editing pc

[monster_zero]

I was wondering if someone could give me some advice about an editing pc. Here are the specs of an HP Pavilion I've been looking at.

2GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core processor
1GB PC4200 DDR2 SDRAM
250GB hard drive
NVIDIA GeForce 6150 LE

Would this pc be fast enough to edit HDV files from an XH-A1 or HV20?

[Jeff Anderson]

Dunno about HDV but I have a similiar setup on a non dedicated editing machine that is frustratingly slow with normal DV... Granted its a dual core p4 1 GB ram with who knows what for a video card. I'd get more RAM a faster processor and closer to a terabyte of storage if you plan to keep footage stored. If you're doing just one project and then archiving it off to something perhaps 250 is enough. Your NLE will appreciate a seperate hard drive though to edit from and it will really appreciate a RAID array. What NLE do you plan on using? My little bit of HDV experience is that without some hardware acceleration (AXIO, rtx2) HDV is a bear to edit anyways. And your in the HVX forum so good luck getting HDV answers.

[monster_zero]

My bad. Forgot I was in the HVX forum when I decided to start this post, but thanks for the help anyway. I'm planning on using Vegas, by the way.

[MarkG]

No idea about Vegas, but I use a P4-3.06 with 2GB of RAM and Avid Xpress Pro. It can't really handle multi-stream realtime effects on HDV, but for basic editing and color correction it's fine.

I would say to get a second hard disk if you can, and use it just for video. HDV is only about 4MB/second, so you don't need RAID for it unless you're transcoding to a low-compression HD codec.

[monster_zero]

I don't mind a little stuttering while I'm editing as long as the finished render is smooth.