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mITX Video Capture System

Dredgy
By Dredgy
in New Builds and Planning
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Go to solution Solved by CowsGoRoar,

Thanks for your suggestions. Budget as stated is $1100 (or $2200 for 2). Some of the parts are luxuries so can be modified or removed. (Really don't need the CPU cooler or extra fan, or a modular PSU. Probably do not need 256GB of storage either). Budget is flexible, but I spend enough company money to want to reign it in a little bit. That said, I have final say on what goes out.

 

I7 is unnecessary. The software we use is an in-house, custom solution and does not take advantage of hyper threading. The "encoding" we are doing is not intense stuff, and we are able to do it on the office PCs with i3s, (albeit with significant lag and without any portability). The lower end PCs (kinda, not really) or higher end test systems we have are both capable of performing the tasks, we just need dedicated rigs so people aren't stealing all of our office equipment all the time and can have the portability of being able to take them on location if necessary. 

 

 

Likewise, not a lot of stuff is stored in RAM, and utilization on various test PCs (with a terrible generic capture card) utilize a max of 4GB of RAM (on a 6GB system) at any one time. So I'm focusing on speed there, because it doesn't cost any extra money (8GB kits of 1600MHz RAM and 1866MHz RAM nearly all cost between $95-$99 here, with the G Skill kits the same price regardless of speed.) You are right in saying the speed is less important, but at 8GB we won't be running at full capacity so we have the luxury of being able to upgrade our speed. 

 

Optical drives I have hundreds upon hundreds laying around, but on an mITX system it won't fit with a card reader, so I'll have to use an external one if it's necessary (and I always do tend to have to use them).

 

Operating System is Windows 8.1 Pro, using my volume license.

 

However, a problem I have not forseen is that once it does what they want, everyone is going to want to be able to use it for more high performance, on-the-spot editing - so this is where demands for better CPUS and more RAM would come in. Looking at your rig I have made a few adjustments, beefing up the CPU cooler to match the CPU (running in ultra low profile mode so it fits in the case) and upping the RAM speed and lowering the profile for an extra $10.

 

http://au.pcpartpicker.com/p/3Dxwi

 

 

If I was to give you a budget of $1500 to play with, what would you come up with, assuming higher level video editing? You can expand to Micro ATX is absolutely necessary, though would rather not as I already have the mITX cases.

Nothing else to change.

Posted

Hi, I am looking at a video capture rig for studio use. At the moment we just hook our cameras up to external monitors, but apparently the need for actually being able to make changes to the input in realtime (things such as chroma keying). However these changes will not be recorded, it will just be used to give us an accurate idea of what the finished product will be. We will then record to SD/CF/SSD with the cameras natively. However sometimes we will also record directly to the computer through the capture card, so disk and RAM performance is essential, while space is not necessary unless we are out of the office and need it as place to offload clips to view them at full resolution. The entire drive will essentially be a big scratch disk.

 

What this system needs:

  • High Portability, will constantly be moved between studios.
  • Good video capture performance, allowing us to perform mildly intensive tasks such as live chroma keying (though not simultaneously recording to disk).
  • Above average disk and RAM speed
  • Wifi on the motherboard
  • A card reader.
  • That's it.

 

This is the rig I've put together. Budget is about $1100AUD, including the case (which is already purchased)

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4440 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor ($208.00 @ CPL Online)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-L9i 57.5 CFM CPU Cooler ($46.00 @ CPL Online)
Motherboard: Asus Z87I-Pro Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard ($189.00 @ CPL Online)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($99.00 @ PCCaseGear)
Storage: Sandisk 256GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($159.00 @ PCCaseGear)
Case: Cooler Master HAF Stacker 915R Mini ITX Tower Case ($85.00 @ PCCaseGear) Already purchased/laying around.
Power Supply: Silverstone Strider 600W 80+ Silver Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($109.00 @ PCCaseGear)
Case Fan: Noctua NF-B9-1600 37.8 CFM 92mm Fan ($19.00 @ CPL Online)
Capture Card: AVerMedia C985 Live Gamer HD Capture Card ($159.00)
Other: Shintaro Internal Card Reader 3.5" ($12.00)
Other: 3.5 to 5.25 FDD/Card Reader Mount Black ($3.00)
Total: $1088.00
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-05-04 14:45 EST+1000)

 

I will be building two of these, identically.

 

While some of the parts aren't necessary, there are a couple of indulgences to sate my newfound interest in computer hardware:

Silverstone PSU - Wayyyy overpowered. But the cheapest, fully modular PSU I could find. My last mITX build (a few weeks ago) used a non-modular PSU and it was just a bit messy

Noctua Cooler/Case fan - Essentially for my curiosity. I love the look of that low profile design and have been using Noctua products in a few of my builds lately and want to try some more to see if they continue to impress.

 

Open to suggestions:

Motherboard: Has WiFi, looks like an excellent choice. I used a Gigabyte H87N WiFi motherboard in my last build and drivers for the wireless chipset were a pain. I am open to other motherboard suggestions though, especially if price can be kept down, but WiFi is a necessity.

