More computer questions...

[AZhitman]

Well, I have come to learn that my NICO brothers are pretty savvy when it comes to computer-related things, I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer on such matters, and you guys have always hooked me up with good info in the past, so here goes:

Last week my old HP Vectra PII 333mHz POS was giving me fits, so I upgraded. Keeping in mind that I've been out of work since September 5, I wanted to keep things cheap, so I had a PC built - Not exactly the system I wanted (no flaming please), but here's what I got for $300:

AMD Athlon K7 1300mHz with a K7S5A Pro Mainboard, 512 MB, Memorex CD burner, 7 USB ports, blah blah blah.

Here's what I need to do to it to use it for what I want - I want to do some video editing from analog to DVD (I have tons of 8mm and Super8 of the kids). I currently have the Voodoo vidcard, so i know I need a new one, and I need one with analog vidcapture capability.

I'm considering the ATI All-in-Wonder 9000 pro, since I hear it has the capture card, good video capability and editing software. Any thoughts or suggestions?

I'll also need a DVD burner that does all formats of DVD and CD - Thoughts or suggestions?

I also think I'd like to pull the 2 SIMM (?) 256 MB and upgrade to 1G of DIMM RAM. Any thoughts / suggestions?

Finally, instead of trying to move all the saved crap from my old PC's HD, I just installed that HD as a second drive on my new PC. I want to give the old PC to my son to play games and do homework on, so I need a really cheap, small-capacity HD for it. Again, suggestions?

Keep in mind I need to stay as low-budget as possible... TIA for your advice and help.

[MasterMan]

http://www.pricewatch.com

get all ur stuff there or http://www.newegg.com

uhh u dont need a gig of ram, unless your gonna be using 3D sudio max or somthing, just get 512 and u will be fine..

im too lazy to tell u what to get right now ill respond back later

[Demonic240]

Any of the ATI AIW Cards are very nice to use for Video Manipulation @ the home level.

As far as burners, I'd get a Plextor DVD +/- RW Drive ... nothing tops a Plextor IMO

And, as far as adding more ram, usually what Master Man is saying is definately correct, but i think its going to depend on actually how big these files are going to get when converting them from, it may be avantageous to upgrade to 1 gig, I'll let other comment on this.

As far as low budget HD's the seagate 40GB drives are about 60 bucks, aren't going to get much cheaper then that.

I definately agree with newegg.com ... very nice prices, excellent customer service, veru top notch place ...

[lessthanjakejohn]

http://www.tomshardware.com

this is the DVD article to read http://www.tomshardware.com/st....html

[lessthanjakejohn]

http://www.doom9.org/

[lessthanjakejohn]

http://www.hometheaterforum.co...34250http://www.hometheaterforum.co...61597http://www.hometheaterforum.co...47316http://www.hometheaterforum.co...46611> http://www.hometheaterforum.co...53885

Read the old posts : )

[GEO]

I would get a regular capture card and then a graphcis card with video out. Reason being, regular capture cards have S-video , A/V inputs. So they are more universal to any type of camera. As for video editing wise, the more ram the better. For a good cheap drive, Best Buy is having a sale for 160 gig hard drives for something like $80.. DAMNNN>>

[AZhitman]

I was thinking more along the lines of like $20 for the spare HD for my kid...

Am I on the right track with the rest of the stuff?

Vengeance - Please elaborate on the video issue, as I'm a n00b in that area.

Thanks for the linx, LTJJ!

[lessthanjakejohn]

check ebay on the harddrive...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISA...16178

Do you have Fry's Electronics in Arizona? They should have some good sales on harddrives

[AZhitman]

Yep - Right across the street from my house.

[C-Kwik]

I'd do some research as to how big a hard drive you will need. I don't know a whole lot, but I tried to capture video though a firewire port once and it worked fine except the file was huge! My 15 GB HD ran out after about 5 minutes of video. It was capturing in AVI format. I doubt you will want to use MPEG compression unless you don't care about quality. Not sure if there is a better format in AVI, but you may want to see what is best for DVD's. I doubt any type of compressed file will work very well for DVD's. And you'll need to see how big the optimal file for DVD's will be for a given length of video.

[IvoryJ30t]

well, dvd video encoding in itself is an mpeg format

[f8sjester]

generally speaking. . . capturing full-motion uncompressed video breaks down to about 1gig (hard-drive space) per 1 min of film. . . if you're gonna be doing A LOT of editting then i'd suggest getting the biggest hard drive you can find . . . get at LEAST one rated at 7200 rpm . . . anything slower will start dropping frames when you're trying to write/read to the drive

of course, when the video is compressed down to MPEG-2 (or is it 4?), the file sizes will drop dramatically but prepared for an eternity waiting for compression/rendering. . .

and i agree with demonic240. . . if you're getting a DVD writer, then go with a +/- combo drive. . . it's better to have more options as to what format you wanna burn . . .

as long as i'm here. . . i always forget. . . what size is proper to render out for full screen? is 640x480 big enough?

