Content Creation Master Thread (not MegaThread)

Arts & Media Visual Arts & Design
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Hey everyone, how’s it going?

This thread is going to be a weird mish mash of things. To break the news early this is not a MegaThread for content creators (I guess it can be?), really, I want to master content creation, and I need help with several components.

  • Camera
  • Workstation
  • Accessories
  • ???

Some of you may remember I asked about learning Premiere. The advice and recommendations I received in that thread were very beneficial, so thank you!

This is going to be a continuation of that, because right now, I’m recording on random workstations using screen capture software and a 480p webcam (yes, it’s really 480p). To get serious about this I need a real™ camera.

Hard Requirements

Windows*
Adobe Premiere*
$6,000 TOTAL cost
* I already have Adobe and Windows licenses, and these do not factor into the total cost.

First thing’s first, the camera. I am completely out of my element. I’ve tried reading reviews and specs but the things that run under the pro/con list don’t really mean anything to me. I want something nice, that goes a long way in making things easy. 4k isn’t necessary although I’d like the ability to expand if possible. (I’m so far out of my reach that I wouldn’t be surprised if most cameras come with 4k x_x )

The workstation I’m a bit more confident in, and not even sure I need to upgrade. My current “production/rendering” workstation can spit out a 50-ish minute 1080p video in like 15 minutes. Not sure if that’s good or not, but I do minimal effects and transitions, mostly just blurring out sensitive IP information or hashes/keys.

I want to change that, primarily by ramping up the effects. I’m not talking Michael Bay or anything, but I’d like something that can bang out a video heavily dosed up or potentially longer in the same or less amount of time. I’ve been looking at ThreadRipper, considering waiting on Ryzen 3, or just going 9900k. I’ve watched videos and looked at benchmarks and it seems like things are leaning toward the 9900k (at least compared to TR2950X).

What I really want to know is if 32 threads are going to matter on Premiere. Excuse my ignorance, as the software I am most familiar with on the Windows side caps off after a while. By that I mean the more cores you throw at it the less it utilizes each one.

Finally, accessories.

Do I need surround sound? Do I need a boomstick? Do I need a collar/clip mic? Do I need a dedicated sound card? Do I need one of those crazy keyboards that the Linus Tech Tips guy has? Do I need shades for the windows? Do I need a black/green screen? Do I need cologne? Do I need a specific cleaning kit? Do I need a lens cap? Do I need more lenses?

The “studio” is a corner with a whiteboard and workbench, where I will be designing, flowcharting, building, etc. I may also do some shots in front of my battlestation. Same room, though. Maybe a 18x18 room in size? Adequate window lighting.

I know this thread is waaay, waay all over the place. If I need to break it up I will, not an issue. I know there will be very passionate and persuasive input but I’d like to all remain friends after this :slight_smile: If I need to do a Trinity of ThreadRipper CPU, Nvidia GPU, and Intel PCI SSD then I will :wink:

Thanks everyone.

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Hard to beat the 9900k for premiere.

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I noticed it seems to render on the GPU if you tell it to, so is that as important or is processor still more important?

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no

Are you going out in the wild?

Lapels are great for on the go, large diaphragm condenser or shotgun condenser is probably what you want if you’re doing talk show-ish stuff.

No, USB interface, XLR

wat

Good lighting is an art, maybe. I’m not a photo guy but separate lighting and shades maybe.

You could be han solo, in the millenium falcon, so thats a hard yes

Stop it. Get a simple camera and upgrade.

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You need to enable Cuda acceleration, or it will be painfully slow.
The 9900k is able to make use of the iGPU as well, which makes it outperform a 2950X.

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Don’t think so. Probably going to be indoors 99% of the time.

Good to know, thank you!

:metal:

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Cool, thanks.

:rofl:

Word. Thanks.

Oh and I was planning on getting an additional 1440p 27" monitor.

Oh and tripod. Yay or no?

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To answer this more clearly, Cuda is way more important than cpu, but the difference between a 2700x and a 9980xe will still be something like 60-80%

The bottom of this graph shows numbers with no Cuda acceleration

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If you haven’t looked at Sony’s Mirrorless, I’d recommend it. They’re great! I’ve got the A6300, but if you’ve got the budget, I’d recommend the A6500 since it doesn’t overheat after an hour, or the A7s/A7r series, if you want to drain your wallet.

@noenken is good with cameras. I’ll tag him so he can maybe give his 2c.

If you’re going to stick to premiere, go 9900k, but if you want to try what I recommend, DaVinci Resolve, I’d go TR. My 1950x absolutely dominates with Resolve (and on Linux no less!), so you’ll have plenty of resources.

Also, next step: what res are you planning on filming in? If you’re doing 4k, you will want 32GB of ram. 64 is much more optimal.

No

No

It’s incredibly beneficial.

They call these Lavalier mics and this is a super cheap one I ordered a while ago for a project that my students are working on.

No

Absolutely no.

If you don’t have shades, or curtains, it is a good idea, if you decide to get softbox lights, but for now, no.

Probably not. Decide if your background is acceptable. if it isn’t, get a backdrop.

Not for the video, but your wife might not be happy if you smell bad.

Depends on the situation. There are specific kits designed for cleaning camera sensors, but if you’re careful, you should only ever rarely need to clean the sensor.

All lenses come with their own cap. You do need one, but you don’t need to buy one.

If you buy a new camera, the (optional) kit lens is good to start, but you’ll soon get Lens Aquisition Disorder (LAD), like I have.

