Is this the upgrade excuse I've been looking for?

[warmonger]

I have a 3 year old 600MHz PIII 128kb RAM 20Gb HDD with the usual 3 year old ports. Most of the stuff I do (ditigal photography and scaning)goes through the USB 1 ports. I know that my current PC system will do video editing and clip splicing - just that it does it very slowly.

I want to replace my 10 year old anaolgue very expensive Hi8 camcorder with a digital version. Most of them these days connnect to the PC through a firewire connection.

What is the best option for my system.

(i) Get a camcorder that will connect through a USB1 port? (do they exist? Can they transfer even short clips in under 8 hours?)

(ii) As I have 1 free spot left should I get a firewire card installed?
(will my old PC handle it?)

(iii) install a USB2 hub?

(iv) install a video capture card so that both the DV and old analogue camcorder can connect?

(v) buy a new computer as well as a new camcorder?

Option (v) is prefferred but I know it will be met with a counter attack from the other half saying "Well, if you have the money for both why don't you get me ..... (some hideously expensive item that I have no desire to play with)"

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[IceBlaZe]

Go IEEE1394 with a card is the economical option.

 

[warmonger]

Thanks IceblaZe. Do you think my old computer would handle the IEEE card?

 

[IceBlaZe]

I think it will handle the card, but I doubt the abilities of a 600Mhz/128MB computer to handle serious video editing.
Always look at the minimum requirements of the card and those of the editing program you intend to use, before you make any decisions.

 

[funxus]

20 GB HD is definetely not enough if you want to edit video without having to plan every single MB. The folder for my Video Editing program exceeds 24 GB, where most of it come from two clips, 1 h - 12,5 GB, and 30 min - 6,2GB.

I've begun thinking about buying an additional 120GB HD to my 120GB HD to fit in all the video from our holiday.

I also think you need a lot of RAM to conviniently edit videos, we have 512MB and 2m5 GHz, which works fine.

I don't know what's the difference between a camcorder and a videocamera. We have a DV camera, and use IEEE1394 to get the video in and USB for the digital photos.

 

[IceBlaZe]

20 GB HD is definetely not enough if you want to edit video without having to plan every single MB. The folder for my Video Editing program exceeds 24 GB, where most of it come from two clips, 1 h - 12,5 GB, and 30 min - 6,2GB.

He could use "Preview quality" for the editing, with real quality when he has the precise locations of the editing material on the tapes, and the editing is already done.
That way he could edit short movies without wasting too much space. But I too doubt 20GB a hard drive will be enough to edit a 60minute family movie, for example.

I've begun thinking about buying an additional 120GB HD to my 120GB HD to fit in all the video from our holiday.

I also think you need a lot of RAM to conviniently edit videos, we have 512MB and 2m5 GHz, which works fine.

256MB is usually enough, he is not rendering 3D movies.
But that depends on the kind of card he is buying too. Stronger cards need more RAM.

 

[warmonger]

Thanks guys for your help. My struggling system does a reasonable job of stitching together a 15 min sketch. I set it up clip by clip and then let it sleep on it. 8 hours or so gets it done.

Most of what I want to do is to transfer from DV tape onto CD for storage purposes. I'm better with the camera than I am with the computer so I'm reasonably adept at "in camera" editing

Funxus - How long does it take to defrag a 120Gb HDD?. I need to do this once or twice a week to keep things running smoothly and it still takes over an hour for the 5Gb of my 20 Gb that I actually use.

 

[funxus]

I haven't done that yet, I prefer reformatting when the computer starts to get annoying. Maybe I should try it next time, I could leave it overnight.