Will this setup work?

C

cdpaiva

Will Sony Vegas Pro 10 run on an HP laptop with these specs:
Intl Core i3 M330
4 GB RAM
64-bit OS

I'd be getting video from a Canon t2i DSLR and audio from a Tascam DR-100.

Would I need a sound card and video card for my laptop? Or extra storage to store all the clips I'll be collecting? And if I could throw this in, what size memory cards should I get for the DSLR and recorder?

Thanks a bunch. If I sound like I don't know what I'm talking about, it's because I don't :)

(I plan on getting all this stuff so I can get serious and make a decent portfolio for film school! If I get accepted somewhere when the time comes, I'll buy a Mac desktop and solve a lot of problems.)
 
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yes, it will physically run but you will find that because the t2i .mov's are in h.264, vegas may stutter playback, making it hard to watch what you have edited. you will need a sound card to properly hear the audio if youre using a tascam DR-100 then you might as well stretch and get a good sound card. audio is quite important. For medium projects you might want to get 2 or 3 32Gb cards class 10 or higher (i think its called class) the i3 is quite fast but may still struggle with the HD video. make sure you have quicktime player installed and the appropriate codecs or you will not be able to import your videos into the timeline. i dont know how much storage you have so cant say wether to get more but 1-2 TB will be enough
hope this helps :)
 
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cdpaiva said:
That definitely helped. Do you know what editing software is best for DSLRs?
Click to expand...

It's mostly a question of RAM. I had 4GB RAM, running CS5, and it stuttered. When I upgraded to 8GB, smooth sailing.

That is if you're running DSLR footage in it's native state. If you convert it with neoscene, your setup will handle it just fine. The downside to this conversion is that it requires significantly more storage space.
 
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I did a lot more researching on these forums and I don't think my laptop will be able to handle footage form a DSLR. I'm waiting one more year until I go ahead and get an iMac, and when that happens I'll get a DSLR if I still want one. For now, I have two decent camcorders that I can use, although I still want to use the Tascam DR-100 audio with mic inputs. So now I have two questions for the very few people who will see this.

1. What's a good, standard editing program that will run on a PC? I'm thinking either Sony Vegas or Adobe Premier. Whichever is cheaper.

2. Will I need to get an external hard drive to store all the files I'll be uploading? What about video cards and sound cards?

I guess that's three questions. I'm asking because this summer I'm going to start building a portfolio for film school applications. After looking online at the short films that got accepted into USC and NYU, I completely understand that admissions panels look more for creativity than quality. But I'm going for both.
 
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I think you're making a wise decision. Best bang for your buck, in my opinion is the least expensive version of Vegas. It's something like $45. Best part is that you can download a fully-functional trial. Premiere Elements is $80 and it also has a free trial. So try them out and decide for yourself. I like Premiere, but I've never used Elements.

Will you need an external hard drive? I dunno. Depends on how large your current hard drive is, how much space is free on it, and how much footage you plan on putting on it. One thing to keep in mind with storage -- and they never tell you this when selling the computer -- just pretend your hard drive is half as large as it actually is. You should never fill a hard drive beyond 50% capacity. Performance will slow down significantly if you do.
 
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Thanks Cracker Funk :)

So you think getting the audio recorder is still a good idea? I figured that I can keep using it even when I upgrade my camera. Besides, the pros do audio and video separately, no? I have this crazy idea in my head that my laptop will only be able to edit sound coming from an audio recorder if it has a sound card. Someone tell me that isn't true lol.

The only reason I can think of getting Adobe Premier over Sony Vegas is that if I eventually get the DSLR, I'll be somewhat accostumed to CS5 since it's in that line.

And as far the external hard drive, I think I'll skip on it until I need it.

Thanks everyone for all the help.
 
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Oh, I thought you already had the audio recorder. Is it still a good idea? Well, it never hurts to go for better quality. However, most people with camcorders plug a mic into the camera. Do the pros record audio and video seperately? Depends on which pro you talk to. I think most mid-level production studios prefer recording it in-camera, whereas the big-budget studios would record seperately. If you can get a quality connection to your camera, you might prefer that, for the time being.

You won't have any issues editing audio on your laptop.

Vegas vs Premiere? Just try them out. It's free. Decide later. It's not really an issue to worry about getting accustomed to one or the other. Once you've learned one, it's pretty darn easy to cross-over to the other. Also, don't confuse CS5 with Premiere Elements. I would have to assume that making the switch from Vegas to CS5 would be not significantly more difficult than making the switch from Elements to CS5.

Hard drives are cheap. Get one if/when you need it.
 
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I'm straying from my original post and asking loads of questions because I know at least one person is listening, BUT

The camcorders I have are both standard video. One writes to a memory card and the other writes to a dvd drive. They belong to my parents, and I was under the impression they were HD until I found out they weren't. I'd really like to get an HD camcorder. I really like Canon's Vixia line. I'd be willing to drop $600 less on one of those. Any recommendations?

I think that's my last question for now. I'm open to any advice. Thanks again.
 
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I just checked craigslist and there are a couple GL2 camcorders available in my area ranging from $650 to $999. Just throwing that out there to see if that changes your suggestions.
 
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