Your machine is right on the edge of the bottom end speed to process HDV. You should be able to process it, but there might be configuration issues.
We installed a machine earlier this week to a broadcast client that had dual 252 AMD processors, it was faster than the dual Xeon that I'm currently working with, and less bucks. It happened to be a machine that David Newman at Cineform recommended, and trial runs of it proved out.
My personal system is a 3.06 single HT proc, and it runs fine, but I only get 29.97fps when I've done nothing to the file and it's straight avi. It takes about 1:15 to process a 1:00 capture, so it's not realtime on the capture side. I've got 4 gig RAM in this particular machine, so it's fairly snappy on the previews and such.

You might want to have a look at my Vegas benchmark site below. A overclocked A64 just took the top spot.

There seems to be continued confusion that the video card will somehow help Vegas performance, it will not.

A64's rip in Vegas and the dual channel socket 939 versions don't increase performance. You can build a really fast socket 754 system around the $220 A64 3400+, which is clocked at 2.4GHz. It will take at least 3.4GHz on the Intel side of things to equal the performance of that processor.

I have not seen dual cpu results that show rendering improvements in Vegas. Encoding to MPEG-2 yes, but not rendering. That means dual cpus WILL help encoding speed if not much rendering of the timeline needs to occurs. So stright cuts, minimal transitions, color correction, etc.. will do better with dual cpus.

But who knows, perhaps V6 will multithread better?

I always like to have concrete evidence of exactly how my "new" system will perform specific tasks before dropping my cash. That's why I created the benchmark site.

- Mark

http://www.hyperactivemusic.com/msprofiles/sony%20vegas%205/sony_vegas_5_audio_benchmark.htm

64mb video card is fine for video editing, unless your using 3d software that uses the memory for textures on your card.

hi spot what hard drive setup do you have?

Depends on the machine. The VideoForce machine has a 3 terabyte SATA raid on it, I've got Medea RAIDS running on my main editing machine, and my personal machine that is sort of a second machine just for me has 3 ADS Firewire RAIDS on it of 1.2TB each.

Thanks all. With dual channel processors due out later half of this year I will miss the expensive Xeons for now. I can get this for $1200:

P4 HT 3.4GH (16K l1 cache, 1MB l2) 800MH FSB 915 chip set
1.0GB dual-channel PC3200 RAM
250MG SATA HD 7200rpm
PCI Express x16 GeForce FX5300, 128MB, NTSC video out but no DVI?

Any comments on using this for HD and for playing mpeg 2/4 and wm9 at full frame rate?

Why do some prefer RAID drives? Do I need second smaller drive for system?

Michael

That should suit you just fine, Michael. I'd be looking for a vid card with DVI though, since you've already got an HD monitor, then you can get a DVI converter that will plug straight into your monitor.
RAIDs are nice due to the higher sustained rate, but for me....they are often just cheaper than building boxes with lots of various drives.

Douglas: Your beloved Fry's has this for $2300:

Specifications:
* Processor: Intel® Pentium® 4 560 3.6GHz with Hyper-Threading Technology
* Cache Memory: 1MB L2 Cache
* Front Side Bus Speed: 800MHz
* Memory: 1GB PC2-3200 DDR2-400 (2x512MB for Dual Channel) (expandible to 4GB)
* Hard Drive: 400Gb 7200rpm (RAID 0) Serial ATA-150
* Optical Drives:
o DVD+/-RW Combo Drive: DVD+R DL (4x), DVD-RW (16x/4x/8x), DVD+RW (16x/8x/8x), CD-RW (48x/24x/32x)
o DVD-ROM Drive: 16x max. DVD-ROM read, DVD-ROM: 21632 KB/s max., CD-ROM: 7200KB/S max.
* Video Graphics: Ati Radeon X600 XT PCI Express, 128MB DDR Memory, VGA/S-Video/DVI Out
* TV Tuner and FM Tuner: Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-150MCE, Front & Back AV inputs, FM Radio, Harware MPEG Encoder
* Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005

Maybe I will take a ride this afternoon?

Michael

Beware of Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005.

Several people have reported serious driver problems with this.

These problems will probably disappear in six months or so (possibly more or never, depending on who buys the Media Center Edition).

