Need help with upgrading

[jaywestcwf]

This is probably gonna be lengthy... I apologize in advance.

I have been editing on a Pinnacle DV500 Plus with Premiere 6.0 since 2003. The machine I ran it on is ancient, has crashed more times then I can count, and, well, it's dead.

My girlfriend picked up a Black Friday special for me as a Christmas gift. It's an HP Pavillion that came with a 20" widescreen monitor, 2.1 ghz AMD Sempron, 3GB RAM, 320GB HDD, Windows 7, etc. for $400. Not an ideal setup for modern editing systems, but I didn't know that when I pointed it out to her in the circular, as I haven't kept up with the goings-on since my DV500 was doing just fine.

So here's my deal. I am an independant pro wrestling promoter. We crank out 3 or 4 DVD productions a year. These productions require more than I can do with consumer level products, but my new toy only meets the minimum requirements for CS4 and the like. I downgraded my HP to XP Pro SP2 but the DV500 still refuses to work.

I need the least expensive possible way to get up and going with this new HP. I don't mind staying downgraded to XP, but I'd like to be able to use Premiere (any version - I know I more than exceed the requirements for any version thru Pro 2.0), capture from analog sources, output to an external monitor in real time, and hopefully do some editing in real time. Basically I want to have the same functionality I had with my DV500.

Videoguys won't suggest anything they don't currently carry, and searching for reviews and comparrisons from God knows how many years ago, when I don't even know exactly what I'm looking for, is impossible.

Would a DV500 DVD work, or is it just a rehash of the original like the DV500 Plus was? I can't find any XP-era Canopus products, the XP-era Matrox stuff is still going used for $400-500, and the Pinnacle Studio products won't handle my workload.

I fear I may be expecting too much but you never know until you ask.

Thanks in advance!

[edDV]

Shall I assume your main source is DV?

This takes me back to around 2004. We had Pinnacle DC1000, DV500 and I had a DC30plus at home.
Last software combo I recall was Premiere 6.5 and Pinnacle Commotion 4 running on NT4.

Just looked up the latest driver software and came up with this.
http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSite/us/Products/Consumer+Products/Advanced+Video/DV5...ents&Display=1
Looks like they stopped at XP SP1, Premiere 6.5

Pinnacle driver software was always very touchy about exact OS and Premiere versions. Newer Premiere versions won't work. If you go this route, I suggest you do a dual boot and never go online from XP SP1. Just use it for the DV500.

Install Win 7 as the second boot for general computer use. I've got a Core2Duo, Win 7 machine running Premiere 6.5 with no problems but Adobe still requires registration. Be sure to upgrade the Mainconcept MPeg2 encoder to Beta1.3. Premiere 6.5 works fine for DV in and out using DirectShow drivers. Don't install the Pinnacle drivers in Win 7. Use a separate IEEE-1394 OHCI card for Win 7.

While newer versions of Premiere won't work with the DV500, they will work with a Canopus ADVC or similar for analog I/O through an IEEE-1394 port. CS3 and CS4 want more CPU than a 2.1 GHz Semperon, so look at Premiere Pro Version 2.0 aka CS2.

[jaywestcwf]

My main source is a pair of inexpensive Samsung camcorders that record straight to SD cards. They record in AVI, but I have yet to get any verson of Premiere to play or edit the files on the computer in question. I don't understand why since Premiere 6 does just fine with the files on my laptop. Anyway, the error I'm getting when I launch Premiere is that Instant Video RT failed to initialize. IVRT is a Pinnacle plugin that told Adobe to work with the DV500.

Plus I can't find a copy of XP SP1.