Which O/S? Your opinion...

[daamon]

Hi,

I'm in the process of getting a new PC built for me. It's based around a P4 3.0GHz (800FSB) with 1Gb PC3200 DDR RAM.

It'll mainly be used for capture from a miniDV cam, edit and encode for author to DVD (full DVD MPEG2). I shall also (hope to) be doing capture from VHS VCR.

Which, in your opinion, would be the best operating system? I've a choice of either Win2K Pro or WinXP Pro.

I'm particularly interested in terms of support for video capture / edit / author, as well as security etc.

If WinXP Pro is recommended, do you have any views on SP1 over SP2? I've seen some negative comments about SP2...

if you need any more info, I'll try to provide it. Thanks...

[pijetro]

Which, in your opinion, would be the best operating system? I've a choice of either Win2K Pro or WinXP Pro.

I would personally let the applications dictate that..Premiere PRo for example, requires WinXP..
Otherwise, for majority of apps, Win2K should be good enough..

I'm particularly interested in terms of support for video capture / edit / author, as well as security etc.

You've got a melting pot here..
Support for video capture, edit, and autour should be fine with either O.S.
As far as security goes, i was under the impression that there's a lot more holes in XP than in Win2K..

Otherwise, i'd personally disconnect internet use for this 'puter..
Leave it for your old one..

If WinXP Pro is recommended, do you have any views on SP1 over SP2?

It's pretty well common knowledge to stay away from SP2, until the near future..

Good luck!!

[bazooka]

Go with Xp pro.

Microsoft is trying to get people off of 2k.

I run SP2 with no problems.

[bazooka]

As far as security goes, i was under the impression that there's a lot more holes in XP than in Win2K..

Uh......No....

Xp is a tweaking and improvement over 2k. They both share the same core.

2k has just as many holes if not more.

The 2k source code was recently leaked.

2k is about to reach the end of it's support cycle.

Microsoft has already stated they will only patch Internet Exploder on XP which leaves 2k users in the cold.

Microsoft is trying to get the 2k users to switch to XP.

[gcutler]

Both XP and 2k are very good OSes, but XP will be supported longer than 2k will (since obviously 2K is older), that alone is reason to goto XP.

[redwudz]

XP Pro. I know it's extreme bloatware, buts that's why they make really big harddrives.

[lordsmurf]

XP PRO

[vitualis]

XP Pro and there is no reason not to use SP2 on a new PC.

If you really can't stand all the UI enhancements, then turn them off and your system will look just like Win2K. IMHO, some of the UI enhancements are actually pretty good/useful for a multimedia centred PC.

Regards.

[Harryford]

you could always get fedora 2....why not its free

[bazooka]

you could always get fedora 2....why not its free

I have a dual boot Fedora 2/Xp Pro Sp2 system.

[Hardcoreruss]

XP PRO

[yoda313]

Hello,

Better to go with the newer full system - pro. I use win 2000 but will get winxp when I eventually buy a new pc.

Kevin

[LSchafroth]

Go woth XP Pro. Once you remove all the GUI candy and tweak it's services and etc, it's just as fast as W2K was if not faster.

you can also remove about 1Gb or more of space by removing uneeded stuff from XP.

LS

[jimmalenko]

XP Pro SP2

[Bodyslide]

XP Pro, and large hard drives.....

[mats.hogberg]

Gotta say XP Pro, even if it's still W2k with added bells and whistles. Let's say it's more pleaseing to the eye, and looks more "modern". I'd love to say Linux, but for this business, the software support is scarce, and the encoders and stuff there is, runs at about half the speed compared to their Windows counterparts...

/Mats

[Dr. DOS]

XP with "Best Performance" set in the \ control panel \ system \ advanced \ Peformance Settings

[sacajaweeda]

I haven't had any reason to upgrade from Win2k yet. If and when that day comes I guess I'll have to. So far so good.

[Capmaster]

XP Pro SP2

[Garibaldi]

XP Pro has more networking support, probably not something that will affect your video editing but is nice to have just incase your computer setup changes in the future. I wouldn't upgrade to SP2 just because its not worth the risk, the security features that it offers can be mostly compensated for with a good firewall, and a suite of anti-virus/spyware cleaners.

What size hdd are you thinking of getting? I would highly recommend getting a big one, even a 200 GB isn't that expensive anymore. Its worth it when dealing with captured video, especially when you come from a vhs tape and have several hour captures. Will your capture program capture directly into mpeg 2? That might be worth looking into too, mine does and it makes it so much easier for transfering vhs to dvd- just capture, edit, author, and burn.

[timmyp]

XP Pro with SP2.

I've had zero problems with any apps related to video capturing/editing/converting/whatever after applying SP2.

[indolikaa]

Run 'em both. Like 'em both. SP4 on W2K, SP1 on XP Pro.

[ZAPPER]

XP PRO But what do I know. You can run it as is straight out of the box or tweek the hell out of it, it is still pretty good. If you got big balls you can try both if you can get them to work on the same machine. I think that XPpro will be more compatible and more prone to service upgrades

[daamon]

@ All - Many thanks for all the responses and info.

As it's a new PC, my inclination is to go for XP Pro SP2 and then install all my required software afterwards. Hopefully, that way, there'll be no issues...

Thanks again.

[rkr1958]

If you don't own either one yet I'd go with XP Pro SP2. However, if you already have W2K but not XP Pro I'd stay with W2K. I'm currently running W2K. For me, it just not worth the extra $100+ to upgrade to XP Pro.