Please help me spec new Video Editing System

[HTPC_Guy]

Please help me spec new Video Editing System

I plan to get an LG 55 inch OLED television for my monitor. I have a Samsung 46 inch LCD flat panel now. And an Onkyo 5.1 receiver. Everything works great. I have the system below and plan to use any components here in my new system if possible:

Intel Core i7 - 3930K CPU @ 3.2GHz (overclocked to 3.8GHz)
ASUS P9X79 WS Motherboard
64GB DDR3 RAM
NVIDIA Geforce GTX 670 graphics card
2 Samsung solid state drives (500GB / 250GB)
2 4TB hard drives and more
LG Bluray writer/player (external)
Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
ImDisk Virtual Disk Driver freeware to create a RAM drive

Must be HDMI 2.1 and HDCP 2.2 compatible

I hear there might be a problem using an LG Bluray UHD writer/player with an LG OLED. But I don't know.

Recommend me a system please. Thanks.

[Billycar11]

i would just go for a 3080 if you can get one im 11 months in and haven't been able to mostly because i want 1 model only the strix 3080 and i wont buy from a scalper
your system is pretty good
the cpu is getting older but i would hold out for intels and amds ddr5 platforms they are coming soon
you wont be able to do offical UHD play back but you can do unofficial no problem

fyi i also use a 55inch oled as my monitor i have the C9 with a surround sound system

[HTPC_Guy]

I plan to get the LG OLED55 G1 but right after Christmas.

How can I do "unofficial" 4k uhd playback using my current machine?

I suppose I'll need a 4k uhd bluray read/write external drive.
Of course the 4k uhd television.
An appropriate video card.

Spec it out for me generally for starters. I just want it to work.

I usually custom build my own desktop PCs. But I have been out of the market for 7+ years. I am definitely out of touch with the current technology.

[dcoke22]

Unofficial UHD Playback:

• Get a UHD capable optical drive from the list in the flashing guide: viewtopic.php?f=16&t=19634
• Use MakeMKV to rip a UHD disc
• Watch the resulting .mkv file with your favorite player (VLC (https://www.videolan.org/vlc/) or MPV (https://mpv.io) are good choices for on a computer, Plex is a decent choice for on a TV)

[HTPC_Guy]

Your help is greatly appreciated.

I once explained something to a friend and he complained that I was talking to him as if he were a 5 year old. I do that so there can be no misunderstanding or mistakes.

I have an external LG blu-ray writer for 1080p disks. It has worked flawlessly. So I am thinking the LG BP60NB10. But it is USB 2.0. Are there advantages with a USB 3.0 UHD burner that I will be missing out on?

After the drive is flashed will it still operate with all the pre-flash functionality?

Of course I will need a 4k UHD television. If I connect my existing HDMI cable to this UHD television and send a 1920 x 1080p movie it will play and merely upscale it, correct?

A ripped UHD movie won't play on my existing LCD 1080p flat panel, right?

Okay, what I am understanding is that on my existing system with a new external UHD optical burner that is properly flashed I could use MakeMKV to rip a UHD movie disk, right?

Finally for now, could I send a ripped UHD movie to my new UHD television and will it play?

Wow.

[dcoke22]

After the drive is flashed will it still operate with all the pre-flash functionality?

The author of MakeMKV has written quite a lot about what LibreDrive is: viewtopic.php?f=19&t=18856
The short version is, yes, your drive will still function normally after flashing. If you want to rip discs with both MakeMKV and other rippers, some drives work best certain firmware; your best bet is buy a drive pre-flashed from a seller (listed in the flashing guide) and let them know what software you want to use and they'll help you thread the needle.

Are there advantages with a USB 3.0 UHD burner that I will be missing out on?

Maybe a bit of speed. Both of my drives are USB 3.0, so I don't have much experience with if USB 2.0 will limit ripping speed. I should also point out here that MakeMKV can be made to work with more than one optical drive at a time. So, if you have a large pile of discs waiting to be ripped, multiple drives can help you plow through it faster, even if individual drives are a bit slow.

Of course I will need a 4k UHD television. If I connect my existing HDMI cable to this UHD television and send a 1920 x 1080p movie it will play and merely upscale it, correct?

I play 1080p content on my 4K TV all the time via Plex and it seems to work just fine. I play 480 content from DVDs too.

A ripped UHD movie won't play on my existing LCD 1080p flat panel, right?

Are you talking about a computer screen or a TV? For example, on my computer I typically use MPV to play movies. MPV will scale a 4K movie down to half size and let me put the window in a corner of my screen. Most players have a 'fit to screen' option that'll scale the video to fill the screen and keep the proper aspect ratio of the video with black bars filling the sides or top & bottom as necessary. If you're trying to play 4K content on a TV via Plex, I would guess Plex will try to transcode the 4K file down to 1080 and that'll probably require some hefty resources to do so. Many UHD discs also come with regular 1080p blu-ray discs too, so you can usually solve this by just ripping both discs.

Okay, what I am understanding is that on my existing system with a new external UHD optical burner that is properly flashed I could use MakeMKV to rip a UHD movie disk, right?

Yep. Get a LibreDrive capable (or pre-flashed) drive (or maybe two), plug it in and start ripping. Also, buy more storage. However much you have, I can promise you, it isn't enough.
I'm not kidding about the multiple drives bit. In my experience, some discs are problematic, for any number of reasons. Since I have two different drives, if it doesn't work in one drive, I put it in the other. Often the other drive will be able to read the disc just fine.

Finally for now, could I send a ripped UHD movie to my new UHD television and will it play?

Probably. What is your playback setup going to be? For example, I have a Plex server. Connected to my 4K TV is the latest Apple TV 4K. I use the Plex app on the Apple TV and it plays my .mkv file UHD rips just fine with regular HDR. It doesn't play Dolby Vision… that's a whole can of worms. I have a friend that uses the latest Google Chromecast dongle with a Plex server to do the same thing.

