Hardware Setup For PC/Vegas Editing..help!

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proride

Active member
After many years of having others edit my work, I decided it was time to jump in head first into editing. Running a PC I felt Vegas was the obvious choice...indeed I jumped in and BAM!.....got my tail kicked right out of the gate!

The editing part and software I get but the hardware configuration, recommended setups, O's, PIO drive defaults, IRQ's, yada yada yada and the creative side of me is tempted to blow a gasket.

I have searched and gone to several links but can not find a definitive, concise source of info how to setup a basic machine properly for efficient editing, capturing and rendering. I found plenty of posts listing the equipment but I am seeking the nuts and bolts configuration setups. What to avoid how to maximize a less than perfect machine, so on and so on. I am aware a dedicated machine is the way to go but for now this is all I have and for the SD projects I am currently working on, it will have to suffice.

CURRENT SYSTEM:

Dell 360 Workstation
2.4ghz Processor
1Gb Ram
Drive C: 80gb 7200rpm , partitioned to 70gb for OS, 3gb for PSSAWP (photoshop) and 3gb for WINSWAP. (This setup was done by a friend and I am assuming I will probably have to reinstall OS and start over.)
Sony CDRW CRX216E
SONY DVD DW RW-U14A
Second Drive: 120Gb 7200
Two Maxtor Firewire 200GB 7200 External Drives
NVIDIA GeForce3 TI200 64mb
Sound card is integrated
Two Monitors: Dell E172FP Flat Panels

Because I need this machine for other business functions the following software will be loaded.

Photoshop CS2
Vegas 6.0d
DVD Architect
Microsoft Business Suite
AVG Virus
Adaware
Spybot 1.4

This post came about because my fisrt capture from DVX100b dropped more frames than it captured, images during preview became very dark and well....that pretty much took me out. I acknowledge this stuff may be very basic to some however your help with setup would be most appreciated! I now have a whole new appreciation for my editors rack of hardware!

Waiting to edit.....

Thanks!
 
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it could be a number of things. the first thing I would do is take it off any network or at least turn off any antivirus or other things that are continually running...
 
AVG Virus
Adaware
Spybot 1.4
Click to expand...

Not needed. Run the latest XP turn the firewall on and you should be OK. You shouldnt have to worry about any of that hardware configuration..... and why are you? Is there a problem with attaching the cam? not recognised?
 
Yes, ncje, there is major problem. As I noted in the original post. During capture if preview was on dropped frame rate was massive and image quality became very dark.

I am still looking for a concise outline of how to setup a computer for efficient editing. I have looked on vasst and numerous other websites. They list the hardware but not any setup recommends. Maybe I am making this too difficult but for now I am unable to use the current system.
 
I just bought a panasonic ag-dv2500 video deck and hooked it up to my pc via firewire and then had vegas recognize it . then all I do is take the tape out of my dvx100b, put it in the video deck, open vegas and capture it. I have not altered windows xp in anyway and it works great.
Greg.
 
proride,
You should be capturing to a drive other than your system drive...are you?
Have you de-fragged the capture drive?
Some external firewire drives do not play nice with a camera or deck on the same bus (yeah, I know you're supposed to be able to daisy chain them, but don't count on it).
You shouldn't have to reinstall your OS just to edit video.
You don't specify your OS, but I've been using W2k SP4 with the IRQ stuff automatically asigned, and have had zero problems that way.
I never let Norton products near my system (I also use AVG) and turn off Zone Alarm when I edit.
Try putting that 120GB drive on a separate IDE channel as the master and see if you can capture to that.
Also, in Vegas make sure the temporary/pre-renders, etc. are using your video drive and not your C drive.
Hope this helps.
Ken
the Screen Skins guy
 
First, more info. I reformatted the internal 120gb capture drive. I am capturing from a Panasonic GS120 through firewire I added in a pci slot. OS is XP Pro sp2 all updated. I have Vegas 4.0 and Vegas 6.0. I am unable to capture without huge amount of dropped frames. However, if I use Windows Movie Maker, I am able to capture full and complete video

"Also, in Vegas make sure the temporary/pre-renders, etc. are using your video drive and not your C drive."

Please direct me to where this setting is located.

ncje, I am unaware if it has a raid controller. How would I find this out. I am not a idiot but until recently I made my living behind a camera, not in the guts of a computer.

Windows movie maker can capture complete but vegas can't ...you tell me

thanks for trying to help
 
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