[AZhitman]

Hold up - I think you guys misunderstood my question - The new HD is for my kid's PC, since i snatched the HD out and put it as a 2nd drive in my new PC. He doesn't need a big one, just enough to hold some homework and a few games.

I'm not sure what my HD on my new PC is - How do I find out the capacity and speed?

Looks like there's some agreement for going with the All-in-Wonder from ATI as well as the +/- DVD writer, so I'll start shopping those.

[MasterMan]

go to my computer then right click on the harddrive and go to propertys it will tell u how big it is.. http://www.pricewatch.com look for the cheapest harddrive...

http://www.pricewatch.com/1/26/2119-1.htm

[sachmo12345]

the data from a DVD takes up about a gig for every 15-20 minutes in my experience

[AZhitman]

OK, Thanks MM.

Looks like my main HD is 33G, and my extra one is 6 G (but is almost full).

Should I go for a bigger HD, or am I OK as is?

[Rockenreno]

6 gigs is nothing :P

I'd say 20 GB should be more than enough for your kid (most new computers are coming with 30 GB drives nowadays, but you only need that much if you have a large mp3 collection or download movies) and you may want a larger one for your computer depending on how much space you need. If you are short on space now, upgrade to something closer to 50-100 GB and pass your old 33 GB drive to your kid. Video editing uses a lot of space, and if you are running low now you'll be running out later. If your 33 GB drive is less than half full though, you probably dont need to upgrade.

I currently have about 60GB full on my drives due to movies and the like, just for reference.

[lessthanjakejohn]

You got that athlon computer for 300 bucks?? pretty nice deal...

What output does your camcorder have?

[AZhitman]

Reno - The 33G drive is pretty empty... But if I can upgrade to 100G for around $100 or so, I'll swap the 33 to my kid (great idea!)

LTJJ - Was it a good deal? I hope so.

My camcorder has 2 RCA jacks for the output and an S-video out (I know, prehistoric). It's a Sony CCD-TR818 (Hi8). That's why I need analog capture capabilities...

[lessthanjakejohn]

Well, not a great deal, but not bad : )

http://www.dvdrhelp.com/capture

[Nathan]

I'd say 20 GB should be more than enough for your kid

Don't be silly, that's way too easy to fill up with p0rn and pirated software! He needs at LEAST 80 gigs, he is a teenager after all (or close too it right?)

[lessthanjakejohn]

LOL, he wont be getting too far with a 333mhz processor :P, especially if its a HP

[nametakennow]

On the RAM... I'm not sure DIMM will fit in SIMM slots, also, some computer's don't support (I assume you have 2 RAM slots) RAM that is more than 256mb, so you may be stuck with 512. Someone jump in here, I've fallen out of being totally computer suave, I got addicted to cars.

[90Q45blue]

Hey Greg,

What's up buddy? Congrats on the new system.

Since you said you have a K7S5A Pro then you have an ECS Motherboard. Here's the specs:

http://www.4goldenbridge.com/k7s5amaindds.html

You have 4 RAM slots but only two can be used at a time. You can either have DDR RAM or SD RAM. DDR is what I recommend because it's much faster and better for video editing. You probably have 512MB of SD right now. Your motherboard can support up to 1GB of RAM but you would have to use 2-512MB chips to get that, and those aren't cheap.

For a video card, the ATI All-in-Wonders are nice for video editing, whereas Nvidia is good for gaming. Don't get anything less than the All-In-Wonder 9000. Make sure you have video capture plug-in on the video card you get. Also, be sure to get an AGP video card (that's how it plugs in), rather than a PCI.

I'll chime in with more later.

Nick

[nametakennow]

Thanks Nick, I knew someone could clarify my points. Good luck to you, Greg!

[AZhitman]

Thanks Nick and NTN!

So I have the ATI 9000 pro thing nailed down.

What kind of $$ am I looking at for 2 512Mb of DDR RAM?

I think once I buy the DVD RW, a bigger HD and the ATI card I'll be broke... Plus I still have to grab a monitor (so my son can have this POS) and a cheap keyboard/mouse.

[lessthanjakejohn]

2 * $78 Kingston; Life-time warranty

http://www.newegg.com/app/View...4-001

$112 17" Samsung CRT (16" viewable)

http://www.newegg.com/app/View...1-120

$139 LG GSA-4040B DVD burner

http://www.newegg.com/app/view...4040B

OR

$156 Pioneer DVD-A06 Burner

http://www.newegg.com/app/View...9-133

$407+

[lessthanjakejohn]

oh ya plus the $80-100 dollar drive and the $175 video card oops

[GEO]

AZhitman, I am saying... Get two cards. A capture card and a video card. Just make sure the graphcis card has S-video out and the capture card has an adapter for A/V inputs as well as S-VIdeo inputs. The ATi TV-WOnder card is a TV uner card and a capture card. Its your best bet to get the seperate cards for each task.