* * Good Eve All :>) My PC is an aging Dell with a a 600 megahertz Intel Pentium III 32 kilobyte primary memory cache 512 kilobyte secondary memory cache. Dell Dimension XPS Pentium 3, 598 MHz , 384 RAM, a 80 GB & a 20 GB HARD DRIVE, with Win XP Home Edition I also have a PIONEER DVR-A05U & I just ordered Nero 6 Ultra. If I were to upgrade my PC, what should I upgrade to to be able to copy, edit with ease & send my old VCR tapes to DVD quickly & above all be able to get quality DVD's within an hour per tape (no counting editing time) is this possible? Thank you for you valuable time, Meliy :>) * *
Well these days you shouldn"t have anything slower than a 2.0ghz PC with 512mb of Ram so do any Video Type Work.... You could Get a New 2.93ghz Celeron D CPU with a New Soyo Motherboard Right now on TigerDirect for $69(Canadian) which would be Plenty of Speed and all you would Need Becides this is say 512mb of Ram which would cost about another $70 so for about $150 you could Upgrade from your Lowly 633mhz to 2.93ghz for about $150 if you did the Upgrade yourself which is not very Difficult if you have a technicaly oriented Mind..... Cheers
@ Melly: You didn't mention what type of Video card you have. If you have onboard video, it probably won't handle fast video too well. You might need to add a decent video card to that upgrade. Also, in addition to the power supply fan & the CPU fan, make sure your computer case has a cooling fan. CPU usage is very intense when processing video, which generates a lot of heat. Also, you never mentioned how you intend to capture the VHS video from your VCR for processing. Minion could probably recommend a decent integrated video/video capture card.
You can't capture video faster than realtime, so a 2 hour VHS tape is going to take 2 hours to capture. If no editing is involved, you can add between 5 and 30 minutes for authoring (depending on complexity of your menu structure, and software used), and 10-20 minutes for burning. You would have to capture directly to mpeg-2, otherwise you're adding between 30 minutes and 40 hours (per hour of video) to encode it, again depending on computer speed, and software used. I would upgrade to (at least) a Sempron/Celeron of about 2 ghz or more, preferrably an Athlon/Pentium of at least 3 ghz or more. 1 gig of RAM. 2 SATA hard drives (one for the OS and programs, the other for captures)
* * Thanks for your input everyone I think I hear you all loud & clear. This PC sucks! I won't even mention my video card because I know it is obsolete & I am being kind when I say that. :>( Instead of buying a new PC in January 2005 (tax return time) I decided to purchase a cool Lap Top and keep this PC relic to use for storage & such. Since I love anything to do with photography including video. The extra storage will be useful. After searching the web for info on the best way to send my old VCR tapes to DVD edited & labeled of course. I must say I am confused. I have always dreamed of building my very own kick butt PC. But before I decide to give up the Lap Top plan I need to know a few things. If I have a kick butt PC is it possible to: 1. load any video (ancient or new) to my PC If so what would be the most dependable hardware will I need to accomplish this task? I don't mean the most expensive either as I know sometimes it is not necessary to buy the latest or the most expensive but of course other times it is very important to buy the best &/or the most expensive. 2.) edit and label etc. any video tape (ancient or new)? If so what is the best software for this task? 3.) copy the finished work to a DVD that will play on any DVD player or on any PC that has a DVD reader? What will I need to accomplish this task? 4.) get DVD's with clear, smooth video? What is the pros & Cons of a Pentium 5 & the latest Anthlon? What is the options for the BEST Video Card.(ancient or new) Thanks, Melly :>)
1.) This is dependant on software, not hardware. 2.) There are lots of editors, from ones that do simple cuts, to ones that do amazing things. How much money do you want to spend? They run from free, to thousands of $. 2b.) Labelling is also software controlled, with your printer. 3.) You need a DVD burner, which (usually) comes with the burning software. To get them to play in ANY player is impossible. You can only hope to get them to play in most, and there are standards in place. Encode, edit, author, and burn your disks properly, and they'll play in most. 4.) This is probably the most difficult. Start with an extremely good source, and you can do it with cheap hardware. Start with a blurry source (VHS tapes), and it requires much more work, as well as money. The AMD Athlon 64 (not Sempron) is the best "bang-for-the-buck". A comparable Intel will cost double, and is not necessarily any faster or better. You're going to need a capture device of some sort. Any video card with 128 meg of onboard RAM (or more) should do. From the Radeon 9xxx series, or Geforce Ti/MX series will do nicely. You don't need a $600 XFX card to do what you want.
Melly... Build your own... It´s easier than you think!! Look at www.pricewatch. com Recommend ABIT motherboards, 1GB memory, 80 or 120 GB hard drive, ATI video card, ATHLON XP 2600+ and/or 3000+, SONY DL DVD-R +R +RW recorder, and yes...how´s your budget... Why build your own? BECAUSE YOU KNOW WHAT´S IN THERE...IT´S NOT PROPRIETARY AND BEST OF ALL YOU CAN DO WHATEVER YOU WANT WITH IT, YOU BUILT IT, YOU CAN TAKE IT APART, AND REDO IT AS MANY TIMES YOU WANT. IT´S EASIER THAN YOU THINK!!! Don´t buy nothing from COMPU-TERRA they are crooks. n0v0n every rule has an exception...
* * Hello rebootjim :>) Looks to me like you covered everything! Now I will start shopping & investigating the software I will need. I also think I need to do some studying. The hard work was making up my mind to buid from the ground up. That done I am excited about the oportunity. Thanks for your help, Melly :>)
* * Thanks n0v0n :>) I will watch www.pricewatch. com & keep all else you suggested in mind. Most of all thanks for the enthusiastic factual post, it was just whatI needed to remnd me how exciting it will be to build a PC that will be a perfect fit for ME & do it all myself. I have dreamed of doing this for some time. I feel ready to do this now. Thanks again, Melly :>)
