Need Opinion On My Editing Suite
 

I have the opportunity to up grade my equipment. Below you can see my editing setup. Not knowing too much about computers and what would be needed for editing, I used a local company that is used by one of our local television stations.

I get impatient when I have to wait for every to render a Magic Bullet application. Do you think I need to upgrade anything in my system?

Thanks

Nothing there!
 

Gary,

Your specs did not show up in the post.

Mike

I believe the specs are in his signature.

Mike

Mike, isn't it below his signature, or am I hallucinating.

Sorry, but nothing shows up on my computer after "Thanks!"

Must be something on my end. How is it posted?

Mike

I have signatures turned off, I'll have to turn them on. Easier to copy and paste in the regular post though.

Mike

So you can't even see your own signature? Too bad... it's a good one!

Just kidding by the way... ;)

Mike

I turned it back on, so now I can see all of the Cowbells! :)

Mike

I'm no computer expert, so tell me about the processor. Is it dual core or hyperthreading? May be a weak link. Hard for me to see how it could make use of 2 gig of RAM, if it is just a straight processor.

How do you have your scratch disks set up?

Mike

Canon XL-2 - Nice bit of kit :-)

Intel Pentium D 2.8 Gig CPU - you may want to think about upgrading this. I think the Pentium D is the low-cost Intel chip, basically a couple of old P4's welded together in the same die (correct me if I'm wrong?). It's been replaced by CoreDuo (and laterally CoreQuad).
The more CPU horsepower you've got for processing video the better. If you can get a CoreDuo or Xeon, that would be better - but then that would probably require a new motherboard...

2 Gig DDRII 533 Ram - 2Gb is pretty good, but the 533Mhz seems a bit yesterday. You should really be looking at 667Mhz .

120 Gig Sata II System Drive
2 x 250 Gig Sata II Video Drives - Good, good, plenty of storage room to play with - although 500Gb drive units come real cheap now. But maybe you should wait until the fabled 1Tb drive units appear mass market.

Plextor Dvd/RW Dl Sata Drive - don't know this specific product but any DVD RW looks good

ATI Radeon X1600 PCIE Video Card 512 Meg - yep, okay

Windows XP - SP2, I trust? :-)

2 x 17" NEC TFT Flat Screen Monitors - hmm, prefer a 19" or larger myself, but you've got 2 so that's cool

17'' TM-H1700GU Broadcast Monitor - nice, wish I had one!

Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0, Adobe After Effects 7.0, Adobe Encore 2.0, Adobe Photoshop CS2 - nothing wrong with this package

Overally, looks like a really good spec you've got. I you had a little cash more to spend I might think about swapping out the motherboard for a CoreDuo or Xeon socket and the 667Mhz RAM, but that's me. Give it six months and it's ll all be out of date anyway :-)

For Magic Bullet go with an Nvidia 7800 GT/GTX card. As per their website, they list it as being able to playback in realtime.

Thanks
 

Our internet provider was down for two days so I am late to respond. Thank you for taking the time to comment. Like I said, I am lost when it comes to computer needs for editing.

Thanks again!