[HollyG]

I've been doing a lot of research on this and so far configured this system to run Adobe Premiere with. I'm pretty new to all this so I may be missing some important components.

Dell Precision 380 Workstation (this system is recommended by Dell for use with Adobe)
Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor 531, 3.00GHz, 1MB L2, 800MHz Microsoft Windows XP Professional, SP2 with media

NTFS File System

Hyper-threading feature preset to On can be disabled/enabled in BIOS

1GB, 533MHz, DDR2 SDRAM Memory, NECC, (2 DIMMS) (will probably increase it to 2 GB)

Desktop w/1394-Optical drives mounted horizontally in Desktop orientation (is mini-tower better?)

System comes with an Integrated Broadcom Gigabit Ethernet Controller (what is an Ethernet controller? does that have to do with networking another computer? I also want to keep my old system running with WINS 98 so I'll need to purchase a router that will work both with WINS 98 and WINS XP)

Broadcom NetXtreme 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet controller-PCI Express card (do I need this?)

C2 All SATA drives, RAID 0, 2 drive total configuration
All Systems include embedded SATA RAID capability. RAID 0 Raid 1 requires at least 2 drives
Boot drive: 80GB SATA, 7200 RPM Hard Drive with DataBurst Cache™

RAID Mixing of SATA/SCSI Hard Drives is allowed, but the 1st Hard drive or Boot Hard drive must be SATA When ordering RAID, all hard drives in the RAID must be exactly the same capacity, speed, and type

2nd Hard drive: 160GB SATA, 7200 RPM Hard Drive with 8MB DataBurst Cache

CD-ROM, DVD, and Read-Write Devices
(I always get confused with what these and the - and +'s, and RW and R's, and what the difference is between a DVD Rom and one that you can write to. I want to be able to use CD’s to save files/photos as I do with our current computer. As for DVD's I would think I'd need that too)

48XCD AND 48X CD-RW/DVD Combo w/ CyberLink PowerDVD™, No Media
CD-RW AND DVD+/-RW w/ Sonic software, CyberLink PowerDVD™, No Media (not sure which one)

64MB Dell™ USB 2.0 Hi-Speed Memory Key (Whats this?)

Graphics card: 64MB PCIe x16 nVidia Quadro NVS 285, Dual Monitor VGA Capable

Dell 19 inch M993 (18 inch viewable) Flat CRT (we’ll only be using 1 monitor)

This system comes equipped with Integrated HD audio. 1394 optimized system is required when selecting these cards (this Sound Blaster also confuses me. Someone said on a message board that the Sound Blaster causes problems with Adobe)

Sound Blaster* Audigy™ 2 (D) Card with a 1394a port,

Sound Blaster* Audigy™ 2 (D) Card AND 1394a Controller Card, or

1394a Controller Card (do I need the sound blaster? or is this enough?)

Thanks a bunch for your help.

[linskyjack]

No problem whatsoever---you wont need raid for editing DV--its really not necessary. Yes your ethernet controler is for your network connections and thus it will be used for the Internet. All routers will run XP and 98. Forget about the integrated audio for any serious audio editing (the forgotten element of video editing) Also, make sure you dont use the sound blaster for you firewire connection----lots of reported problems. Go with a seperate firewire card with a TI chipset.

Last but not least, Premiere 5.1 is not a very stable program----they didn't get it right until version 6.0 so if possible, UPGRADE.

[HollyG]

Thank you for your suggestions. I have not purchased Adobe yet which is why I'm trying to research as much as I can. You mentioned "integrated audio" but it says that this particular system comes with the Integrated HD audio. So you're saying skip all that 1394 stuff and the Sound Blaster card? You said I should go with a separate firewire card with a TI chipset? Is that something I order and install myself? Sorry, but I'm a little clueless with all this kind of stuff. I'm very good with using software and figuring out how to work things, but not with configuring a computer system. I've also gotten mixed opinions on the setup too, which seems to make it even more complicated than I thought it would be.

[linskyjack]

No, I would go for the sound card, not the integrated solution. What I was saying is that you should not use the firewire port on the sound blaster card to hook up your firewire drives or camera. Get a discrete card---one that has a couple of 1394 ports. You can check this one out for 50 dollars--has the TI chipset http://www.videoguys.com/pyro.htm (Scroll down its on the lower left hand side of the page here is the ad--Attention Avid editors: PYRO64/ PYRO PCI 64 / API-311 is one of the few Avid-Approved DV in/out PCI cards for your computer.

The OHCI-compliant card and cable work flawlessly with Avid XpressDV. It features the latest in chip technology from Texas Instruments and supports 64-bit PCI slots.

* Avid Approved for XpressDV 3.+
* 64 bit PCI compatible
* Capture and Edit Digital Video
* OHCI-Compliant
* Three external 1394FireWire ports
* Transfer data at 400 Mb/Sec.
* Connect to Hard Drives, Printers, Scanners, Cameras and more
* Card only - no additional 3rd party software

Pyro PCI 64 $50.00

You just throw it into an open slot, plug in your external drive, camera or tape deck and you are good to go.

Again, do not buy Premiere 5.1. You will be very unhappy. If you are going with an Adobe product, then do yourself a favor and get Premiere Pro 6.5 its much more stable and has many new features.) If you aren't committed to Adobe, then look at Vegas Video and DVD Architect. In my brilliant piece of software for video editing. Its rock solid. I just finished a piece for PBS using it exclusively

Again, its hard to recommend something when I am not sure what your final goals are. If you are merely going to edit home video, then you could go for a cheaper system and software. If you are going to cut your teeth and hope to become adept at editing, then the above should give you a good start and leave you plenty of room to develop your skills.