All,
Very shortly I plan on building out my new workstation, specifically for audio
and video editing and production. Might do some music, but mostly speech
content on the audio side of things. The video will be mostly video of
presentations, but may be some more intensive items. Here's the basic idea
right now:
4U Rack Mount Case - From New Egg, like $70-$80.
Intel Mobo - Not sure which one, anything with a decent amount of PCI slots
available I suppose
Intel Proc - I'm probably going to go for a Core 2 Duo I suppose. Best I can
afford.
Ram - 2GB or greater, Crucial or some such
Hard drives - SATA, atleast 3, 2 of which would be mirrored (data drive).
Looking at 250GB or greater for those.
Audio Card - M-Audio Delta 66 most likely, but possibly the 1010 if I can
swing it.
Audio Hardware - I've got an AT849 boundary mic, a few SM57's, etc., which
will be going through an ART TPS II mic pre. That should cover me on audio,
whether I'm doing speech, or mic'ing up the piano, etc.
Video Card - Having a bit of an issue here. I'm borderline zealot, and REALLY
want to stick with Intel here due to their pledge of open source drivers...
but it seems to me that noone is making an intel based standalone video card
anymore - only on the mobo.
Display - I'd like to stick to CRT for color correction issues, but I do worry
a bit about any noise because of a CRT monitor. Also, since my intent is to
go widescreen... I dunno. Maybe I should just go LCD from the start.
Video Hardware - I've got a canon elura 1-chip minidv camcorder, a sony 3 chip
with horrible audio, and access to recordings from the new canon hdv
camcorder. Plus whatever else I get my hands on through work :)
Control Surface - I'd LOVE to be able to use something like the new TASCAM
FW-1082, but I have no idea how well any control surfaces work with Linux.
Software-wise, I'm a KDE guy, but I'll probably be using Ardour, jack,
Cinellera/Kino, so on. I don't know how KDENLiVES is working nowadays, I'll
have to test it out. Probably use Kubuntu, though I might go the Gentoo
route.
So anyone have any recommendations for me? Better heat sinks to reduce fan
noise, mobo, vid card, etc? Know a control system that works nicely?
I've been through most of the FAQ's and such, just looking for input from the
general user community :)
Thanks,
-Joseph M. Gaffney aka CuCullin