NLE systems? Need Help!!!
 

I am posting this under the Vegas Video because I heard this software gives other NLE software a run for their money.

Reasons I probably go with Vegas
1) I love PC better than Mac (but FCP is a great software too)
2) I already have a PC, so adding the software and possible upgrade is possibly cheaper.

***NOW THIS IS WHERE I NEED YOUR GUYS EXPERTISE***

My PC Specs:

Tyan 2462 dual athlon mp - 5 years old.
Extended ATX tower
512 MB RAM PCC 2100
60 GB Western Digital HD 7,200 rpm
MATROX G 550

The question is should I upgrade the computer for Vegas?
Keep the computer like this for Vegas?

Or just buy Final Cut Pro because the cost would be the same ?

VEGAS......VEGAS!!!

Why have you excluded Premier Pro??
The are both very capable bits of software, but I personally love Premier.

Vegas Baby
 

I heard Premiere PRo 1.5 still needs to fix the progressive scan. Which currently it produces blur and doesn't look to good. I have use premiere long time ago and Speed Razor. I like it, but i have a DVX100a with 24 progressive scan.

I have heard XXX program has problems with YYY, and constantly crashes.

Fill in any name and problem. Best thing to do is try before you buy anything. Vegas, Premier, Avid, all have demo versions. (At least I think so.)

Your system looks pretty good for most, might want to add some media drives, a couple of 200 gigs would be sweet.

Your amount of RAM is fine for Vegas. I don't know about Premiere... I suspect more may be a bit better if you have huge complicated projects.

2- Personally I like Vegas better because it's so much more powerful than Premiere, but again you could try out the demos.

3- Your computer's specs are pretty fine for Vegas. If you want to render faster, you could upgrade to a new Pentium system. Divide the speed of the new Pentium by the PR rating of one of your AMD processors- that is about the speed increase you will see in rendering. i.e. pentium 3.2ghz / AMD 1000+ = 320%. (in your case this will be fairly close)

For MPEG2 encoding, a new Pentium processor will be a lot faster because of the new instruction sets, which Pentiums are fast at (SSE2, and SSE3 on Prescott pentiums).

*Premiere Pro: the above does not apply. If you processors dont have the SSE2 instruction set they will not run Premiere Pro.

Counter-point:
A- Do you really need the speed? You could justwait for things to finish. Your system will still get the job done.
B- a new Pentium system will consume more electricity and require a new motherboard, CPU, and RAM. This costs $$$ in the short and long term

More hard drive space as Richard mentioned would be very nice.