Hardware config question

[PAugustin]

Hi,

I need to edit a video, it will be basic stuff only, only moving scenes in the video. The video will be 2h long

The only computer I can dispose of are :

1- Duron 900Mhz / 512Mb PC100 / HDD IBM 120GXP 60Gb + old 20Gb 7200rpm

2- Duron 1,6Ghz / 256Mb PC2700 / HDD Hitachi 180GXP 60Gb


I know I will have a hard time on both machines, but which one will be the best for the job ?

A friend of mine told me to acquire the video (analog in) in separated files. Like recording the differente sequences and then putting the together as I do the work. He told me it will be easyer work.

What do you guys think ?

[Marshmallowman]

Yes doing the clips separately sounds like a good idea. Its easier to work with and should be a lot less problematic with analogue capture.

As to which computer to use thats a hard choice as it may depend on which software your using, but at an initial guess the 1.6 with faster memory may be marginaly faster.

But with the 2 hdd's and more memory the first might actually be faster, as you could use one HDD for source material and use the other HDD as the destination drive(would stop drive thrashing)

The main factors are what codec will you use to capture, what will be the final format as it may require a recompress and finally the software you have at your disposal.

[PAugustin]

Thanks Marshmallowman, being a total noob with video I have no idea about the codec. The thing is that I would like to burn a dvd afterwards, so it can be played on a regular dvd player.
The source material won't be of very good quality I guess.

Software can be Windows Movie Maker (looks easy to use ) or Premiere 6 (I could also borrow Premiere 7) .

If you have an idea about the best codec to use, you're welcome

Thanks a lot.

[Marshmallowman]

I think for best quality huffy would be the best codec, but it may be a bit impractical, but I do think it recompresses well into mpeg 1 OR 2.

Mjpeg (ala picvideo or marvel) is a good choice as it is easy on your procesor and does not lose to much quality, I think it recompresses to mpeg 1 or quite well to.

I am noyt sure wather direct compression mpeg 2 would work welll given your CPU, but it may be a possibilty if you can do it at high enough quality( that way you don't have to recompress)

I have not used either of those packages, so I think we should wait on some comments formsome of our more knowledgable members

[PAugustin]

OK thanks for the advice about the codec. I think I'll take mjpeg if it is easy on the processor
If anyone has a comment, please feel free

As the video will be cut into several pieces, I thought about VirtualDub ! Would it be good for this job ?