Is my PC up to editing video?

jackieblack

I would like to edit some holiday videos on my PC but would need to buy and install a firewire card. Before I do this I'd like to know whether my PC is up to the job. It runs Windows XP (SP2), has AMD Athlon 1900+ (1.6GHz) processor, 256Mb RAM and 40GB Hard Drive (about half full but I could have a 'clear out' and get rid of some stuff if needed).
Any advice appreciated!

LuciferTDark

Editing video on your machine will be a painful process, slow Processor, not much Ram & way too little HD space. You can probably get away with the Processor & Ram but you really need as much HD space as you can afford to add.

penrhyn

I'm surprised you can do much with your PC with that amount of RAM, you need at least 512Mb or more for XP to run properly and not constantly swapping files to and from your HDD.

ormus

it will certainly do the job, but itll be painfully slow.
as been said, get some more ram (1gb ?) and a second/bigger hdd (min 80gb), the bigger the better. i would use the second hdd purely for video editing/storage.
or at least partition a single large hdd and use the second partition for the videos.

ie a typical 30 min video can take anything up to 10gb.

jackieblack

thanks for the replies folks (some more constructive than others),

LuciferTDark, that's pretty much what I thought, I can transfer most of what is currently stored on the PC to an external hard drive, and store edited video on there as well, do you think this would suffice?

Penrhyn, thank you for your comment, but I can assure you that the PC has run Windows XP perfectly well for the last 6 years.

ormus would connecting an external HDD have the same effect as a second HDD?

Of course 'slow' is a relative term, given that I am used to the speed of this PC how 'painful' would it actually be?
Also is one of these component factors any more significant than another?

I work in a primary school and edit video there on a PC that is much newer, with a faster processor (2.8GHz) but the same RAM and HDD as my own. Is the processor speed the most significant factor in the equation?

I have been vaguely thinking about replacing this PC with something newer and whizzier, but am put off by Vista. Also, I don't know if it's worth changing it just for the small amount of video editing I'll be doing, and it works fine for what I currently use it for (mainly emails and web browsing).

Any advice anyone?

jackieblack

What I'd really like to know is how much spec is actually necessary and how much is 'desirable if possible'.

For example, I don't need a Bentley Continental to get me from home to work (although it would be nice), my 10 year old Nissan gets me there, not in as much comfort, but it gets the job done!

spakkker

Hi, cpu speed is the main thing, imho, a bit more memory will help but its a law of diminishing returns, if you don't put a stopwatch on it you may not notice any difference. Try not to do anything else while you are processing vid. for best success. I think you have the necessary- what is desirable ?- they have overclocked some old gen pentium cpu's to over 8 GHZ and its poss. to deliver bb at a dvd per second.

penrhyn

Your PC needs more memory to do video editing, it ain't going to be very fast but memory is cheap, and is the single element that will improve your machines performance. 256Mb is just enough for windows XP to run with not much room for programmes. What you will notice is an awful lot of harddisk activity as information is swapped from RAM to your HDD slowing the system down.
You don't need more that say another 512Mb, and this can be got for around £20.00

http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/drammemory.aspx

You may also want to clear the accumulated rubbish off your hard drive with cleaner and also de fragment it.

xJonny

It depends on how demanding the video editing program is and the what video you are editing, e.g. if it is a 2 hour one it may require more speed or it would take ages.

There isn't a minimum specification, but at current it would probably work quite slow - the processor is the more needed since it does all the hard work, but you'd want decent ram otherwise it'd freeze and so on.

jackieblack

I'd only be editing films of about 30-40 mins, using Windows Movie Maker.

amcluesent

>I'd only be editing films of about 30-40 mins, using Windows Movie Maker.<

I find using WMM just OK on a 2.4Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 320GB disk PC. You'll have time to watch a DVD while it writes the finished file. IMHO any series multi-media work needs a dual-core CPU or you'll go mad.