to run the software will end up being way less
than the cost of the software you use, if you get into video
production at all seriously.

With an entry machine, if you want to expand your solution is going
to be getting a new PC. If you get a standard case, custom built
machine (note that custom built isn't necessarily much more expensive
than a package deal if you hunt around), you can expand it yourself,
upgrading the motherboard as needed.


--
*-__Jeffery Jones__________| *Starfire* |____________________-*
** Muskego WI Access Channel 14/25 http://www.execpc.com/~jeffsj/mach7/
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