Eric,(posted 9107 days ago)Premiere and other same price-range options have their limitations, but hey -- for well under $10,000 -- I've got a system here that, with just a little bit of patience and a 2 or 3 week learning curve, can compete with at least a $30 - $45,000 Media 100 suite!
I work with Premiere 5.1., on a Dell 450 Pent II/128 mb ram, 30 gigs (more soon) of IDE IBM drive (sustains 15 - 20 mb sec), and -- the MIRACLE HARDWARE/SOFTWARE INTERFACE -- the Canopus DV Rex! It's an awesome system. Yes, you will probably want to break your longer projects up into 10:00 files, but they will string back together seemlessly in the timeline for your final composite output. (and you can work longer if you want -- you just need to factor in some extra application time here and there: I'm presently 23:00 into a 28:00 doc, all one file, and yes, my saves take a full minute -- but then, I have the luxery of shuffling and tweaking any of several hundred transitions/clips/ cuts to any point in the timeline (actually, let me check here... I have a total of "383" preview files going here (6 tracks of audio, anywhre from 1 to 4 layers of video, and some killer Boris FX title effects too!)
Anyhow it all looks great and is going to broadcast -- the only downside to Premiere 5.1, really is a GODAWFUL titling package; you'll want another app for titles.
E- me if you want to know more,
Brian Smith SouthPaw Digital (Northern Cal)
P.S. And let me add my name to the lonnngggggg list of ever-so-happy XL-1 users!!!