Hi All,

I recently got a Sony HDR-HC3 and will be venturing into the world of HDV editing. I upgraded to Adobe Premiere to 2.0 and thought I had a pretty good PC (a Dell Dimension 8400 with a Pentium 4 3GHz processor, 2 Gig of RAM, etc.) but it doesn't quite fit the bill for HDV.

After reading through a bunch of forums (thanks to all for the valuable information), I have a good feeling for what makes up a decent system. I have two questions though:

1. Is there an easy way to upgrade my existing system without too much fuss? Could I, for example, swap in a different motherboard and graphics card, transfer over the memory, and be good to go? I'm guessing that won't work because of memory incompatibility, power supply issues, and who knows what else. So that brings me to question #2.

2. I realize that the ultimate system would be custom built out of the best components by following the advice in this and other forums. I'm pretty lazy these days though, and haven't built my own system for about 20 years. I also would like to have someone to call (other than my shrink) if I put it together and nothing works. Does someone out there sell pre-built PCs that have all (or almost all) the goodies I'd need? This would include:
* Compatibility with Premiere Pro 2.0's HDV editing capabilities
* A nice fast dual core AMD processor
* At least 2 Gig of memory
* RAID 0+1
* Firewire
* Windows XP
* Good support
* Ideally under US$5000
* Easily upgradable when it becomes obsolete next year

Thanks!

liz

I use vegas on an xp3000 and it hadles hi def files and editing fine, just slower to render. I presume the same can be said for your system.

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I have two prejudices - I am anti HDV for consumer camcorders, and I eat mooks who claim to be pro wedding vidders and ask dumb questions.

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By far your best purchase for bringing Premiere Pro2 up to speed with HDV (I know it support HDV natively but that's just advertising) is to buy Cineform Aspect HD v4. You should at least try out the demo and prepare to be very impressed.

edit - corrected typo

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I'm not young enough to know everything!

Please get something better then a Dell. That is the source of your problems. Haha. I just absolutely do not like Dells. I've had many incidents with them.

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www.hkfilmproductions.com

Thanks for the response Mark. According to the Premiere Pro 2.0 doc though, the requirements for HDV editing include at least a Pentium 4 3.4GHz (SSE2-enabled processor is required for AMD systems), 2GB of RAM, Microsoft DirectX-compatible sound card, OHCI-compatible IEEE 1394 video interface card, Adobe-recommended graphics card for GPU-accelerated playback, etc., etc.

Also, from reading other articles, it sounds like an AMD dual core gives the most bang for the buck. That's why I was looking into systems that included them and that wouldn't require too much tweaking after the fact.

Thanks!

liz

I've had almost nothing but Dells for a long time (at home and at work) and have had really good luck with them. After reading about their lack of upgradability though, I'd very much like to get something else. It's pretty easy to custom build a Dell that has all the pieces I need. What I'm hoping is that someone else out there will do the same, but with AMD processors.

Thanks!

liz

Thanks Alan. It does sound amazing. I'll definitely take it for a spin once I have a system that can handle Premiere 2.0 itself. I assume I can't get around that, right?

Thanks!

liz

The minimum spec for HDV editing with Premier Pro v2 goes right down if you include Aspect HD. For example. I've edited in real time using my 3GHz P4 with 1Gb RAM. I've now pushed it up to 2Gb RAM just so I can more easily have premier, Photoshop, Audition, AE and Adobe Bridge all running at the same time.

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I'm not young enough to know everything!

Ahhh.... That's incredibly valuable info Alan. I already have 2Gig of RAM and a 3GHz P4 so this thing could very well save me from investing in a whole new machine. The only thing I'm probably missing now then is a decent graphics card, but that should be a much easier thing to fix. I'll go hunt around for info on that now, but if you have the time, let me know what you have that works well. Also, do I need to be worried about compatibility issues between my Dell and whatever card I get?

Thanks a million!

liz