sounds like some pretty solid advice.
I know that I will not be able to edit AVCHD or HD files on this computer I will be using SD MPEG2 files (or it I can figure out how to use Veggie they will be .avi files).

I didn't reall have a choice in the 64 bit thing, in fact I didn't even know that I was buying it. (man, I'm stupid). But that's all I can really find on the consumer market, I don't have time to order a custom one.
Why is 64 bit a no go? I thought I would end up being happy to have it cuz it's the newest thing out there, you know? Would those Plug ins be refering to Effects or Codecs?

I also agree about having mulitple HD's Just hope I can find smaller ones with eSata and not go broke.

I have over 10,000 video clips of our travels and projects that I use to put together films for our ministry. My family and i are missionaries.

Any advise on where I should turn to get a good comp for under a grand?

THanks a lot,

Josh

Plugins refer to effects.

Bob.

"(or it I can figure out how to use Veggie they will be .avi files)."

Can you elaborate? I'm not sure what you mean by this. Vegas handles most .avi files as easily or better than MPEG2. Most people use the term "veggie" to refer to Vegas' .veg project files, but these have nothing at all to do with choosing AVI vs. MPEG.

I can't see where you answered ....what are you shooting with ? What type of camera ,

His profile says the camera is a Sony HDR-CX12 which is AVCHD.
Since the laptop Josh is looking at is only a 2.0 GHz machine so, without the use of a proxy tool like AVCHD Upshift, it almost certainly won't be powerful enough :-(

Mike

Hey thanks everybody for piching in,
First when I said Veggie 3.0 from peachrock.com that is a batch renderer. I did figure it out and will now be converting most of my file to AVI.
I usually record in SD for easy editing (even though it's still not easy, lol). I really don't need to use my laptop to run Vegas with AVCHD.

I was hoping someone might say something like "if you got 4mb cache and more than 2.3 GHZ you would be much better off...." I thought more memory would be the main thing I would need because in the bottom corner of the Task Manager it often says 78% physical memory usage.
But I have read that many people say that Vegas doesn't ever use more that 2 GB's of memory.... So I am a little confused (what's new?).
Thanks for putting up with all my stupid newbie questions,

Josh

ushere: why 64bit, unless you're running 8.1, in which case forget plug-ins.

Check his machins spec. 4G of memory. If he wants to use that Vista 64 is his only real option. Works very well with Vegas 8.0 and 8.1, both installed on my PC with V64 and no issues. Also, and I do not believe I am going to say this, but in my experience, memory-demanding software runs better on Vista 64 than it does on any of the 32 bit Windows versions I have owned, including XP. Part of the reason for this is that on Vista 64 you can dedicate more memory to each process if you have the physical memory. So, while Vista 32 IMHO is junk, Vista 64 is, given more RAM, actually quite decent for those of us working on this type of stuff. Granted, it primarily shines once you go beyond 4G or memory (I have 8G).

i c e: Why is 64 bit a no go?

64 bit Vegas (8.0) doesn't support 32 bit plugins, and there are very, very few 64 bit plugins out there. This is just Yet Another SCS Brain Fart (tm), but it is not much of an issue since 32 bit Vegas runs very well on Vegas 64, in my experience, with HD stuff, it runs better on Vista 64 than on any other version of Windows I have tried, I have not tried XP 64, but that one has its own set of problems.

As others have said, don't bother trying to edit AVCHD, it is a bad format for editing. Use up-shift or NEO Scene (a little easier IMHO) and edit in the Cineform intermediate format.

Hey thanks for the info,
The more I look for another comp the more I realize that I got a pretty desent machine at a really great price ($679).
I don't know if this is the right way to do things or not but I am now rendering my files to AVI using Veggie from Peachrock.com and am editing like a dream (I can't believe I am saying that, I never thougth that it would be possible) I have been working on a 35 min project with loads of effects, transitions and titles for the past 28hours (litterally...working all through the night) and I have not had one single problem of any sort. In fact I amk running very fast and efficently....

Oh, so editing can be a tad bit of fun? Who knew?

Ice