Hi all this is my first post.

Did a bit of video work about 4 or five years ago using a pc with a 1.7ghz athelon, 512 mhz ram and matrox rt2000 with two displays and a CRT preview monitor and premiere 6.5 as the rt2000 wont support CS.
Anyway was running on Win 98 and after a lot of messing was quite stable. I eventually changed the operating system to XP sp2 and again after a lot of messing was quite stable. Doing basic video stuff and using matrox transitions it rendered more or less instantly. Anyway thought i'd have another dabble and today the motherboard failed.

my question is with the speed of currently processors would a highspeed computer render just as fast as the RT2000 using software only rendering, I've always fancied a mac but don't want to spend lots, would a Power Mac G4 800mhz or similar with final cut perform as good as my old system or am I better off chucking a new mother board in and sticking with what ive got.

A lot of questions.
Cheers

Steve

Software encoding's come on leaps and bounds in the last few years. Take a look at the CPU benchmarks on Toms Hardware. The high end processors can convert to DivX in better than real time. Desktop CPU Charts - Tom's Hardware

__________________

| video editing guides | our videos |
| wedding guides | website hosting |

An 800mhz G4 mac is a slug. Avoid I would say.
And as mark says PC perf figures have goen through the roof in the last 2 years, I am no expert but I suspect the rationale for hardware rendering has become far less clear.

__________________
Lowering the tone of video since 2004.

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.

true true i have had issues with g4's crashing. PC's over macs all the way