I own a Canon Optura miniDV camera and I want to install an IEEE 1394 digital video interface (Firewire) in my Dell computer. I have a two year old Dell Dimension SPS 266 MHZ Pentium computer with a 6.4 GB EIDE Ultra ATA hard drive. I want to use this computer to perform editing of my digital videos and digital stills.

I have just been informed by a Dell Computer sales rep that Dell is offering a digital video interface for my computer. The interface package is called a Dell Movie Studio and includes MGI Vidoe Wave III digital editing software.

The sales rep also suggests that I install another hard drive specifically for use in editing my videos and a CD Rom burner for permanent storage of the video and stills.

Does anyone have any comments on this?

Thanks,

Ken

-- Ken Baldwin (baldwikl@aol.com), March 31, 2000

Answers

You need a larger hard drive for video editing. At high quality 6.4 GB doesn't give you a lot of working space. As much memory as you can afford will be an asset as well. A faster processor and video card won't hurt either.

-- Jonathan Ratzlaff (jonathanr@clrtech.bc.ca), March 31, 2000.

You'll chew up your hard drive in record time with the IEEE setup. Leave your OS and Applications on the 6.4, go buy a 15-20GB drive for $175 and use it only for video. That way you can keep it defragged and record more contiguous files. Once the hard drive starts looking for free space your screwed, give it the entire drive. Also, a 266 might drag a bit, forget using Premiere on that kind of machine as Premire is slow on a kick butt computer much less a 266. You can do some editing with your machine, just don't expect DVD quality. In my experience with my Sony rig, I use about 200MB per minute of video, so the hard drive upgrade is essential, you'll also find Windows NT is better than Win95 or 98 for video. Almost all the really good Windows software is only for NT, but at least you can get your feet wet with your current setup.

-- Cris Daniels (danfla@gte.net), April 01, 2000.