HDV is a tape-based high-def format, and Vegas 10 should be able to edit it pretty easily on a nicely powered computer. If you're editing AVCHD, MP4 or 4K, you definitely want to upgrade to version 13.

As OldSmoke says, it would help to know what hardware you're running now. But, that said, when it does come time to shop, this benchmark chart should be very helpful (since things like number of cores and clock speed aren't as cut-and-dried as they used to be).
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

A processor that rates 5500 or better should have no problems editing any high-def format, while those rating 8000 or more will handle 4K without working up a sweat. And, as you can see, you can even pick up a processor that rates a 10,000 for $300-400. That means that that processor in a system with a relatively fast graphics card can probably be had for around $600-700.

> "no more expensive than $700... $300 to $500 sounds better..."

$700 is a tight budget... $300 to $500 is totally unrealistic unless you don't want what's "best". I assume since you currently have a Dell Inspiron that you're not into building your own PC and that's OK. I just want to be sure.

The "best" PC for video editing with Vegas Pro is an Intel Core i7 with an AMD Radeon R9 29x/39x GPU. That's what you should be looking for.

The new Dell Inspiration line that you have starts out with AMD processors in their towers at the low end ($329) and that is very bad for video editing. You don't get an Intel CPU until you're in the $549.99 range and you don't get a Core i7 until you hit $829.99. That still leaves you with Intel HD Graphics and not a "real" graphics card. There are other non-tower Inspiration lines that have Core i3 and Core i5 at the low end. Core i3 is totally inadequate. You might get by with a Core i5 if all you are doing is HDV and not AVCHD.

Personally, I would never buy another Dell. They have a nasty habit of having manufacturers like NVIDIA create graphics cards with lower specs and then they try and sell them to you as the "real" card with the "same name". Very underhanded. As I said, they fooled me once... I would never buy nor recommend a Dell computer so I don't recommend them.

I really like HP Workstations, but for that price you're not going to get a "workstation" class machine so let's stick with consumer grade. I would recommend something like this:

HP ENVY 750se Windows 7 Desktop

- Windows 7 Professional 64
- 6th Generation Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700 processorquad-core [3.4GHz, 8MB Shared Cache]
- 12GB DDR4-2133 DIMM (1x8GB+1x4GB) RAM
- 2TB 7200 RPM SATA 6G Hard Drive
- 4GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 745 [DVI, HDMI, DP, DVI to VGA adapter]
- SuperMulti DVD Burner
- HP Wireless 802.11 b/g/n 1x1 with Bluetooth M.2 NIC (Sanji)
- 7-in-1 Media Card Reader, 4 USB Ports (Top), Audio [Top 2USB2.0, 2USB3.0]

$749.99 USD

I would add the following options but that would go over your budget but it would work better with Vegas Pro:

- 2GB AMD Radeon R9 370 [2xDVI, HDMI, DP, DVI to VGA adapter] + $70
- 500W Power supply + $30

That extra $100 is money well spent for Vegas Pro which loves AMD GPU's. The 500w PSU is required to power the better GPU and also because you are going to add more disks and that anemic $300w PSU that it comes with isn't going to cut it.

So for $849.99 you could have a pretty beefy computer.

The only other modification I would make is:

- 16GB DDR4-2133 DIMM (2x8GB) RAM + $50

I know that brings the price up to $899.99 but the 12GB they give you has unmatched pairs (8GB+4GB) which means the memory is going to run slower because the it will not run in dual channel mode. To get it to run in dual channel mode you must have matched pairs and the 16GB of memory option has a pair of 8GB modules.

If that's too much money for you then then you don't want what's "best" and if you want to settle for "good" then pick a cheaper Core i5 computer. Whatever you do, DON'T buy a AMD CPU. They are the "worst" for video editing.