[HTPC_Guy]

Billycar11 mentioned he wants an RTX 3080.

I plan to buy or build an HTPC (Home Theater Personal Computer) connected with HDMI to my 4k UHD television.

My question about video cards is this: regarding MakeMKV and ripping a UHD movie what difference does it make if I have an RTX 3090, RTX 3080, RTX 3070, RTX 3060, etc.?

And regarding playing a 4k UHD blu-ray movie or a ripped UHD movie on a 4k UHD television, what difference does it make which of these video cards I have?

I am not really into gaming.

What say you.

"buy a drive pre-flashed..." I will consider.

"Both of my drives are USB 3.0..." I think I will get a USB 3,0 drive.

Plex and MKV: got it.

"What is your playback setup going to be?" I described my system above. I just watch blu-ray movies from my computer via HDMI to my Samsung 46" LCD television and I listen to the audio through my 5.1 receiver via optical cable or stereo headphones.

I really don't have a lot of time because I work all the time. But I squeeze a couple of hours a day watching movies. I don't use internet. I protect my system.

The only reason I am interested in MakeMKV is because I want to protect my investment in blu-ray movies. After a few years who knows if they will be playable.

If the MPAA were faithful to the spirit of there enterprise they would release all their movies on the new M-Disc so no honest person would need to rip.

Man I hate to get political but I just saw a headline that suggests Disney may no longer be releasing any more blu-ray or DVD content. Guess that means everything will be streamed. If the industry goes this way then they will know what you watch and when, and probably where you pause and repeat sections of the movie. You will be flagged for which movies you watch and how, and where your sympathies and proclivities lie. And when it becomes politically correct they'll edit your fav movies... And finally remove them entirely. All for the greater good, of course. End of "1984" rant.

[dcoke22]

Regarding MakeMKV and ripping, the video card won't matter at all.

If you intend to transcode rips to save space and you intend to use hardware assisted encoding, any modern Nvidia card is essentially the same. The specialized hardware for encoding has been the same on Nvidia cards since the 1660 Super, if I recall correctly. I will tell you that transcoding 4K rips is not straightforward. I don't mess with it because storage is cheap.

Traditionally, the goal of a HTPC was to create something as quiet as possible so the sound of fans running didn't intrude into the movie watching. This is why many folks now just use whatever device they like at the TV (built in, Roku, Apple TV, Chromecast, Firestick) and put their storage/server/NAS/whatever somewhere out of the way where the size and sound don't matter. This also makes it easy to support multiple TVs/tablets/computers at the same time.
In terms of your HTPC, any modern video card will be more than enough. I'd guess Billycar11 is trying to buy a 3080 because, at MSRP prices, they're at a good spot on the price/performance curve and if you're into PC gaming, it'll play anything you throw at it really well. In a strict HTPC scenario, I'd guess a modern Intel or AMD setup with built in graphics would do fine.

[HTPC_Guy]

I am not interested in transcoding ripped 4k UHD movies.

"If you intend to transcode rips... The specialized hardware for encoding..." So I don't get confused, I understand transcoding is where, for instance, you take a 1080p rip and produce a 640p version. And when you say encoding you mean basically the same thing in this discussion, right? Okay, got it.

If a person had 300 UHD blu-ray rips they would need like 30 terabytes of storage. (Is my calculation about right?) That is a lot but yeah, it is "relatively" cheap.

No, I am not going to use a server. This will be a one man, one room, one television operation.

I know some some motherboards, like intel, have built-in graphics.

How about video editing: is an RTX 3090 best over, say, an RTX 3060, for example? Would this be a wise and perhaps necessary investment?

Here is a link for Billycar11. He'll like this. This killer system has a Strix RTX 3080 Ti and I believe for what you get the price is very fair.

https://www.newegg.com/abs-ali538/p/N82 ... -_-Product

[dcoke22]

During transcoding, the resolution can be changed, but I generally don't. As a rule of thumb, a rip of a 2 hour, 1080p blu-ray is about 30 GB. If I want to take movies with me on a phone, tablet or laptop, 30GB is a bit unwieldy. So, I encode the rip to take up less space. This can be done with a nearly imperceptible loss in quality. If I use h.264 to encode, I can get a file that's usually between 5 - 10 GB (and still 1080p). I use the built-in hardware acceleration of my Intel CPU to do this and it takes about 20 minutes on my computer. I can get a smaller file of similar (or sometimes higher) quality by encoding with 10-bit h.265, but I don't have hardware acceleration for this, so I'm using a software encoder on the CPU (as part of ffmpeg) to get a file that is between 3 - 8 GB (still 1080p), but it takes between 4 & 5 hours usually.

A 4K UHD rip is around 60 GB. My average UHD rip size is about 58 GB each at the moment. So a library of 300 UHDs would be about 20 TB. Fortunately, 16TB Seagate drives are back under $400 at Newegg (https://www.newegg.com/seagate-exos-x16 ... 002P-015K6).

In terms of video editing, I presume you're going to use Adobe Premiere?
https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/artic ... ance-2157/
GPU performance matters, but depending on how serious you are, it might not matter enough to be worth the price of a 3080Ti over something cheaper, like a 3060. This older article: https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/artic ... 2020-1825/ has the 'good' system (out of good, better, & best) with 64 GB of RAM. With the current inflated prices of GPUs, it might be worth it to have a cheaper GPU and more RAM and SSD space to get overall better performance.

[HTPC_Guy]

Thanks all for your help.

Now I am just going to wait until intel alder lake and ddr5 are released and prices of those these replace come down. Probably in a couple or few months.

Thanks again.