DVX 24p and Editing

[tkoind]

Hello,

We have two options for editing but most likely need upgrades to our machines to do either. At present we cannot buy a new machine, so whatever we do will have to take advantage of the PC/Mac we have available. Can anyone offer some insight about which may work better for us? We are new to both so we exect a learning curve no matter what we decide.

Final Cut Pro 4 on a G4 550 Powerbook w/512meg memory a 60gig firewire external drive, 20 gig internal drive.

Adobe Premiere Pro on a Celeron 2.4 gig w/512meg memory and an 80 gig single drive w/partitions.

Questions:

1. We are ok with long render times since we know the machines are older. But which software will give us the most capability and stability?

2. The Mac meets the specs on the web site but can it really perform? The film is about 10mins long once it is finished.

3. PCs are easier for us to upgrade as we can build them ourselves. But Adobe has historically been difficult to keep stable. Is the new version equally unstable?
What kind of processing power do we really need to work with this?

4. Based on your experience, which software works best with the DVX?

Thank you for your help.

TKOIND

 

[TheMacB]

My two machines are almost identical to the ones you described (except a slightly faster processor on my PC) and i have had no problem with projects well over ten minutes. Its really a personal preference. I don't know about Premiere but my old PC is more than capable of handling Vegas. I can't imagine it would be that much different for Premiere. I was forced to switch to Final Cut a while back (thats when I picked up my Powerbook) and I hated it at first but eventually got used to it. I'm sure it would be the same thing going in the opposite direction. I've heard it said all over this website that all the NLE's are pretty much the same. Its just a personal preference.

Either one is going to work just fine for you. But if it was me I would go PC.

 

[ben157]

i've been editing with premiere for a few years now and i have noticed that it used to crash a lot more than my final cut...since i upgrated to a P4 hyper threading 3.0 i really haven't had any problem with it. but what i did is that i installed premiere-ran a few tests-uninstalled it and put it back in. for some reasons it crased during the test and hasn't since i re-installed it.
final cut has been very stable but still crashed...
as far as speed they are pretty even...you get what you pay for.
for a short project like that any NLE will do. use whatever you have available or what you like the best for you.
Ben