Good Luck,

~jr

You are on a tight budget. Therefore I suggest you to buy used parts on ebay and put together yourself. You will save a lot money and will be more then powerful enough you would ever need for editing hddv/avchd. A used Xeon X5650 6 cores @2.66Ghz CPU for about $100 and can be overclock to around 4Ghz if your heart desired to overclock. Buy a ued LGA1366 motherboard for about $120 and drop some 12GB DDR3 1600Mhz for really cheap and a used AMD video card 6970 for $ 80. Now you got a nice system but old technology and will work great with Vegas. But for those price range it can't be beat.

The best bet would be to spend a little extra now for a custom build & then you can replace the CPU/MB/RAM/PSU for a better one in another 5-10 years. That could turn a $1000 computer (now) in to a $400-700 upgrade then. I upgraded my system for ~$450 and it does circles around the old one.

I've been using AMD's since the XP lineup and have always been happy. They're much more $ efficient then what Intel puts out. Granted you can't get the fastest ones from them, but for ~equal $ spent on a CPU, AMD normally comes out on top. I haven't found an Intel I liked since the P3's.

Don't go for the lower end stuff either. For both CPU manufactures, normally you can spend an extra $20 or so in a much better processor. Also, avoid the "bleeding edge" stuff. Unless there is HARD EVIDENCE saying the newest whatever will greatly improve things, don't assume it will. CPU Boss is a good place to compared specs & benchmarks. I didn't go for a CPU with integrated graphics because I wanted a separate GPU, so that is another thing for you to consider.

You say it would be nice to editor 4k, but if you're not & don't see yourself doing it any time soon, don't worry about that. Having video footage on a dedicated hard drive could make more of a different vs CPU spec's in that regard.

BTW, there's nothing stopping you now from editing 4k. Use proxies. The whole "I must be able to play video at full frame rate at full resolution to preview!" is an excuse by people who like to show off their e-weenie.

I have an AMD Anthlon(tm) II X3 400e Processor 2.20 GHz. with Windows 7

I have an Inspiron 7737, and I recently swapped the disk for an SSD (Crucial MX200, 1 Terrabyte). It has cost me around 350 €, but the speed increase is incredible. The SSD also contains a small CD (or sometimes a link to download software), so you can copy your existing hard disk to the SSD. Took some work, but in the end is was worth it. Now I use the old disk for backup (via a usb to sata cable). PC starts up in under 10 seconds, rendering times in Vegas are way better.

IMO, The Premiere Pro Benchmark website goes in depth into the discussion although it caters to Premiere Pro users, the tech speak is broken down into fairly understandable nomenclature - I've been going through it myself and there's gleaning to be had from it IMO - http://ppbm7.com/index.php/new-system-build

@Cliff

There is nothing there that hasn't been said here already. So is your next system going to be a 5960X based system?

Edit:
I am not sure why he is talking about RAID3, I thought that is obsolete. It should be RAID 10, 50 or 60, there aren't many controllers that can run RAID 3 or even 30.

@OldSmoke - I just found his in depth analysis of the huge amount of Iron for PPro interesting. By no means do I have that kind of spare cash laying around. I think what I found the most helpful was to see some of the technical discussion around creating a balanced system, and where the best bang for the buck lies where spending more money on higher end hardware appears to have a diminisdhing return on investment. Finding the sweet spot seems to be the #1 goal on the hardware end of things. I will say that working in PPro has not been a joy by any means, it's only been because of the reliability in my experience that I have stuck with it.

Me personally, I'd like to utilize an SSD based raid for working media. Not sure whether I want to look at spinning disks as a back up medium since they seem to be diminishing in build quality these days. I could be wrong though.

My thoughts on RAID for a single user workstation have not changed in six to eight years.

I have similar thoughts on other societal issues that are ignored by most people.

@john_dennis

Sorry, but I do disagree with you simply because of my own experience. Once you look into multi camera editing, there is no single drive that will do the job, not even a single SSD can handle the demand of a 6 camera 1080 60p edit, been there done that. RAID is here for a couple of reasons, space, speed and redundancy but never as a backup. If you don't backup your drives, regardless whether it's a RAID or not, that's your own fault.

