[Devin]

Thanks for all of the info so far; I’m starting to get an understanding for what to look for. And yes, I’m calling the DVStorm the “encoder board”. As far as I understand, Premiere Pro 2.0 works with any OCHI-compliant card. So, Aanarav, when you say that the DVStorm is no longer supported in 2.0, does that mean that it won’t work at all so I should just throw my DVStorm in the garbage? I will need to not only digitize DV/DVCAM footage via firewire but also have S-Video and composite inputs and outputs and also be able to encode MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 files in realtime (using a separate application). Hopefully I’m explaining what I’m looking for well enough. Thanks again.

[Devin]

Well I guess money is always a big factor! I don’t want to say that money is no object, but I’m always of the mind to spend a little more $$ to get a better/faster product (within reason). I’m hoping to spend around $2000-2500 including computer and monitor, encoder board and possible upgrades to v2.0 for Premiere and Encore. I haven’t had many problems with the Dell although I think Premiere would run a lot faster and better on a new system. I tried a HP Media Center PC several months ago but it wouldn’t run Premiere at all — it rebooted upon program start (it had something to do with the on-board audio system conflicting with Premiere) that I could only resolve by disabling the audio in the BIOS (which obviously didn’t do much good for video editing) so I finally gave up and went back to my old system. Any computer brands you could recommend or system specs for a Dell? Thanks again.