Noob seeking advice before 'The Buy'

[Studio Era]

I am doing research, research, research. . . but, I have a time limit to work within.

I would like to start shooting this August 2008.

A tall order considering I haven't bought,
-my future Canon XH-A1
-my future PC
-my future Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 yet. . :huh:

I would like to hear from those who have the A1 already and any worthy points of knowledge regarding the editing aspect on their PC's.

Did you find you were missing a certain connecting port?
Did you find the 400 GB of Memory go ate up in an hour?
Did you have to buy a new Video Card?
Did you find 1.2 Ghz was slow?
Etc. Etc. etc.

I am also a set-in-my-ways XP operator and the idea of fiddling around with Vista makes my stomach turn. (and, no I'm not going to buy a Mac. lemme alone :undecided ) So, if anyone else has made the transition to Vista, I would love to hear your experience as well.

Thank you for your time,
Success to all. . . or, at least a hell-of-alot-of-fun

J.B.

I also am still wondering what 'SD' stands for. 'HD', I presume is 'High Definition'
thanks

 

[mayodaze]

400 GB is 400 hours of HD, although with all your music and photos and games or whatever you put on your hard drive, it gets eaten up. My suggestion is to buy a 1TB external harddrive for backup and video storage. Only like $300.

Well, I use Mac, but a good video card is helpful.

I didn't know they still made 1.2Ghz processors.

SD is standard definition.

You're definitely far from buying. Are you confident in your knowledge about the camera and video?

My recommendation would be go to a good digital video retail store and let someone getting paid answer your questions. You're going to have a lot of questions and it'll be a tiring process to wait for responses on this board.

And when you get your head straight, go to the Apple Store and talk to their resident video creative expert.

 

[Russell Pearce]

400 GB is 400 hours of HD,

:huh: don't you mean about 40 or less?

Russ

 

[alexmac]

yeah i was gonna ask that so your telling me HD video takes up less that SD? 1 hour of video takes up 12Gig of memory. Hd cant possible take less than that. A typo perhaps ?

 

[Studio Era]

Greetings and thank you for the time to answer.

400 GB is 400 hours of HD, although with all your music and photos and games or whatever you put on your hard drive, it gets eaten up. My suggestion is to buy a 1TB external harddrive for backup and video storage. Only like $300.

I gather from the two comments after you, it's a typo and set my mind for 1hour of HD= 15 GB to be safe.
But your suggestion to get an external harddrive is right on the button.
I'm looking at buying the HP Phenom 9500 'set'. Which comes with an external harddrive slot.

Well, I use Mac, but a good video card is helpful.

I'll do a search for video cards today.

I didn't know they still made 1.2Ghz processors.

lol, they probably don't. I just threw out the example. The PC I'm looking at is 2Ghz Pentium Dual

SD is standard definition.

Thank you. It's the little things like not speaking the local language that impares the learning curve.

You're definitely far from buying. Are you confident in your knowledge about the camera and video?

Confident? Never have been. But, I'm the sink or swim type and it's worked pretty well for me these last 38 years.
Foolish? A tad. But, I'll be damned if I'm going to screw around with lower end programs and cameras and 'work my way up'.

My recommendation would be go to a good digital video retail store and let someone getting paid answer your questions. You're going to have a lot of questions and it'll be a tiring process to wait for responses on this board.

I agree. I have 3 shops of reputation here in Vancouver I am visiting. And I'm asking their opinions on what they feel is best.
The A1 is at the top of the list of all 3.
I have made it clear I'm expecting a certain amount of advice with my future purchase, to which they all have chimed "That's the best way to learn. We're here for you. You are incredibly handsome"

And when you get your head straight, go to the Apple Store and talk to their resident video creative expert.

Would be good, but I refuse to move from XP. It's stable. And I know it's ins and outs and I'll have my head full dealing with fps and HD/SD, grain and what-not, on top of learning how to use Premiere Pro and friends.

The last thing I want is a new operating system where I'm constantly clicking the right side of the mouse that doesn't do anything!rogar-Thinking(DBG

Thanks again.
Your comment on the HD to GB ratio is most valued.
(I've learned enough to read through typos, to get the info I need)

-John

 

[mayodaze]

Sorry about that typo.