ya im not sure why it is either. i dont understand why my footage is jerky with my machine, i guess cuz its a laptop, but it still has quad core i7 and 8gb ddr3 ram and 1gb of vram, i would think it could handle anything

Most systems can't play h.264 natively possibly because of hardware, but also probably because of the way the NLE's are decoding the footage. CS5 and Edius use hardware acceleration to get better playback speeds but most NLE's don't handle Quicktime movies very well especially compared to FCP.

Have you tried using DVFilm Epic I and Vegas 9? You can start editing immediately and get realtime playback on pretty much any system including your laptop. Once in Vegas, Epic can generate full, half or quarter size epic files and you can still be editing while this is happening. You can switch back and forth from your original h.264 mov files to the realtime files with the click of a button and export your final render from the full quality original h.264 file.

You can get more info and try the free demo at http://dvfilm.com/epic/index.htm

Hope this helps,
Andy

ya i have seen that, but i havent heard of any one actually using it, so i am a little reserved about buying it without hearing how it works

What editing program?

I also have i7 860 machine with 8GB RAM. Editing is jerky with Vegas 9. Instead, I use Pinnacle 14 HD (consumer program aunder $100) and it plays and edits files perfectly, in full resolution, with no transcoding. It also renders fine and looks exactly like the original.

Go figure.

ive been using vegas 9, and i just downloaded premiere pro cs5 to see how it works with the files. it plays back fairly well, but i personally prefer vegas since im used to it, but id rather use cs5, even though i barely know how to use it, then transcode the files to an editable format in vegas. i think ill give pinnacle a try, everyone seems to like it, even though its a "consumer" level program, i also like the fact that it comes with magic bullet looks, ive always wanted to use that program

Does it come with Magic Bullet Looks, or Quicklooks? They are quite different.

Here's the link, Perrone. Pinnacle Studio Ultimate Collection ? Ultimate editing software


For $129 with those plug-ins, I'm wondering why we're not all using this, at least for some color/grading work...

ya, i think last time i checked, all those plugins from red giant would cost like 800 bucks, so pinnacle is really a steal

See comments by Robert St-Onge here:
http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/what-hap...lr-plugin.html

The trial version of CS5 is crippled so it doesn't support H.264 MPEG4 or indeed any other form of MPEG file which makes it pretty useless as a trial.

oh, its not a trial, its the full version