Chillpie - Yes, I mean editing software and any other programs necessary to get the camera's footage editable in said software. So you're saying that Premiere Pro doesn't require any sort of conversion?
I don't believe it's all versions of Premiere, but I don't know when this started. I could be wrong, but I think it's only CS5?
Anyway, I suspect this might not be your best option. Just because it can handle it doesn't mean it can handle it well. I edit DSLR footage in CS5. I have a 3GB dual-core processor, 4GB RAM, 2TB internal storage, and a modest video card. My computer just barely is able to handle the footage, and it gets jumpy after just a few seconds. I wouldn't want to use a computer any less powerful than what I've got. If your computer is a laptop, running Windows Vista, I have to suspect that your computer isn't as powerful as mine. In addition to the aforementioned specs, it's also pretty important to have a hard drive with 7200 RPM, and when Vista was being made, I believe most hard drives were 5400 RPM. I think Neoscene is going to be your best bet (no, I'm not aware of a free alternative). If money is an issue, perhaps the lower-priced Sony Vegas is a good idea (even the $50 version is decent software).
Cool - how does it connect to your computer? USB (v3 aside) isn't really fast enough to run HD video through for editing purposes. Firewire 400 is good, FW800 and eSATA better still.I do also have an external 2 TB HD which is 7200 RPM...
This is the one: http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=11270
It's uses eSATA and FW800.
So do you think editing my footage is doable on my PC?
Unless you have a very slow internal HDD it probably makes sense to install your NLE on the system drive.Stupid question, but is it most effectve to install the NLE onto the external HD and also use it as a scratch disk, or simple use the drive as the scratch disk?
When it comes to choosing a video codec, it's basically a trade-off between any two of size, quality and complexity. Files straight off a DSLR are fairly small in size and high in quality (for the purposes of this explanation) but the nature of the compression means that they take a lot of processing power to decode and play back. By transcoding into an editing codec like NeoScene, AIC or ProRes, you exchange size for complexity. File sizes are much larger, but it's less complicated to decode and re-encode (when rendering) and so everything runs more smoothly.What exactly does NeoScene do? I've heard about it, but I'm not 100% on it. My computer is pretty crappy (2Gb RAM, Dual Core processor), editing HD is almost impossible. Will NeoScene actually aliviate this? I understand the files it outputs are huge, but are they still HD? And will this allow me to import the footage into an NLE and actually work with it, even on my PC? And what about when you come to render the final video? Does it take significantly longer?