In the meantime, Win XP Pro is absolutely the best choice.

wow...i guess i was wrong. to do HDV you need a pretty powerful computer.

i'll stick to the good ole' DV. i figure it like this....would i be correct in saying HDV delivers the "film look" that everyone is craving? if not...what's the point? stick with DV lol

The "film look", which is going out of fashion in some quarters, relates to slow progressive formats - nothing to do with resolution. HD's much increased resolutiion gives it the higher picture quality whether 24p or 1080i. No harm though in sticking with DV until processing gets faster and cheaper and I may well do this myself as by mid year the dual core chips will be imerging. Problem is I have shot and seen HDV and now DV looks like dog ................ well you know.

Damn! That Frys deal looks pretty good. I wish we had Frys here, but I'd be broke, I guess.
I'm not a fan of the Media Center either, and I'm not a fan of the Hauppage card, but that's just me. I don't like inducing anymore noise in my computer case than necessary, but it's also an old prejudice and I'm sure I could be proven wrong in that particular dislike.

$11 UPS ground and no tax to Utah!

Douglas: RE the dual 252 AMD you installed - is not being able to use the new DDR2 RAM or a PCI-E video card a problem? Or are these two items not that significant? It's these two concerns that have kept me away from Athlon.

Intel just announced a new series of processors with 64-bit support in the form of EMT64. They have had 64 bit support in their Itanium line, but it was incompatible with the AMD 64-bit implementation. so they have actually decided to implement (or emulate) AMD's 64-bit routines. An honest-to-goodness 64-bit Intel chip with DDR2 and PCI-Express. I guess now all we need is a 64-bit OS, the 64-bit WinXP is already at RC2, so it may not be long. Heck, maybe even Vegas v6 will come in a 64-bit flavor...

John

In the meantime here are three video editing systems from Puget for perusal or comment. I wonder would John's dream system tackel native HDV in Vegas?

PUGET SYSTEMS for Video Editing

Dual Intel Pentium4 Xeon 3.2GHz 800FSB w/ EM64T CPU
Asus NCT-D Motherboard
2GB DDR2-400 REG ECC (2x1GB) Ram
Hot! Raptor SATA 10,000RPM 74GB Hard Drive
Maxtor 300GB SATA NCQ 7200 RPM Second Hard Drive
ATI X300 128MB PCI-E Video Card
Norton Antivirus 2005 Software
Windows XP Pro SP2 Operating System
Floppy Drive
2 x Stock Fan (Xeon)
Lian-Li PC6070 Silent Mid Tower w/ USB
Antec Neopower Modular 480W
Plextor 16X Dual Layer DVD+/-RW SATA $3531.24

Dual Intel Pentium4 Xeon 2.8 GHz 800FSB w/ EM64T CPU
Asus NCCH-DL Motherboard
1GB DDR400 CL2.0 (2x512MB) Ram
Western Digital SATA 200GB Hard Drive
ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon 9800 AGP Video Card
Onboard Sound Card
Norton Antivirus 2005 Software
Windows XP Pro SP2 Operating System
Lite On 16X Dual Layer DVD+RW/-RW
Chenming 601 Mid Tower
Mitsumi Floppy 7 in 1 Card reader
2 x Stock Fan (Xeon)
Antec Neopower Modular 480W $2358.62


Dual Intel Pentium4 Xeon 3.4GHz 800FSB w/ EM64T CPU
Asus NCCH-DL Motherboard
4GB DDR400 (4x1GB) Ram
Hot! Raptor SATA 10,000RPM 74GB Hard Drive
PNY Quadro4 980XGL 128MB AGP Video Card
Onboard Sound Card
Lite On 16x/40x DVD-Rom
Norton Antivirus 2005 Software
Floppy Drive
Windows XP Pro SP2 Operating System
Lian-Li PC-V1000 Mid-Tower
460W 24 pin Power Supply
Round IDE Cable
Round Floppy Cable
2 x SwiftTeck Quiet Fan (Xeon)
Plextor 16X Dual Layer DVD+/-RW SATA $4670.67

Douglas: With the dual Opteron machine you installed did you use a PCI-E or an AGP motherboard? DDR400 RAM?