Terje A. bergesen
Forum Replies Created
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I have a 2GHz PC with 1G of memory, and that is plenty.
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Terje A. Bergesen -
Yes. Boris Red is another application that would probably benefit, at least preview wise, from the new breed of high-end graphics cards. New graphics cards have special processing capabilities for drawing polygons etc fast on your screen. This is great for any work in 3D and of course for 3D games. Most of them have few (if any) capabilities that are related to video editing though, which essentially consists of manipulating (a LOT of) relatively small, flat (2D) images.
Some cards have hardware support for MPEG encoding and decoding, but today this is relatively easy to do with the main CPU, so it is not needed. I expect that cards coming out in 2006 and on may have hardware support for H.264, which would be useful.
Other than this there is very little your card has that can improve your editing experience, except for one little thing. Support for multiple monitors and output to TV.
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Terje A. Bergesen -
Most digital cameras now have very good CCDs with a resolution that will meet most peoples needs. The difference between 7 megapixels and 8 megapixels is negligeable, even going to 10 or more is not going to be very noticeable unless you need to print large prints.
So, why a DSLR over a “regular” digital camera. Well, DSLRs have better optics. FAR better optics. This actually means significantly better images particularly in tricky (light etc) situations, which I guess you may find your self in occasionally.
I am a Canon person my self, and I shoot with a Canon DSLR, I have the A80 for snaps, and the family also has one or two other digital gadgets. The DSLR shoots pictures of FAR better quality in almost all situations.
You already have an investment in Nikon equipment, and Nikon makes terriffic DSLRs. With that in mind your best option is to go for a Nikon DSLR. Make sure your existing Nikon optics can be used on it, I am not sure how Nikon has handled that (being a Canon guy). I believe you will, over time, deeply regret going with Sony or equivalent.
In my, not too humble, opinion.
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Terje A. Bergesen -
That is partly true. Some high-end graphics cards, coupled with the video editing software you are using, will use the graphics card to speed up the display and rendering of some transitions and effects. This requires that your video editor has drivers for this functionality for the particular graphics card.
I think the most popular cards of this kind right now are the Matrox products, the X.10, X.100 and the Axio. They only ship with drivers for Adobe though, so you will have to use Premiere Pro to have any use for the card.
I do not think there are any hardware solutions out there for Vegas at the moment. For SD video, the hardware acceleartion is also of questionable value unless you need to do stuff in real time. There is nothing that these cards do that can’t be done in software, so the “only” thing you gain is the ability to do this in full quality, real time.
With people moving into HD editing, it seems reasonable to assume that hardware acceleration will again be more useful since the main CPU will have problems (to put it carefully) doing that stuff in real time full resolution.
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Terje A. Bergesen -
For Video editing, the graphics card is almost irrelevant (to exaggerate somewhat). There are some graphics cards, like the X.100 from Matrox, that has hardware assist for video editing. This is not supported by Vegas. This means that, by far, the most important thing for your video editing box is the CPU.
There are a few features that are good to have for video editing though. Multiple monitors is nice, the ability to do TV out is either nice or crucial, depending.
I use a Matrox Millennium card with two video outs. Very nice card. I am looking at building a new system and I am now considering getting one of the ATI cards, perhaps an All-in-Wonder version so that I can hook it up to my cable box and grab TV stuff…
If you want to play games, buy a card that gamers recommend. It will work fine for your video editing. I would not buy one that doesn’t support multiple monitors though. That is just too nice a feature.
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Terje A. Bergesen -
Also, do not forget that with newer TVs, you may also see what lies outside the “safe zone”. A 16:9 TV showing a 4:3 video for example, may show as much of your left and right of your video as you see on the computer. The top and bottom may still be cut a little bit.
With all the ways of watching your video these days you have to assume that everything you create will be seen, and treat the safe zone as what it is, the area of your video that most likely everybody will see, and therefore where you put everything that is relevant.
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Terje A. Bergesen -
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You shouldn’t really lose frames unless something is wrong. How are you capturing? The best way is, as Ed says, to use one of the Canopus products. I got a Pinnacle card which Vegas won’t capture using, but I can capture using Pinnacle and edit in Vegas. The card was quite cheap and works very well. No dropped frames and very little, if any, audio drift.
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Terje A. Bergesen -
All is as it should be. The proxy is just to be able to display the audio on the timeline.
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Terje A. Bergesen -
I think the USB-2 transfer is unique to the Panasonic camcorders. As I said, I have not tried print to tape, I finalize everything on DVD, but I will have to get my cam fixed though, but there is always a reason (this time it is Christmas) that I can not part with it for a couple of weeks 🙂
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Terje A. Bergesen