What they don't tell you in that demo is that the card is only real-time up to a couple of effects and a couple of video layers. Once you get more than that going on, Vegas probably outperforms it even without hardware assistance. And, not needing a card is a whole lot cheaper!

I just got rid of an RTX100 Card & Breakout Box on eBay.

Although i'm NOT a Premiere fan... this combo works great provided you use the few 'REAL TIME' FX provided by Matrox. If you use any of the FX that are not marked 'REAL TIME'... you WILL be disapointed in its performance.

But be warned about the phrase 'REAL TIME'. There is NO NLE out that will give you 'REAL TIME' past 2-3 layers of video(DV). Especially if you don't have a Super Computer and Hardware that can hang with your 'REAL TIME' expectations. Naturally, if you go to HDV/HD... you will need more patience.

The hope is that Computers will become fast enough to accomodate all the data and truly be 'REAL TIME' with multiple layers. With this said... it is NOT your NLE that you're depending on for 'REAL TIME' performance... they all boast this as a selling point. It is probably your computer setup that will run you into a wall.

This goes for both PC & MAC.

I used too think VEGAS needed some sort of 'boost' in performance untill I saw Tim Duncan editing on a LapTop that he had configured especially for VEGAS. His machine out performed mine and others by a landslide. After he explained -a lot- all fingers pointed at the Computer/Set Up itself and not the software.

We've still got a while to wait on a Computer that can process enough information to handle 5 layers of video w/FX & Transitions. Take a look at the Post setup for Spielberg's movies. Is yours the same?

Is there any link to Tim's "tweaks" to help setup the computer for Vegas? I could sure use it!

I don't know about Tims "tweaks" but the following comes from the Sony site somewhere.

Mike


Close all background applications. This is not limited to the
programs that show in the system tray. Do a ctrl+alt+del and end
task or process on as many applications as you can, leaving only
Explorer and Systray for 98 or ME. For Windows 2000 and XP
move over to the Processes Tab and click the "Image Name"
heading at the top of this window twice, you would be able to view
these items by alphabetical order. For Windows 2000, you should
only have:

explorer.exe
lsass.exe
mapisp32.exe
mstask.exe
services.exe
smss.exe
spoolsv.exe
stisvc.exe
svchost.exe
system
system idle process
taskmgr.exe
winlogon.exe
winmgmt.exe

For Windows XP, you will only need next to your user name:

explorer.exe
taskmgr.exe

Next to "system":
csrss.exe
lsass.exe
mspmspv.exe
services.exe
smss.exe
spoolsv.exe
svchost.exe
system
system idle process
winlogon.exe

"There is NO NLE out that will give you 'REAL TIME' past 2-3 layers of video(DV). "

Not really true. Edius NLE, with a Canopus Storm card, can do more than this, plus unlimited text layers, in realtime. Without Storm hardware, Edius can also do 5 layers of video in realtime, however there is a buffer limit so it will skip frames after a few seconds when the buffer is exhausted.

By the way, Edius realtime is full-size, full quality video, and it comes out on firewire too. I don't like Edius much for its features and user interface, but you can't knock it for performance. It beats the s**t out of Vegas for realtime.

Richard Hunter

I also just sold EDIUS 3& a JD-1 Jog Disk/Shuttle on eBay. I used it with a Canopus Storm card on a Dual Xeon 2.4Ghz box I must admit that it did perform 'Real Time' a bit better than VEGAS on the same box but once I started Editing, adding FX, Masks, PIP's, etc... there really was No 'Real Time' after about 3 layers. A lot of skipped frames.

Maybe I also need to 'Optimize' for VEGAS.

That's one of the things that bugs me with Vegas. There's no one that I know of anywhere on the planet selling turnkey Vegas systems and not a whole lot of the good oil on how to make it run as well as it can from Sony.
If we're lucky we get a 'it's working better than that for us' kind of throw away line from Mr Forum Administrator. Why oh why can't they specify exactly what setups they know work well. I don't think anyone would be so daft as to take it them endorsing a particular mobo or brand of RAM or whatever but having a known reference system and software config would prevent a lot of groping around in the dark for many loyal users.
Bob.