Video Capture Card: I use an AverMedia TV card in my personal system and it was a right pain to set up, so I am very open to other brands. I just can't find any. Though maybe AverMedia is better now, and so long as I don't have to use their software

 

 

Thanks for any input :)

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I would go with an i7 because hyper-threading has a big improvement for video encoding. Also, memory speeds are for gaming while memory amount is for video processing. I don't know you budget, but $300 more would give you a big performance improvement.

http://au.pcpartpicker.com/p/3DwP9

 

Also remember the operating system, and maybe a optical drive?

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I would go with an i7 because hyper-threading has a big improvement for video encoding. Also, memory speeds are for gaming while memory amount is for video processing. I don't know you budget, but $300 more would give you a big performance improvement.

http://au.pcpartpicker.com/p/3DwP9

 

Also remember the operating system, and maybe a optical drive?

 

Thanks for your suggestions. Budget as stated is $1100 (or $2200 for 2). Some of the parts are luxuries so can be modified or removed. (Really don't need the CPU cooler or extra fan, or a modular PSU. Probably do not need 256GB of storage either). Budget is flexible, but I spend enough company money to want to reign it in a little bit. That said, I have final say on what goes out.

 

I7 is unnecessary. The software we use is an in-house, custom solution and does not take advantage of hyper threading. The "encoding" we are doing is not intense stuff, and we are able to do it on the office PCs with i3s, (albeit with significant lag and without any portability). The lower end PCs (kinda, not really) or higher end test systems we have are both capable of performing the tasks, we just need dedicated rigs so people aren't stealing all of our office equipment all the time and can have the portability of being able to take them on location if necessary. 

 

 

Likewise, not a lot of stuff is stored in RAM, and utilization on various test PCs (with a terrible generic capture card) utilize a max of 4GB of RAM (on a 6GB system) at any one time. So I'm focusing on speed there, because it doesn't cost any extra money (8GB kits of 1600MHz RAM and 1866MHz RAM nearly all cost between $95-$99 here, with the G Skill kits the same price regardless of speed.) You are right in saying the speed is less important, but at 8GB we won't be running at full capacity so we have the luxury of being able to upgrade our speed. 

 

Optical drives I have hundreds upon hundreds laying around, but on an mITX system it won't fit with a card reader, so I'll have to use an external one if it's necessary (and I always do tend to have to use them).

 

Operating System is Windows 8.1 Pro, using my volume license.

 

However, a problem I have not forseen is that once it does what they want, everyone is going to want to be able to use it for more high performance, on-the-spot editing - so this is where demands for better CPUS and more RAM would come in. Looking at your rig I have made a few adjustments, beefing up the CPU cooler to match the CPU (running in ultra low profile mode so it fits in the case) and upping the RAM speed and lowering the profile for an extra $10.

 

http://au.pcpartpicker.com/p/3Dxwi

 

 

If I was to give you a budget of $1500 to play with, what would you come up with, assuming higher level video editing? You can expand to Micro ATX is absolutely necessary, though would rather not as I already have the mITX cases.

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Thanks for your suggestions. Budget as stated is $1100 (or $2200 for 2). Some of the parts are luxuries so can be modified or removed. (Really don't need the CPU cooler or extra fan, or a modular PSU. Probably do not need 256GB of storage either). Budget is flexible, but I spend enough company money to want to reign it in a little bit. That said, I have final say on what goes out.

 

I7 is unnecessary. The software we use is an in-house, custom solution and does not take advantage of hyper threading. The "encoding" we are doing is not intense stuff, and we are able to do it on the office PCs with i3s, (albeit with significant lag and without any portability). The lower end PCs (kinda, not really) or higher end test systems we have are both capable of performing the tasks, we just need dedicated rigs so people aren't stealing all of our office equipment all the time and can have the portability of being able to take them on location if necessary. 

 

 

Likewise, not a lot of stuff is stored in RAM, and utilization on various test PCs (with a terrible generic capture card) utilize a max of 4GB of RAM (on a 6GB system) at any one time. So I'm focusing on speed there, because it doesn't cost any extra money (8GB kits of 1600MHz RAM and 1866MHz RAM nearly all cost between $95-$99 here, with the G Skill kits the same price regardless of speed.) You are right in saying the speed is less important, but at 8GB we won't be running at full capacity so we have the luxury of being able to upgrade our speed. 

 

Optical drives I have hundreds upon hundreds laying around, but on an mITX system it won't fit with a card reader, so I'll have to use an external one if it's necessary (and I always do tend to have to use them).

 

Operating System is Windows 8.1 Pro, using my volume license.

 

However, a problem I have not forseen is that once it does what they want, everyone is going to want to be able to use it for more high performance, on-the-spot editing - so this is where demands for better CPUS and more RAM would come in. Looking at your rig I have made a few adjustments, beefing up the CPU cooler to match the CPU (running in ultra low profile mode so it fits in the case) and upping the RAM speed and lowering the profile for an extra $10.

 

http://au.pcpartpicker.com/p/3Dxwi

 

 

If I was to give you a budget of $1500 to play with, what would you come up with, assuming higher level video editing? You can expand to Micro ATX is absolutely necessary, though would rather not as I already have the mITX cases.

Nothing else to change.

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