I hope this would be the right place to post this to be of any help.

There seems to be some confusion with what the buffer is and how 
it works with your system.

Just some thoughts to help.

WHAT IS THE BUFFER

The Buffer is set up so that the computer can store frames of your 
video for playback in advance.

If you have a 30 buffer then 1 second is being played from memory 
in advance, if you have a 300 frame buffer you have 10 seconds 
of video already proccessed and ready to play from memory.

This is why, with larger buffers, that you see the timeline cursor 
start to studder before it gets to a 3D transition or heavily 
filtered clip. The computer is porccesing the video in advance of the cursor.

WHAT DOES THE BUFFER DO FOR ME

When you have a clip with to many filters or a 3D transition 
which is not realtime or anything else that is to much for the 
CPU's to handle the buffer will continue to play smoothly, until 
it runs out, while the computer tries to proccess the heavy area 
and then catch up.

This is why, with enough buffer, that you are able to play short 
clips that are to heavily filtered or a 3D transition of 1 or 2 
seconds with out the jerky playback. The computer is able to 
renderout the bad area and start to catchup before the buffer 
is played out.

With a buffer of 3000 we could do some really cool things 
without having a frame drop.

HOW MUCH BUFFER SHOULD I HAVE?

While it is true the larger the better there are some things 
to remember.

If you have a really heavy filtered area that makes the Buffer 
fly very quickly from your max to 0 then it won't really matter 
how much buffer you have. It would just mean that your heavy 
area will play for a fraction of a secon more.

If you have an area of your video that is making the buffer 
drop slowly you will benefit greatly from the extra frames in 
your buffer because you will beable to get quite a few seconds 
of this clip playing before a dropped frame would occur.

RIGHT NOW....

In win2000, which is the main OS used with most of Canopus 
products, the two sweet spots are 384 Megs of RAM and then 
it jumps to a gig of RAM. With 384 you should get around 158 
Frames with a Gig you should get around 197 to 250 Frames 
depending on your harware (I know this seems like a huge span 
but this is what has been reported).

As memory has dropped I am sure that the configs with 2 gigs 
and more will be reported soon.


WHAT SETTING IN THE PROPERTIES SHOULD I USE

I always use the Auto setting. I have built over 300 hundred 
systems and I have NEVER had a problem with it.

There are a ferw however that have. The solution is simple if 
you can't boot.

Turn off the computer, take the Canopus card out, reboot and 
unistall the Rex/StormEdit proigram, trun off computer, 
replace card, reload software and pick one of the settings 
other than automatic. 


IN CONCLUSION

If you are creating videos without heavy filters and 3D 
transitions you have no need for huge amounts of RAM (keep 
in mind the RAM also helps other APPS to perform better) 
for buffers.

If your buffer never moves you will totally happy with the 
default of 30 frames (one second), if you do more and have 
times when frames are dropped at times alarger buffer could 
help you, if you are one who has to render almost everything 
because you are a filter junky all the buffer that be had 
todsay won't help :)

Everyone's needs are different so there is no one good answer 
to how much is needed, that you will have to decide on your own.