Newbie looking for guidance on software
 

HI all;

I'm a new XHA1 owner and have spent the past several weeks surfing through tons of threads on this forum. I've learned a bunch from you experts and spent many sleepless nights studying topics.

I work on a PC and do videos for upload to the web as a hobby, but will soon start doing DVD's.

My equipment is:
PC with 2MB RAM
1TB external HD
Internal HD has 150GB free space currently

I shoot HDV in 60i and will be using Premiere Pro CS3 to edit.

My subject matter is luxury/exotic cars and bikini clad girls.

I'm not sure what additional software I need to meet these requirements:
>Output files using an H264 codec
>Outputted files should be able to be adjusted for use on YouTube and other hosting sites;
>Outputted files should be able to be dropped onto a DVD with high res
>And, I want to be able to create motion type effects, nice titles, and flames and stuff in special effects.

Everything is shot in HDV because at some point, we'll be hosting them on a server.

As far as I can tell, I should be considering the following software:
Aspect HD
Nero 6
Boris FX

Any help would be appreciated, especially with respect to a simple work flow.

Typically, I shoot a video, edit it then want to post to the web asap.

After Effects?

Nero is now up to version 8, so you should look at that. Does a much better job of downscaling to DVD than Adobe Media Encoder or Encore.

Adobe is very insistent that you can't use external drives to edit with. If it's eSATA you're probably all right, bit if it's USB or FW you may be asking for many headaches. Can you add a second internal drive?

Not sure what you mean by "high res" on DVD. DVD is standard DV resolution unless you burn your HDV material as Data Files (m2t, m2ts, mts) to a standard DVD, which will play in HD via a PS3 on an HDTV. A similar workaround exists for the HD-DVD world if you have an HD-DVD (Toshiba) player.

Otherwise you'd need a BD burner and player, but be aware that most BD players will not play home-burned discs -- only studio movie BDs.

Hmm...which would explain why editing clips in PPro has been slow going.

Can you recommend a good external HD eSata? Cavalry any good?

If not, I'll look into another internal Hard Drive...should be cake.

Other than that, what are your thoughts with respect to adding After Effects? And what exactly would Aspect HD do for me?