Switching from 16mm to DV

Chris Stearns

Chris Stearns

Well-known member
Hi everyone (I'm new here)'

I'm finishing my film degree here at SIU and have decided to do my final project in digital video as opposed to 16mm. My reason for this is cost and workflow. My tentative plan is to purchase a DVX100a or b (depending on availability), and edit at home on a PC with Vegas 6. Here are the specs on my current machine.

WinXP Home SP2
P4 1.8ghz
512mb RAM
nVidia GeForce FX 5200 128mb AGP card
SB Audigy 2 ZS sound card
1x 60gb 7200rpm hard drive
Plextor 16x dual-layer DVD-RW drive
4 x USB 2. ports, 2x firewire ports
Also, capture card that came w/ Studio Plus 9

I will be getting another internal hard drive, and another 512mb stick of memory. This system will be reformatted and dedicated to editing(not connected to the internet).

My question is; After the upgrades, will this system be powerful enough to handle Vegas smoothly? I know it's above the recommended specs. on the Sony website, but I would like to here from real experiences.

I should note that the project will be 24p standard, 7-10min in length, and the final product will be burned to DVD.

I want to start shooting with a DVX because of its close resemblence to 16mm footage telecined to miniDV, and the option to easily print to film if I choose. I'm on a tight budget and will be putting most of my resources into the camera, so I would like a professional quality NLE for as cheap as possible, using as much of my existing hardware as I can.

I appreciate any help with this. This place is great, I've gleened much from this site. Thank you, Chris
 
yeah, i've done a couple projects for school and they were about 5-7 minutes, and my system is about twice as slow as what you have. A couple things I have to abide by:
I always do my media stuff seperately (text, graphics) because it chews up lots of RAM and when i try to preview my project, it gets laggy if leave it in with all the rest of the project. I usually just render all the media as avi's then use them as only one file rather than multiple files on a ton of tracks (my system only lets me use around 4 before it gets crappy).
then after the bulk of the project is done, I do my color correcting (again, lag), but you don't really need to playback CC, you just have to look at it as still frames. I'm not sure if all this is common sense, but it took me a few projects to realize this stuff so maybe it will help you.
 
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