PC Requirements for Digital Camcorder

tonymc

As our PC is on it's last legs, I am looking at replacing it. In addition, we are also looking at purchasing a digital camcorder, probably early next year.

In order to ensure that I can at least download from the camcorder onto a DVD, can anyone outline the minimum system requirements I will require to do this i.e. firewire if no USB connection, mimimum RAM requirements, processor speed etc etc.

Thanks for any assistance.

r32

This is a difficult answer to give as ultimately the best advice is set yourself a budget and get the best you can for that money.

From my own video editing experience I can offer a bit of advice of what to look for though:

1. Most (if not all) digital camcorders will need a firewire connection to the PC. You can buy addon firewire cards for as little as £5, so its not an expensive option. The camcorder will probably say it has a USB connection, but that is usually used for getting the still images off the camera rather than the actual video footage.
   
2. For video editing, the hard disc will probably be the the most important link in your system, so you want the fastest you can get. For the best performance, you will want a system which supports a RAID setup of your hard discs.I have two discs setup in a raid 0 configuration (basically both discs act as one and share the workload) and even then I wish they were faster! So worth considering buying 2*250GB discs rather than one 500GB if you see what I mean. If your disc isn't fast enough to keep up with capturing your digital video from the camera, you will find it 'drops frames' meaning stuttering video.
   
3. Also on the disc topic, think lots and lots of disc space..as a guide around an hours footage will be 15GBish. Then for editing you will need at least that much again as you are playing around with the video.
   
4. Memory + Processor, well just get the best you can afford. Memory is pretty cheap nowadays so get a minimum of 1GB and more if you can afford.

Hope that helps.

insane

try this site its free! https://www.gadgetdetective.com put up a post pretty reliable information and advice