should a P4 HT 3.2 be able to edit HDV?
 

I have a P4 3.2 Hyper Thread PC. with 1.25 gig of ram, and i cant edit HDV, im pretty sure its the video cards problem. considering its only a 64mb nvidia mx440 thats old.

any sugestions?

I have a 3.0Ghz P4 HT with 2.5GB RAM and edit HDV with absolute ease. I have a reasonable video card (full details in my profile) but my understanding is that's only really to do with viewing/previewing video while editing, nothing to do with editing itself. Think of your video card as a device to support your monitor's display, and nothing else. That's the way I'd view it...I may be wrong but I'm sure someone will confirm if I am or not.

What NLE are you using and please give more technical details of your PC and project settings/aims/details your attempting?

I would say my PC struggled a bit with HD editing in Ulead Vidostudio 10 Plus when projects got any complexity but the very same PC seems very happy with Vegas 7e - complex HD projects max out the processor when rendering but I just leave them overnight to hopefully (!) see a masterpiece in the morning.

What I have noticed is that HDV is gonna be slow on any computer because of the codec itself. The one nice thing about it is that if your computer can handle normal dv than you can hdv. You will be fine unless you want to do some hardcore stuff like crazy graphics or something.

I'm very happy doing basic HDV editing on my P4 2.4Ghz 1GB RAM. Using Sony Vegas Pro 8 + Cineform. Anything more complicated gets sent to my quadcore where I usually leave Vegas alone to do the capturing & rendering.

Andy, I have Vegas 8.0 and can't preview HDV at anything but draft quality.

However, Avid Xpress Pro handles HDV like charm. Probably b/c it uses the video card more than Vegas does.

My PC P4 3.0 with 2 gig RAM and nVIDIA Quadro FX 1100 AGP 8X.

Dave, you should be flying with that setup! I have an old office computer, a Dell, P4 hyper thread @ 3.0 GHz and 1 GB of RAM, the video card is the exact same MX440. I edit HDV natively on Premiere Pro 2.0 (no CineForm) and have absolutely no problem. Playback is real time even with a recent multicam project (2 cameras). Applying light effects is OK, it only slows down with heavy or multiple effects, but that's to be expected (an overnight job in my case).

Your problem is some place else. Try placing your source files on one hard drive and the project together with scratch folders on another one - I use two USB external drives. One other thing that can cause problems is having a bunch of software on that machine - when I started using this Dell exclusively for video editing, I wiped it clean, installed XP with SP2, the Adobe Production Studio 2.0, Photoshop and absolutely nothing else. Runs like a dream!

Dave,

There are BIG differences in players (even in the players within editing pgms - Ulead). I have 3 GHz P4, and most MP2 players work fine. It is somewhat sluggish playing AVCHD, but smooth enough to pick edit points. Pinnacle 11 plus had the most gawdauful player. Will not play even MPEG2 files well enough to edit, and AVCHD is WORSE!

Dave

Okay but if you're converting to cineform you're not editing HDV any more no? Cineform gets rid of the GOP and gives discreet frames.