nervous about pc
 

A few years ago, while editing a feature I struggled with and was almost defeated by a pc running windows 98. After which I got a job that gave me 24/7 access to a Mac. I kissed off pcs ever after. Now I don't have that job anymore and am not sure I want to spend 2500$ on a Mac.
So, I am coming back to pcs. I am about to edit another feature, effects heavy. Should I be nervous?
Does anyone have any advice on building my system, beyond lots of ram, fast processor?
Thanks.

Oh, and is anyone using Linux?

What is it you need the computer to do?

Your biggest problem, back then, was probably Windows 98 and maybe a slow HDD. There are many of us still using those old computers but have switched to Windows 2000 or XP and 7200 rpm drives..

I do video editing, Wedding stuff. I could go out right now and get a better computer than what I already have in the $600 to $700 range. Add a large7200rpm drive (dedicated to video) an internal burner, and if you really feel the need, a graphics card.

Win XP is much more stable than Win98 was. If PCs were as crashy as Mac people make them out to be, they wouldn't own 95% of the market. You just had a bad experience. Come back to the dark side....

Harry, you said "Add a large7200rpm drive (dedicated to video)". Does that mean you should dedicate one hard drive for only videos, such as capture files, output, renderings, etc.? I have 2 hard drives, and I'm not sure how I should arrange them. As of now, I have all my programs in one hard drive, and all my videos and movie-related sound files in the other hard drive. Is there a way to best optimize this? Thanks.

I would definately get Win XP, if nothing else, just to get Premiere Pro. I went to a seminar for Adobe last week, and I want it BAD!

As for your situation, the secondary drive is for video capture, storage, etc. Keep all of your system files on the first drive. This saves the drive from trying to read and write at the same time, thus increasing speed and reliability.

Keith,

Do you keep your veg files and loops on the drive where you edit? Or on the system drive?

No veggies for me, I'm a meateater! Uh... I mean I use Premiere. All of my captures, edits, and footage go to the secondary drive. Or, in my case, the raid drives. That goes for loops, audio, and art as well. I create a folder for each project on the raid, and dump all project files into it.

It's best to have 1 hard drive for the OS, one for capture, and if you can afford it, one for rendering files, and another for internet smut (J/K).

Anyway, having the OS and video file drives serperate prevents the video drive from bogging down whenever the other dirve needs to access OS and/or program data. It also makes the video files MUCH easier to find.

And having your smut and your video on seperate drives, also helps prevent the accidental naughty pics in the clients wedding video ;)

Keith and Ted are correct. OS on one drive, I keep Vegas and all associated files and captures on a separate drive.

I was struggling with video editing back about the same time as you were having your pc problems. Dazzle, Ulead, analog to digital, ATI , integrated graphics chips etc. . . I even went through three new computers one summer trying to get a stable system. Things started getting better when I discovered Canopus ADVC 100 for analog to digital, AGP graphics, Windows XP, firewire and Vegas.

Just so I'm clear - You keep your Vegas software and Vegas projects and the associated captures on the same drive, separate from the drive with XP?

No... Software and programs go on the system drive, all video files, renders, etc go on the second drive.

Ok. I'm clear now.

Or, ideally, if you have the space and channels...this is how I configure all of my systems:

One small 7200rpm 20gig for the operating system and system files ONLY (Primary Master)

One 40gig 7200rpm for all software installations and related files ONLY (Secondary Master)

then..

Stacks of SATA 7200rpm 160gig hard disks to hold all media ONLY.

In this way, windows and whatever software you are using don't fight for "needle time" on the drive, they can each operate on their own. Same goes for the media storage.