Minimum CPU for DV capture?

[Ricsta]

I have a Pentium 2 on which I want to capture DV from my Sony Handycam. Will the P2 be able to handle the capture?

[MarkE19]

Hi Ricsta and welcome to the forum

Yes, a P2 processor is good enough for DV capture & editing but you may find that a lot of the editing software will not run on a P2 though.

Mark.

[Ricsta]

Thanks Mark. I am using Sonic MyDVD. Do you know if that will work? Also, what HDD space do I need if I want to burn direct to DVD from the HandyCam?

I would say that it's not really the processor but the speed and size of the Hard drive. That's what leads to skipped frames etc.

Nick

[MarkE19]

If you want to burn direct to a DVD then you are well and truely out of luck as that does take a powerful processor. I use Ulead DVD MovieFactory 3 and that requires a P4 1.8Ghz (lucky as that's what I've got ) or AMD equivalent to do direct to disk transfer. You will need to capture the footage as an AVI file (4 minutes per Gb or approx 14Gb per hour) and then convert from there. That will be slow, but should work with a P2.
To speed things up you should put as much memory as you can in the PC - 1Gb of DIMM RAM should cost under £50 so not too expensive. Also make sure you have around double the disk space required to capture the footage you want to put on to a DVD ie if captureing a 1 hour tape then you should have around 30Gb of free disk space. This sounds a lot, but with 160Gb+ HDDs available for wqell under £100 its not too bad.

Mark.

[MarkE19]

I am using Sonic MyDVD. Do you know if that will work?

OS Required
Microsoft Windows 98, Microsoft Windows 2000, Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition, Microsoft Windows XP

Min Processor Type
Pentium III - 600 MHz

Min RAM Size
128 MB