External Hard Drives
 

After my last job, I was burned out doing about days of postwork on my own. My assistant maybe could've helped me but I only have one computer setup for editing.

My existing Vegas7e is on a Intel Dual core 2 (6600 I believe) and 1GB RAM. It also has SATA Raid 0, over 600Gb. It's does ok.

I have an older Dell using a Intel Pentuim D 3Ghz with 2 Gb of RAM. It doesn't have space for more drives. Will a large external USB drive work for editing with Vegas? Can I continue using MT2 or will I have to capture to SD for that system? Is USB really fast enough?

My final output is DVD only.

I'm new at this so my workflow probably isn't very optimized.

Thanks.

Hello Eric,
I have a similar system as your Dell and u am able to edit mt2 files from an external hard drive fine even when applying 3r party filters to the footage.

Wow....good to know. I use an external USB drive to backup photos but the thought of using it for video seemed far fetch since takes forever to retrieve simple JPGs. It's possible that this USB drive I'm using is on the old technology side. It's over three years old. Maybe things have gotten better with harddrive speeds....appears so.

Thanks.

Yeh i think you'l be suprised how easy it is to edit from the external, its alot faster than you'd imagine but i think alot of it is down to vegas as it's one of those programs that can perform well with the minimum of requirements. I use final cut pro alot lately and if i ask it to do half as much as i ask from vegas it requires so much more time and processing power its unbelievable.

Check out the new western raptor 10,000 rpm external drives, they will serve you well with vegas, they may sell them on www.play.com

One thing i would suggest tho when editing with an external drive is, if its within budget try and use connect hd to capture your footage straight to the cineform codec, you'l get the same quality as your mt2 (infact its said that cineform somehow codes at 4:2:2 giving you more headroom to colour correct) and it will aslo give you faster editing.