pc setup advise

[Kev O'Brien]

hi
i have just purchased a new editing pc

its a quad q6700 10.6 ghz 6gb ram with nvidia 8600gt graphics
i have 4 hd's

1 500gb hitachi
2 500gb samsung
1 500gb usb external

windows vista home premium 64bit

i will be running vegas pro 8 adobe cs3 - mainly after effects
and tmpgenc for compression

and im looking for some setup advise, i am going to start editing in hdv with quite alot of effects and color correction

ive done loads of search's but advice seems to vary from machine to machine so im hoping some of you have got the time for my specific questions reguarding my setup

i was going to use my external hd for back up and transfering files to/from my laptop and use the hitachi as my c drive for the operating system and program files, now with the samsungs should i set them up as a raid0 drive (if so whats the best setup?) or would i be better using one for capture and one for rendering to ? should i partition them? where should i put my temp files? where should i save my project files? .veg etc

is windows media player ok for true playback of my finished edits or would you recomend a different one? ive tried vlc but didnt realy like that

whats the best way to edit hdv - my output will mostly be for web delivery but i would like to keep a good quality version on one of my drives
i was thinking of capturing the mt2 files in vegas then rendering to avi (what would be the best settings)before i edit - is this the best way or is it better to edit with the mt2 files ?

and finally
i was going to use this new pc as just a base unit and access it from my laptop using remote desktop - i like to sit comfy on the sofa to edit :-) has any one got any experience of this? will it work? also i wont have any antivirus software on the pc but access the internet throught my laptop conection which has avs - would that be ok?

sorry i know theres loads of questions there but i just want to get it right from the start and your input would be realy appreciated

[Perrone Ford]

Originally Posted by Kev O'Brien

hi
i have just purchased a new editing pc...

windows vista home premium 64bit

Good luck with that. I'm running WinXP 64bit and Vegas 8.0 likes it. Not sure I'd jump to Vista just yet.

Originally Posted by Kev O'Brien

i will be running vegas pro 8 adobe cs3 - mainly after effects
and tmpgenc for compression

MIght want to test these under your new OS.

Originally Posted by Kev O'Brien

is windows media player ok for true playback of my finished edits or would you recomend a different one? ive tried vlc but didnt realy like that

What do you mean "true playback"? WMV is fine if you're comparing with VLC.

Originally Posted by Kev O'Brien

whats the best way to edit hdv - my output will mostly be for web delivery but i would like to keep a good quality version on one of my drives
i was thinking of capturing the mt2 files in vegas then rendering to avi (what would be the best settings)before i edit - is this the best way or is it better to edit with the mt2 files ?

Best way to edit HDV is not to. Convert to a solid format that won't break down in edit. Lossless AVI, Cineform, or something similar.

Originally Posted by Kev O'Brien

and finally
i was going to use this new pc as just a base unit and access it from my laptop using remote desktop - i like to sit comfy on the sofa to edit :-) has any one got any experience of this? will it work? also i wont have any antivirus software on the pc but access the internet throught my laptop conection which has avs - would that be ok?

I connect to my render machines remotely, but not sure I'd want to edit that way. I've done it, but wouldn't necessarily recommend it. Especially not over something as slow as a common wireless connection. Gig-E maybe. Don't map any drives from the laptop to the video machine, and you shouldn't have any virus problems.

[Adam Gold]

Originally Posted by Kev O'Brien

...1 500gb usb external... windows vista home premium 64bit...i was going to use this new pc as just a base unit and access it from my laptop using remote desktop

Wow, I think you're just begging for trouble here. Adobe specifically warns you not to use a 64 bit OS and especially not to try to edit off of any sort of networked or external drive (particularly not USB, which is way too slow). It might work, but don't say you weren't warned.

[Kev O'Brien]

oops! i didn't realise adobe didn't run with 64bit i opted for that due to the fact that i could utilize more ram and i read that vegas was ok

as for the networked drive, it wouldn't actually be that, all i would be doing is controlling the desktop pc from my laptop

[Kev O'Brien]

does vista 64bit have a 32bit compatibility mode?

[Adam Gold]

Originally Posted by Kev O'Brien

oops! i didn't realise adobe didn't run with 64bit i opted for that due to the fact that i could utilize more ram and i read that vegas was ok

as for the networked drive, it wouldn't actually be that, all i would be doing is controlling the desktop pc from my laptop

It's not that it won't run, it's that CS3 is "not supported" on that OS, which I take to mean that while it'll probably work, "don't come running to us if it doesn't, because we warned you."

I suppose you could try controlling remotely to see how it works, but CS3 tends to be extremely picky, and I foresee a real nightmare trying to edit this way. But I'm probably wrong. I can't imagine trying this.

[Kev O'Brien]

thanks Adam - i will just have to see what happens

can anyone advise on my hard drives?

[Lars Siden]

Hi,

I'm running Adobe CS3 + Vegas on my Vista 64 machine and have been doing that for 6 months or so. No probs what so ever.

I have 8gb memory, so PPro can have 4gb and after efects another 3gb.... lovely

// lz