Re: Will Video Editing on a PC ever truly work?

I hate to sound preachy, but you really need to buy a Mac Pro. I edited video on a PC for over 10 years and I hated it. When I switched to Mac almost every issue vanished. Leopard is such a stable OS that you run into so many fewer issues it is great! Plus its just more fun to use.

Windows Vista is bad for hardcore editing because Vista has horrible memory management so you get tons of issues and errors when running out of memory. Under Mac OSX you can edit a full length movie on just 4GB of ram and still be running quite well, although I upgraded to 12GB of Ram since more is always better in the RAM department.

If you don't want to switch then I would recommend Vista 64 bit, but you should also consider at least 6-8GB of Ram. Vista has horrible memory management and it takes up way to much system memory. If you want things to run smoothly then you need the extra memory.

For your non-pro purposes you should not need a Matrox card. With a quad core processor and enough Ram you should be able to see most transitions and effects in near real time. Don't waste your money. Save up for a Mac, there is a reason most video editors use them, they are great!