"Would a 3.0 dual core cpu be able to work with avchd files in vegas better than a 2.4 dual core."

Yes.

"Also would an external raid work wonders here as well for vegas editing?"

For editing uncompressed video: Yes. For HDV or AVCHD editing: No.

Marco

I have found AVCHD uneditable on my Quad core. HDV is no problem.

Marc

AVCHD is a great delivery format, but so far it as failed terribly as an editable format. They have new 24mbps cams out and meanwhile you can't burn an edited avchd file at more than 18m. It still seems that the best way to edit avchd is transcode it to something else first.The consumer industry is swallowing this avchd stuff hook, line, and sinker (probably more for the HDD or flash card recording mediums than for the avchd itself) but in general the pro industry has paid little attention to avchd.

I have been told by an FCP instructor who is very active here in L.A., that HDV is notoriously difficult to edit because of the long-GOP format, like a giant MPEG-2, in that your edit points are captive to wherever the next I-frame is. He loves AVCHD but only because of the ease of capture and ingest into the system. His frame of reference of course (no pun intended) is that he uses FCP to reduce the AVCHD files to Apple ProRes422, one of the codecs for converting very high resolution/bandwidth video codecs to manageable size while maintaining a good picture quality. I haven't worked with HDV or AVCHD on Vegas but I believe it can do the equivalent codec-downsizing, the idea being that after editing, your delivery format is only very rarely going to be out to film, usually out to tape or DVD for public consumption.

I'm not an expert on these matters but the above is much on my mind lately, after 12 weeks immersed in editing again.
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"I have been told by an FCP instructor who is very active here in L.A., that HDV is notoriously difficult to edit because of the long-GOP format, like a giant MPEG-2, in that your edit points are captive to wherever the next I-frame is."

First of all, HDV is MPEG2 and other than being 1440x1080, the GOP structure isn't any longer than a typical DVD MPEG2 stream. The FCP "instructor" was dead wrong about only being able to edit on "I" frames. That was a ridiculous and uninformed statement. If this were true, you could only edit in 1/2 second increments. While not as easy to edit as DV in which every frame is self-contained, MPEG2 requires far less CPU horsepower to decode than AVCHD and you can do frame-accurate edits.

I second everything John says. This is a no-brainer: if you are planning to edit "low-end" HD video, then get HDV.

Before you make the plunge, you need to see this article by the guru of video gurus, George Ou.
Be sure to follow the links embedded in the article, especially this one. They are quite informative.
Not quite sure what johnmeyer meant by "'low-end' HD video," but HDV, especially with prices dropping on the HV30, doesn't look so bad to me.

Not quite sure what johnmeyer meant by "'low-end' HD video," I only meant to contrast with what is shot by "Hollywood" when doing feature films. This is either not compressed and saved to hard drive directly, or uses much more robust compression. and therefore far fewer artifacts than long-GOP compression which also (in the case of HDV) diminishes color space.

Ahh, I see. I thought the reference was in comparison to AVCHD (which also uses long GOP compression, am I correct?).

http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/product/31437/review/vixia_hv30.html

Just an added note from PC World on HDV and the HV30 mentioned above. BTW, I bought one, it's beautiful. (Gotta relearn this link thingee.)

Darryl

I have a Dell Studio laptop, Vista 64, Core 2 Duo, 2.4 ghz with 4 gb RAM, that has a VERY SLOW 5400 rpm hard drive (as do almost all laptops), running Vegas Pro 8.1, and have no problem editing HDV video. I'm burning HD Blu-Ray to BD-R's through a USB-port external Buffalo Blu-Ray burner. The Core Duo and Core 2 Duo processors surprisingly will handle this stuff pretty well. For standard videos (i.e., not much FX added) this setup is doing well. I built a tailored tabletop computer (XP Pro OS, 3.4 ghz dual core, sata drives, etc.) for the heavy effects stuff, namely Adobe After Effects, but my laptop will handle the day-to-day stuff. As for HDV versus AVCHD, I prefer HDV. If I recall, AVCHD is a variation of mpeg4, which is a lot more compressed than the mpeg2 of HDV.

I was just going to buy this:
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-VGN-AW160J-18-4-Inch-Processor-Blu-ray/dp/B001FB6T6W/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1227397710&sr=8-7

Is it a right choice or should I look for another with 5400 rmp?

What is that :
"For small independent filmmakers, they can hook up a computer with a $250 HDMI capture card with very fast RAID storage capable of 1.5 to 3 gigabits per second and capture raw uncompressed HD video."

For recording HDV directly from my HC9e?"

Thanks in advance.

Ouch! That's quite a price tag...

When I frequented the SONAR forum, there were a couple guys over there that built systems for people--audio processing, video processing, whatever. I hired the one guy as a consultant, simply to advise me on whether or not I had picked the best components for my DAW system. It cost me $40, but it was money very well spent, as he made a couple of suggestions that have worked out very, very well. But the point is that I believe that one or both of the guys build laptops as well as desktop machines. For the money you are talking there, you can have a comparable Windows laptop built to your specs--or you can buy a nice Mac Book Pro, with a 17" screen. Install a Windows OS and you can have the best of both worlds.

Here's http://www.studiocat.com/one[/link] of the guys, Jim Roseberry. He's the fellow I used, and he is extremely knowledgeable. At the very least you can email him or call and talk about a system--he'll tell you how good the Vaio is versus a Mac Book Pro; or versus one of his machines. He is a strsight-up guy and won't try to talk you into something you don't need; and he also realizes that there are other people building these systems. The other guy's name is Scott, but I don't remember his last name--or his website address. But I will have a look around the SONAR site a minute or two and edit this post with another link. I'd call both of them if I were you, as you've got nothing to lose...especially if you're talking about spending that kind of money.

But I'd also look hard at the Mac Book units--many people use them for some serious laptop-based video editing. I've got nothing bad to say the about Sony Vaio machines but for that much money, I'd really check things out thoroughly.

TB

EDIT: Here is the http://www.adkproaudio.com/other link[/link]. I think ADK is probably bigger than Jim's outfit, but both have an extremely good reputation for quality machines, and both guys are regular contributors to the SONAR forum. I've never talked to Scott on the phone, but I have read countless posts from both guys on the forum--and of course I spoke with Jim several times. Either one should be able to help you out with information. Who knows--they might tell you that the Vaio will perform very well for your needs, but at least then you'll have piece of mind before spending almost $3K for a laptop. And you might just learn a thing or two about video/audio computers. I know the $40 I paid Jim probably saved me countless headaches and hours searching on the internet. He has built so many systems that he just told me what would work and what wouldn't...and why.

I also see on Scott's site (ADK), that they offer Mac machines too. So he would be a real good guy to call.

Good luck!

Take a look at the HP HDX 18t on the hp.com web site. If you outfit the unit with the 7200 rpm drives it should do quite well. Can the 5400 drives. The performance boost from 7200 rpm drives is significant. Also, remember, you can only access 3gb of memory with a 32-bit OS. Only go higher if you're sure you'll be running a 64-bit OS.

I don't think George Ou even specializes in video. He writes about all sorts of technology. I don't think I'd put him at the pinnacle. He probably never gets to play with mid to high end cameras.