I have an Edirol VMC-1 and Vegas 6 + DVD. I don't have any video card other than what came with my computer. Do I need to get a good quality video card in order to do good video editing. I am "brand new" into this. Thanks, Bill
You don't need a good video card to do good video editing. The video card does not affect the quality of your video. If you're working with DV, it's the firewire card that is transferring your video and the transfer is lossless (doesn't matter what firewire card you use).
It is a good idea to hook up a TV to your editing system to see what your video actually looks like. What you see in Vegas can be very misleading.
Do be careful that TVs don't have great color accuracy and have some cheats built into them (flesh tone correction, overly bright, and some other things). A broadcast monitor ($600 and up) offers more accurate monitoring.
But in any case, I suggest hooking up just any CRT-based TV to your editing system so you can spot things you would NOT spot in Vegas (overscan, interlace flicker in particular). If your audience doesn't use CRT-based TVs then this does not apply.
Fancy video cards are needed for games. Not needed for video editing. You might consider getting one that drives more than one monitor. Lots of people enjoy using multiple monitors when editing (more screen real estate).
Thanks to all of you guys. I am just getting started but would like to make this a paying hobby--plus, I like to do good quality work in whatever I do. Again, thanks for the very helpful info. Bill