How much computing power HDV?

Hi, I have recently bought a Sony FX1 HDV camcorder and am now looking at buying a suitable computer to edit HDV footage. Can anyone advise me on what I need, I have Premier elements 3, what proccesor? how much ram? what graphics and sound card? Has anyone had dealings with Dell computers? are they any good? I can use a computer but dont have much knowledge about hardware so any help would be appreciated.

Some of the system minimum requirements for Adobe Premiere Elements 3.0 are:Pentium 4 3GHz processor required for HDV
compatible processor with SSE2 support
Windows XP with Service Pack 2
1GB required for HDV
1,024x768 monitor
Dual-core processors and those with Hyper-Threading Technology is supported and most people seem to reccomend it.

Plenty of hard drive space.

I don't think it will make any difference on the graphics and sound card.

I have never owned a Dell. My last three computers have been HP.


Rich

Can you tell me what a processor with SSE2 support is?

SSE2 is a feature which I believe comes with all newer computer CPU's, but I could be wrong, you need it for the software to operate properly and it is usually listed in the computer specifications. I believe the SSE2 instruction set is included with Intel Pentium 4 and later processors, and with AMD Athlon 64 and later processors.

Here is a more technical explanation if you need it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSE2




Rich

Hi, I have recently bought a Sony FX1 HDV camcorder and am now looking at buying a suitable computer to edit HDV footage. Can anyone advise me on what I need, I have Premier elements 3, what proccesor? how much ram? what graphics and sound card? Has anyone had dealings with Dell computers? are they any good? I can use a computer but dont have much knowledge about hardware so any help would be appreciated.

Have had excellent experience with 3 Dell laptops and one desktop. Ok results with IBM laptops and very bad experiences with Sony and Compaq laptops (ancient history).

For a dual cpu PC I would probably go for 1.5GB to 2 GB of memory to allow more stuff to run at one time. Also consider that single processor PC's don't multitask efficiently - if you're doing much other "stuff" while rendering, expect to see run times go up significantly. :(

Integrated graphics cards, and low end cards will share video memory with the CPU's. This shouldn't afffect performance unless of course you'll be playing Oblivion or some other video game while rendering! :) The graphic's card will also determine how many DVI and/or VGA monitors one can use at a time, and also may limit the resolution of each. If you think you may want to use two 24" LCD displays, you'll want a card with two DVI ports. If on the other hand you already own two VGA monitors, then you'll want a different card. Also consider if you'd like to have an HDTV monitor - many of the mid-line and higher models include HDTV output.

Regards,
Greg

Thanks guys, thats a big help. :)