I just purchased Sony Vegas 7 after using Windows Movie Maker for some time. It previews fine just playing a clip, but when I add transitions and film effects the preview stuttering becomes so bad I cannot productively use the program. I suspect my PC is not powerful enough. My specs are Celeron CPU 2.4 ghz, 1 GB of ram. I have 20 gigs of free space available on my hard drive. Time for a PC upgrade maybe? If so, what minimum specs would you recommend?

The specs of your computer look fine except the availible hd space. If you have a lot of effects its normal to be a bit jitterie. You said you had a gig of ram but is it slow like pc2100? if it is that could be part of it. For now reduce your preview to low instead of auto.

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Wil Chapman Jr.
Oly, Washington
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I've always had above average computer specs, and have been putting up with preview stuttering ever since I owned Vegas 5. They improved it a lot in Vegas 7, but it's still a long way from being perfect. Once you've worked with a program like Avid, you wonder what Sony's problem is.

MS.

You mean avid realtime previews all effects - even motion blur, or radial blur, with no slowdown and with no bespoke hardware? ? ? ? ?

Surely not ? ? ? ?

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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.

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.

Thanks for all your answers. Anyone know if Adobe Premiere has these issues? I need something that doesn't have this problem.

A celeron is just about ok for editing but the lack of power will really show in preview stutter.

This is a 'problem' that affects all home editing systems (ie <10,000).

I have a core dup and rarely find this a problem, onlt when using lots of processor hungry fx.

To keep preview smooth makje sure the project settings are the same as the media. Use draft, decrease the size of the preview screen.

Best solution is a fat pc.

__________________
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.

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.

As MarkW says, your processor is a bit under powered for smooth preview.

An upgrade to a Core two Duo (6600) or better still Quad will change things a lot.

You can alleviate the problem a little by prerendering the section that is slow (Shift+M or Shift+B)

Andrew

Thanks again everyone. I figured it was a CPU thing because when I checked my task manager after using the program for a few hours the peak RAM usage was around 671000. I usually use Photoshop CS2 for the photo restoration work I do and my PC worked fine with that, but for video editing I guess I need a more powerful system. Also, any recommendations for a good notebook price range 700.00-900.00 dollars US?