Soooo, I'm looking to have my monitory play my Vegas preview correctly. I am currently bridging a dv converter from canopus. I'd like to have the card capture, do my laundry and wash my car, but I think for now, I'd just like to have a smooth preview. Is Blackmagic the only solution?

A card will not help you get smoother playback. Now if you're doing HD and it's having to downconvert to SD for preview then a card capable of previewing HD might help some. However, if the on-screen preview is showing a framerate less than full speed, the external monitor will as well. You can render/ram render/prerender sections as needed.

Well, for what ever reason, since I went to Vegas 8.0, the tax on my machine has been more and I've had to trim back my preview all the way to draft auto to keep from getting the jerkyness. I'm currently installing a raptor drive, but other than my duo core machine, 4 gigs of ram, I thought the blackmagic card connecting to my external monitor would be the next step. hmmmm. I'm not opposed to gutting this machine, but I figured what I had was enough.

Well, for what ever reason, since I went to Vegas 8.0, the tax on my machine has been more and I've had to trim back my preview all the way to draft auto to keep from getting the jerkyness. I'm currently installing a raptor drive, but other than my duo core machine, 4 gigs of ram, I thought the blackmagic card connecting to my external monitor would be the next step. hmmmm. I'm not opposed to gutting this machine, but I figured what I had was enough.

For the record, the raptor drive as my C drive made a huge difference.

Yeah, I know. Frustrating, isn't it? My current project relies on RayLight (DVCProHD footage from an HVX), so this isn't an option for me, but I spent a few days with a Quad-Core HP machine running Vista 64-Bit, and that made an enormous difference in playback.

I had Vegas 8.0c and 8.1 both installed, and opened the same project (music video with all 1080p Cineform avi on timeline)in both 8.0c and 8.1.

HUGE difference. The 64-bit Vegas gave me rock-solid 24P playback. 8.0c gave me 8-10 fps.

As soon as this feature is on the shelf, I'm buying an HP machine running Vista 64 and Vegas 8.1. There are plugins that won't work in 8.1 yet, but given my time with that system, there is no going back.

We just loaded are first Hd project onto Q9550's with 8g of ram and we are pinned at full frame rate with native files! Loving life finally in HD! Oh and thats a 1080i m2t file not 720p.