[please note: this isnt totally a vegas issue: please dont move my post to the vegas forum, thanks]

Im having issues with the preview in Vegas 5...it only plays the preview at the smallest window which is 180x120 in crappy draft mode, anything higher and it gets real jerky. I cant edit this way!!! Its impossible to see how the effects and color look.

My system isnt the best, but considering I built it a year and a half ago its decent:
WinXP Pro
Athlon Xp 2700+
1Gb ddr 400mhz fsb
radeon 9700pro
2x NEC 1765 LCD's (super nice displays, HDV converted to mpeg2 looks great on, I would like the preview on one of these)

Have on hand:
Vegas 5 (my fav)
Premier Pro 1.5
Premier 7

What do I need? Some sort of expensive output card? or a monster dual Cpu system? should I even use Vegas?

Im on a budget- cuz this is mearly a hobby for me right now, maybe if i could get this preview to work I could make some feature film and make some money- but until then, I have my day job supporting my HDV dream.

Thanks!

edit: I dont care too much about long render times...All ive got is time. But I do need a solid and accurate preview.

I would say you are lacking memory bandwidth. Something HDV craves. Render times will be similar from your system to a P4 2.8 Ghz but RT and playback should speed up quite a bit. You will need to buy a P4 MB and CPU(800fsb). You will need to run your ram in dual channel mode. I would guess you have two 512mb sticks now? The dual channel P4 memory bandwidth is much higher than the AMD XP's. P4's HT and SSE2 will help some too in video apps.
Of course in $ is no object how about a dual Opteron? Pick one up for me too ;>)
Secondly you don't mention you HDD setup. Preferably have your app and working files on seperate HDD(not just partition). Video files on RAID would be even better. And De-frag, De-frag, De-frag, De-frag, De-frag, De-frag!
Of course a great solution on the software side would be any of Cineforms products. Sure to drastically improve anyones HDV speed.

I'd second the suggestion to use the Connect HD CFHD codec.

///d@
Sony Media Software

<<<-- Originally posted by Dennis Adams : I'd second the suggestion to use the Connect HD CFHD codec.

///d@
Sony Media Software -->>>

im using the Connect HD 15 day trial. Its still a pain to get a nice large preview.

nevermind this thread....I didnt realize I had to convert the .m2t files over to .avi using Connect HD.

With Connect HD I had NO PROBLEMS at all with a 720x540 preview window at best resolution running 25fps pal...with some color overlays applied.

I guess Connect HD is the way to go!

thanks!