Hello,

first of all thank you for providing this forum, I am very new to this, having only worked with "Windows Movie Maker".

I want to take a big step up to HD and am going to get one of those new Sony HD cameras. However I will need a new computer probably to keep up with whatever editing software I buy (probably vegas since it's cheap)

I was looking at this computer at NewEgg, it seemed like a good value and got good reviews. My biggest concern is some sort of compatability issue, or maybe it's lacking necessary hardware to get the HD video off the camera and onto the hard drive I really don't know.

Thank you to the forum members who have more expertise than I do, maybe I am asking a stupid question but I don't want to make a critical error with so much money.

Here is the link: Newegg.com - CyberpowerPC Gamer Ultra 7200 Athlon 64 X2 6000+ 2GB DDR2 500GB NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT Windows Vista Home Premium - Retail

Cameras - avoid hdv unless you are spending £2000 or more.

Computer - that looks fine but spec it with another drive. Keep progs and xp on one drive, video on the other - this helps keep thins smooth when editing.

It's a cinch to get video into a pc - just play it in thru the f wire port.

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I have one prejudice - I am anti HDV for consumer camcorders.

www.zaskarfilms.com You tube channel 'zaskarfilms'
JVC DV5001e (big cam), Sony PC6E (tiny cam), Vinten pro5, PAG light, SM58, Sony ECM50, Sony C-76, 0.5x convertors for sony, Rode video mic, Vegas 7.

Thank you Mark!

I don't think I can spend nearly that much $$$ - the camera I was looking at is one of Sony's new models for the hobbyist I suppose - like the HDR-SR5 or maybe something like the HDR-CX7.

The only thing I'm not sure about is when you say to avoid HDV... is that the format of the video (like AVCHD or MPEG) or is that the physical format (say , tape, hard drive, or memory stick)

I was thinking of using sony vegas because it looks pretty powerful and compatible with the AVCHD format from the camera! I'm leaning torwards the hard drive models because it seems cheap and easy to store a lot onboard the camera.

Okay and one more thing - you say keep programs and XP (unfortanetly I think it will come with "Vista") and then spec another drive for my video files - would that be something I can just add into the computers external bay , like a SEPARATE drive still in the computer, and can you recommend a good format for this drive or does it even matter?

Once again thank you very much for the help, I don't want to make an expensive mistake

if you can find a system with intell core 2 duo cpu, your render times will be shorter compared to an amd cpu, based system, due to the greater amount of on die cache. vista is ok, turn off prefetch and super indexing and it will be just as fast as xp. you must get a second hd drive, just to capture onto.

Your second drive should be fitted internally. John259, how do you switch off prefetch and super indexing on Vista?

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Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick any day...

control panel, administrative tools, services, in that list you will find superprefetch right click and set it to stopped. it will stop the vista machine from taking a long time to boot, and will not populate 80/90% of the memory you have installed. indexing is in tha same list, do the same to that.

vista loves memory. 2gb is good 3gb is better, but if you are running 64bit then upto 8gb

as said before. keep programes on c: and keep the second drive for video. when you put the new drive in, vista will format it into ntfs simple, the system you get will have sata hd interface so1 hd will be more than able to deal with sd and hd.

Thanks for the info john259, yes Vista takes forever to boot, the screen goes black for a long time. If I was selling that computer to someone and they saw that, they'd think there was something wrong with it. Again, much appreciated.

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Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick any day...