Which processor

[bogart99]

Currently have a AMD Athlon XP which now struggles at times to seemingly do more than one thing at a time. Often if looking at the task master it show 100% CPU usage.Shortly going to be buying an HD camcorder with all the intensive CPU required for editing etc so what is the absolute minimum I should be aiming for CPU and memory wise?

Thanks

ps HDC-SD9 or HF100?

plus I can pick up in the states so is NTSC ok as will just be watching on pc and HD telly

[MarkE19]

Probably the best value for money CPU that will breeze through video editing is the Intel Q6600. You could go for a dual core but quad really does help when it comes to rendering and encoding video.

Mark.

[webby]

I went for the HF-100 as its got better low light performance. Also, its connectors are in better places, and feels better built. The panny is very light though. The choice is yours!

[alanjw]

I have been processing AVCHD files from my Canon HG10 to the computer hard driver.

I have found that it takes from just a few hours to up to 10 hours to edit, add titles, and sound etc. depending on the length of the video & the number of clips etc.
Corel Ulead Video Studio 11+

I am using the following set up:

Windows XP SP3 32bit
8800GT 1 Gig Graphics Card
2 x 1 Gig RAM
Intel Dual Core E8400 processor
MSI P35 Neo2 FR motherboard

I am purchasing extra RAM to see if the speed of the process improves.

I have read an article which states that the Quad processor is a little quicker.

[bogart99]

How long was the video that took about 10 hours?

[alanjw]

The video was about 65 minutes in length. The time taken includes down loading from camcorder to hard drive. I then inserted about 50 video clips.

These had to be "multi- trimmed," saved, then add titles and finally music added. (WAV files the easiest to process) The more features you add the longer it takes. No "voice" added.

The files have to be rendered, which can take several hours. An introduction is added and then It can take quiet a long time to burn to a DVD. (converts to MPEG 2 file)

I would estimate in my case that a DVD would store about 70- 80 minutes of video. The DVD is not as good as the original video.

If you just add the video without editing, adding titles etc. then the process is much quicker.
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Quote:There are various stages involved in the creation of a DVD or even a VCD
Each stage takes a certain amount of time to carry out its functions.

Stage 1. Rendering a video to MPEG2.
The amount of time taken here is determined by how long the video runs for.
Typically this can be 1.5 to 3 times the length of the video dependant upon various factors such as how powerful your computer is and your hardware set up. Working with an internal hard drive will be faster than an external drive. How much editing has been done - very little editing is likely to render faster than a piece of film containing several overlay tracks, Titles, Sound effects. Video Filters and so on. If the video is already in MPEG2 then you may find rendering time can be made faster by utilising smart render.

The forum recommendation is to create this MPEG2 file directly after editing and before moving on to the authoring stage.

Stage 2. Authoring.
This is where the DVD menus are created.
This can take a short time or a considerable amount of time dependant upon how many menu "pages" need to be created, the style of the menus.
Text only menus require very little work and will create quite quickly.
Thumbnail menus take longer because each thumbnail has to be created,
Motion thumbnails longer still. I have previously created a post concerning this: Why do Smartscene menus take so long to create?

Stage 3. Burning.
The actual burning of the completed DVD onto a DVD disc. Here you will see phrases like DVD 4X or DVD 8X etc. the higher the *x the faster it burns. HOWEVER the forum recommendation is to burn at 4X (or whatever is closest available) because SOME stand alone DVD players are unable to read discs burned at higher speeds.

http://tinyurl.com/5kuqqy

[redsox_mark]

You can break down editing into 2 types of activities:

1. Hands on, labour intensive tasks. Watching the original footage, deciding how to edit. Cutting/trimming clips. Moving clips around. Adding text, effects, etc. This can take as long as you want to spend on it. As long as the PC is fast enough to preview your edits, additonal PC speed doesn't help much with these tasks. This is the creative part.

2. Rendering output files; the building/prepare stage of DVD authoring; these are CPU intensive tasks, which you don't need to be hands on. You can render overnight, or so something else at the same time. For these tasks CPU speed (and to a lesser extent memory) reduce the time