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Looking for views on what the minimum specification I should be looking at for a new PC which will be used for video editing.

We bought by father a video camera for his birthday and he now wants to be able to edit on the PC. Since their current 500MHz PC runs windows 98 it won't even run the capture software so a new machine is in order and I have been tasked with finding it.

Since I have never used digital video, I prefer stills, I have no real idea of what is required. Would something like a cheap Dell fit the bill (Celeron, 256Mb RAM onboard graphics) or are there parts of that which need upgrading? It seems that if you select too many extras it becomes worthwhile to start with the next machine up. No particular reason for looking at Dell except that mine is Dell, we use them at work and even the basic warranty is one year collected which is an advantage since I am not there to maintain it.

So, what should I be looking for to get something that is useable? Don't want to spend too much until we know that he has got to grips with the basics.

Many thanks,

Andrew

edit: Recommendations for some easy to use but reliable video editing software would good to have as well.

[redsox_mark]

Even the most basic PC you can buy today will edit video (I assume we are talking about DV here? HDV is more demanding).

You can probably even edit by sticking Windows XP on your Dad's current machine. I edited quite happily on a 650 mhz P3 laptop....

Others are more expert on PC configs, especially on the high end.. (Dual-core,etc). But for the basics:

- HDD: DV takes up 13 GB an hour. Ideally have a dedicated drive just for your video files. 7200 rpm preferred, but I've captured fine with 5400 or slower. HDD is cheap.

- Processor: Any modern processor will be responsive when editing. Higher speed helps with rendering - when you need to apply your edits to create the final project. Rendering can take hours, faster processor cuts the time.

- Memory: 256MB will work, for most editing memory doesn't help that much, though 512MB would be better.

Standard graphics is fine.
You need a firewire port.

As a reference, here is the minimum recommended config for Ulead VideoStudio, one of the more popular packages:

Intel® Pentium® 4 or higher *
Microsoft® Windows® 2000 SP4, Windows® XP SP2 Home Edition/Professional, Windows® XP Media Center Edition, Windows® XP Professional x64 Edition
256 MB of RAM (512 MB or more recommended)
1 GB of available hard disk space for program installation
Windows-compatible sound card (multi-channel sound card for surround sound support recommended)
Windows-compatible CD-ROM for installation

* It goes on to say "Intel® Pentium® M, Intel® Pentium® D, or Intel® Pentium® 4 Extreme Edition processors or AMD Athlon™ 64 compatible "...
but I'm sure a Celron would also run fine.

Mark

[redsox_mark]

And for software, consider:

Sony Vegas Movie Studio
Ulead Video Studio
Premiere Elements

I use Sony Vegas (started with the equivalent of the Movie Studio, later moved to the "full" version).

All have free trials you can download.

Mark

[MarkE19]

Originally Posted by redsox_mark

- Memory: 256MB will work, for most editing memory doesn't help that much, though 512MB would be better.

I have to disagree that memory doesn't help that much.
I bought my PC as a preconfigured editing system and it is a now very old P4 1.8Ghz with 512Mb RAM. When I upgraded to 1Gb RAM the improvement in performance for everything was very noticeable. I would even go as far as saying that upgrading the memory gives a better increase in performance than upgrading the processor (unless making a massive jump from 1.8Ghz to 3 Ghz etc).

With the above in mind I would say you should stick as much RAM into the PC as you can afford. If you can do the upgrade yourself then 1Gb or perhaps even 2Gb should not be that expensive. With Dell etc it is often cheaper to buy the standard specs of the PC's they offer and upgrade yourself, even if it means not useing some of the parts they supply, than pay for their upgrades.

Mark.

[redsox_mark]

Mark,

That is interesting - maybe it depends on the editing application. With Vegas I know memory doesn't make much difference in render times, and certainly more than 1 GB doesn't, Vegas will not normally use that memory. For a typical DV project I've seldom seen the memory usage by Vegas over 100 MB. If you put lots of still photos on the timeline it will use more, especially if they are high resolution.

Mark