You’ll soon find that when using a professional camera that “adequate window lighting” isn’t a thing when shooting videos. If you want to shoot 60fps, you’ll need to be able to have a shutter speed of 1/60, at the bare minimum, which means you’ll need either a lot of light or to crank up the ISO, which induces grain.

My recommendation is to get a camera, then decide if your lighting is good. if it’s not, there are like $50 softbox kits on Amazon. I have one, and it’s great, except for the poorly translated name “Mount Dog”

What are your current specs? I would recommend that you wait for Ryzen 3rd gen to release, I think you’ll probably see a sizeable increase in AM4 core count and clock speed.

If you’d like, I can run you through my current editing setup.

Again, I can’t stress enough that you give DaVinci Resolve a fair shake. I think you’ll enjoy it, and frankly, I find it easier to use and less crashy than Premiere. (remember, the lite version, which is good enough for most people, is free!)

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Wow that’s a huge difference.

Thanks for the information though!

w00t, we’ll see what happens

Word. I’ll check it out.

1920x1080. If I can figure out how to do it in 4k/2k and let people choose their res in YouTube I’d prefer that, but I’m not sure how to go abouts doing that (yet).

Ah, terminology, thank you! :smiley: Appreciate it. Will look into this stuff.

Sometimes it looks really good, but when the light is on the walls look yellow. Really they’re a cream/soft white color.

lel

So, minor spoiler, I do have a 9900k right now. I haven’t implemented it as a render station because I was using it to replace my server that I decommissioned. However, if it’s as worthwhile as I’m seeing, then I can just do without a server and do everything locally on my workstation.

I may check it out when my Premiere license expires. But I’ve already dumped the cash for a year so I’m going to get my use out of it :grin:

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You could blow $1600 on an ADAT, AES/EBU, MIDI & MADI interface card.

rme-audio-hdspe-madi-fx-2047195.jpg2400×1600 299 KB

Or you could (and should) do the sensible thing and get something that does what you need. I would recommend you get something like the Yamaha AG03 (in case you needs two mics, AG06). That should cover all the beginner home studio needs.

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I will take a look! Thanks for providing model numbers. I still suck at grabbing audio equipment. Which is a shame, considering I own several amplifiers and electric guitars :grin:

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Not too much to add here, everyone is giving great suggestions. One thing I’d suggest is this: don’t worry about dumping a ton of money into gear right away. When we started LevelOneTechs, we had one camera, two mics, and a couple borrowed lightboxes. We were using Wal-Mart blankets as sound proofing on the windows, and our ‘news desk’ was an old bar we got off Craigslist. You’d be surprised what you can get done with minimal gear!

If you really feel the need to upgrade something right away, I’d recommend putting some money into a decent mic first and foremost. Cameras are great but you can make due with a decent smart phone camera if absolute need be. People will click off your work pretty quickly with bad sound though (sound is something we still struggle with lol… it’s hard to properly mic three people a lot of the time). If it’s just going to be you on camera, a lav mic works great.

Good luck!

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That explains a lot.

/s

This

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Cool bit of lore/history, thanks! :wink:

That’s good to know. I appreciate the insight. I feel like I’ve done okay with what I have now producing stuff, but starting to get self conscious about the editing/post recording.

This may be what I grab first, then. Thank you!

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Yup. And don´t make the same mistake I did and get a USB one. They work, but the moment you want to expand, you are stuck with it.

Can imagine. IIRC @khaudio has experience with this stuff?

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Just use that.

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Brilliant! I love it!

I can’t agree with this enough. It’s rediculous how annoying poor sound is.

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I’m not gonna go over the workstation stuff. If you want to use adobe there is tons of information on what works best with that. (Mainly Puget Systems) My suggestion to that is just to not buy hardware until you found a workflow that works for you.

No to all of that. Except the shades or any other way of controlling (restricting) light. A good camera is nice, good light is mandatory when it comes to video quality. Also audio quality is more important than video quality.

A few things: What is the budget for your video kit? How are you going to shoot, entirely on a tripod or also handheld? Do you want to record internally or use a capture device and record directly into your PC?

So much this!

I have shot photos using a door frame and a taped on shower curtain as my softbox. DIY studio stuff is gonna save you TONS of money!

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These are all excellent questions.

Just dumping some thoughts:

@AnotherDev mentioned 6k, but in my mind, that should be at least cut in half for video kit, but that’s just me. I’ve found that there’s a point of diminishing returns around $1500 for camera bodies, and $500 for lenses. (not to say you can’t get some absolutely amazing lenses for $1200, just saying that a $500 lens will tend to not be terrible in comparison)

Something else to mention: Other accessories, like tripod, batteries, SD cards, HDD for actual video storage, etc… are going to add up as well.

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Word. Now I just need to build a workstation around it :joy:

Understood, @SgtAwesomesauce has convinced me to try out Davinci. I’m not pro/anti Adobe, but I did buy Premiere for the year back when I started learning lol.

Noted! Thank you for your insight. I’ll play around with some stuff in the room before I spend some serious cash.

I was thinking $2k to $3k, because I have nothing. The rest was going to be spent on equipment and computer components.

Primarily I’m going to be standing in front of a whiteboard, so majority of the time with a tripod. Handheld/webcam when I’m coding/building/deploying on the computer.

Likely record onto the camera/media and the copy it later to the computer. Although, if it’s easy enough to setup a capture device (it’s all going to be maybe 15’ within each other) I’m up for that too.

Yeah, the budget of $6k was for everything, camera itself plus any external/assisting equipment, plus any additional components I would need on a workstation, plus something I hadn’t thought of, like a transport mechanism to teleport from Texas to Kentucky :smiley:

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