is this machine capable of HD editing?

[Bill Clark]

In my experience its either the OS or the RAM. The trouble with windows is that it is limiting on RAM. And I think Vista is awful. We still run XP pro SP3 on a XW8600 and everything runs fine – AE and AVID both at HD res. But we keep the programs open down. Try swapping to XP pro or upgrading the Vista to 7 premium. That’s supposed to be better. I believe you can get more RAM in with Windows 64 bit but I’m a bit out of touch. Mostly we use MacPros for everything now.

Bill Clark
Origami Films
http://www.origamifilms.com

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Kevin,

If you can, install a second internal SATA drive and keep all your video files and projects there; using the C: drive can hurt performance since Windows needs to constantly access the drive.

Jeff Pulera

[Kevin Sebastianpillai]

Hi Guys

Many thanks for that. I will add a 2nd SATA drive, sounds like an affordable solution. RAID sounds pricey and tricky.

I will also put in more memory and do a dual boot with Windows 7 64-bit to utilise it.

Couple of other things…

– my 2.33Ghz quad core…you reckon it’s not great bang for buck upgrading this? The newer quad core chips ain’t cheap let alone an i7

– GFX card: my ATI Radeon 3650 with only 256MB…is it worth considering a swap to nvidia? Am thinking in terms of stability as well as performance

Thanks

Kevin

[Brian Louis]

[Kevin Sebastianpillai] ” my 2.33Ghz quad core…you reckon it’s not great bang for buck upgrading this? The newer quad core chips ain’t cheap let alone an i7″
To get any significant boost you would need to goto a 2.8 or 3 gig processor (20-25%)($250-$300) without going to a i7 which would intail a new mobo and memory also, you could probably overclock your current processor abit if your mobo could handle it and squeeze 10-15% out of it with no problems.

[Bob Dix]

Your set up exceeds CS4 specs, I am surprised you have a problem.We have problems with MOV. H.264 files 1920 x 1080p about 25 mb for 4 secs. But, when opened in Premiere Elements and Exported to Movie as avi files and re-imported to Premiere Pro, it may be slow to render but, the result is very smooth Exported to Tape. Anyhow, they tell me CS5 is out soon to solve all problems in Premiere, as I believe many of the problems are there

Freelance Imaging & Video
AUSTRALIA

[Kevin Sebastianpillai]

Thanks for all the replies guys…the way forward for me is an additional hard drive, new OS and more RAM.

RAID and a new chip are sadly too pricey/fiddly I think.

Best