I have FX-1. Currently, my cuts go to DVD-R. I do birthdays, weddings, and the likes. Right now, I down-covert my HDV content to DV and edit it.

Since I spend significant amount of time on editing, I don't want to recut it when HD discs become main stream.

I am using Studio10 right now. Yes I know it is not professional. It is very very slow if the captured files are HD. Sometimes, I use Vegas. It seems marginally faster, but I found it difficult.

My PC is not particularly slow. AthlonX2 5000, 2GB, SATA2, WinXP. I am about to upgrade it to FX64.

So what NLE should I get? Some say using a middleware like NEO helps. How does it help?

Is Canopus de-facto NLE?
Is Vegas de-facto NLE?

Any other way of doing it?

Please share your experience. I am grateful.

Cheers,
Alex

What version of Vegas are you using? Version 7 should be fairly smooth on your computer.

Upgrading your 2.6GHz dual-core processor to a 3.0GHz processor is only about a 15% upgrade that will cost you about $400. That is not a good price/performance upgrade. You will get a better bang for your buck with a software upgrade. Also, make sure your OS is letting Vegas use both cores. It is possible to install windows on a single-core machine then upgrade to dual cores. If you don't do a full re-install of windows on the dual-core machine, it is possible that only one core will be used.

NEO HDV could speed things up by creating less-compressed files of your HDV. This can reduce CPU usage, but make sure you are using Vegas 7 before you bother with NEO HDV.