XP Home or XP Pro for a computer doing video capture and DVD creation

[FulciLives]

Hello :)

I plan on building a new 2.0+Mhz P4 system.
This will be used mainly for video capture with the end result being the creation of a DVD.

So my question is ... which operating system is better?
Microsoft XP Home
or
Microsoft XP Pro

I know XP Pro is supposedly better but I'm worried about drivers working with it. I understand sometimes drivers that work well with XP Home don't always work well with XP Pro. At least that used to be the thing not too long ago when some devices would work well under Win98 but not Win NT etc.

I plan on using the Pinnacle Studio Deluxe capture card since it has both FireWire and analog inputs (I will probably be doing a lot of analog stuff) plus it isn't overly expensive and I've read some good things about it.

As for the DVD-R I intend to get the Pioneer DVR-A04 or the DVR-104 (I understand they are the same except one is the OEM version which I can purchase for like around $50 less).

So should I go for XP Home or XP Pro?

Thanks everyone in advance for any info!

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
I don't know how a video card affects video capture so if it makes any difference I'm leaning toward either an ATI 7500 or 8500 video card since I understand they have excellent TV out function which I imagine I will be using often (if for nothing else than my large collection of DivX Videos).

[Commander XJL]

XP Home is all you need, the systems are identical execpt XP Professional has more networking capabilities, nothing that matters to you so don't waste the money

[Qs]

well if you ever plan on building a dual cpu system, xp pro supports it, home doesn't.

[Commander XJL]

thats right xp pro only for duel systems

[FulciLives]

Hello :)

I recently read in one of the major PC magazines (I forget which but I think it was Computer Shopper) an article in which the author tested his own homemade Duel CPU computer (it was a duel AMD Athlon XP 2100+ I think) and found that it offered very little real world difference in performance and finally concluded that the extra money for a second CPU would be better spent elsewhere, such as in extra memory or a better video card or a more expensive HDD with an 8MB cache etc.

Of course this was with an AMD Athlon XP and not an Intel P4 so if that makes any difference I don't know ... also I don't recall what OS he used but since this article is fairly new I'm guessing it must have been Microsoft XP Pro since you guys say XP Home doesn't support Duel CPU's and why test the system with an older OS than XP?

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[tuco]

Originally posted by FulciLives
Hello :)

I recently read in one of the major PC magazines (I forget which but I think it was Computer Shopper) an article in which the author tested his own homemade Duel CPU computer (it was a duel AMD Athlon XP 2100+ I think) and found that it offered very little real world difference in performance and finally concluded that the extra money for a second CPU would be better spent elsewhere, such as in extra memory or a better video card or a more expensive HDD with an 8MB cache etc.

Of course this was with an AMD Athlon XP and not an Intel P4 so if that makes any difference I don't know ... also I don't recall what OS he used but since this article is fairly new I'm guessing it must have been Microsoft XP Pro since you guys say XP Home doesn't support Duel CPU's and why test the system with an older OS than XP?

- John "FulciLives" Coleman
Ummm....well if you are encoding videos then it will matter. Encoding is very processor intensive and besides real world performance doesn't include encoding videos :) Figure out what programs you are going to use and see if they support multiprocessors then decide based on that.