I run a SSD RAID 0 for projects, a spinning disks RAID 10 for storage and a hot swap bay for archive drives, all spinners too so far. In addition a USB 3 backup drive for daily backups.

I'll stipulate to the need for high bandwidth, low latency I/O for multiple video input streams. In my lifetime, , but that doesn't make me want to own one.

I think I'm gonna go with one of the Dell's on here that have 16 GB Memory, a Core i7 Processor and that are around $1000.

Does Vegas Pro 13 run on Windows 10?

Would I be able to install a firewire port into one of these computers so that I can capture DV Video?

Thanks for the info everybody!

> "I think I'm gonna go with one of the Dell's on here that have 16 GB Memory, a Core i7 Processor and that are around $1000. "

Your link doesn't work but I would be very weary of any Dell home computer. Their workstation class computers aren't as bad but I doubt Walmart is selling that class of machine. In general, the Home line will have a power supply that is just big enough to run what they give you (around 300w) and as soon as you load it up with more hard drives for video editing or try and add a more powerful graphics card you will start to have stability problems from lack of power. Unfortunately, you can't buy a better power supply because Dell uses non-standard connectors to prevent you from replacing their overpriced parts with standard ones. I would never buy or recommend a Dell.

I would highly recommend that you buy an HP Z Workstation instead. HP makes turnkey systems for content creators and they are built quite solid.

> "Would I be able to install a firewire port into one of these computers so that I can capture DV Video?"

Yes, as long as it has PCIe slots, you should be able to buy a PCIe Firewire card and add it to the computer. This is what I had to do with my last build because most motherboards don't come with firewire ports anymore.

~jr

MadMaverick, Johnny Roy's computer suggestion is a good one. Not mentioned yet but good for reference - with the advent of SVP11, 12 & 13 are the newer Open CL class language for video preview and rendering. The newer Vegas versions require a graphics card language of CL 2.0 or higher. For what you are editing a fast chip and a good Radeon card as suggested will be killer. I took Old Smoke's advice and got an R9-390. Immediate RealTime previews at Full resolution for 1080-60p and 4K-60p (64mbps). And render's 4 times faster than my previous card would allow. SVP13 sings with a proper graphics card.
Finally, IMO, I hate RAID.
Merry Christmas!

CPU: Intel Core i5-6600 $304
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B150M-D3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard $125
Memory: 16G Kit 1600 (8Gx2) Corsair Vengeance $135
SSD: Samsung 960 EVO M.2 250G $179
HDD: Western Digital WD Black 2T $169
Video Card: 4G RX 460 Sapphire NITRO OC $189 (if your not doing any special effects you could go a Nvidia 2G GTX 750 Ti)
Case: DeepCool USB3.0 Tesseract $49
Power Supply: Antec NEO ECO II 80+ Bronze 550W $93
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit $129
Total: $1,372
+ $70 build fee

regards

my website

CPU: Intel Core i5-6600 $304
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B150M-D3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard $125
Memory: 16G Kit 1600 (8Gx2) Corsair Vengeance $135
SSD: Samsung 960 EVO M.2 250G $179
HDD: Western Digital WD Black 2T $169
Video Card: 4G RX 460 Sapphire NITRO OC $189 (if your not doing any special effects you could go a Nvidia 2G GTX 750 Ti)
Case: DeepCool USB3.0 Tesseract $49
Power Supply: Antec NEO ECO II 80+ Bronze 550W $93
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit $129
Total: $1,372
+ $70 build fee

regards

my website

That is a rather low spec computer for video editing. Nvidia cards are not recommended similar for i5 and the rather weak power supply. This might be good enough for HDV but 1080 60p XAVC-S won't do well on such a machine.

You guys are blowing me away with this new stuff. One of my friends in the AC business still uses DOS with Dot Matrix printers.

JJK

https://www.xoticpc.com/custom-gaming-laptops-notebooks-clevo-sager-notebooks-ct-95-51-162#!/dir=asc&limit=100&no_cache=true&order=price

No pre-installed garbage like most regular guys, and serious machines for not too much money.