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Upgrading for video editing


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#1
humorsavesmysoul

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i have been doing a lot of video editing lately. it takes a [bleep] of a long time for it to decode and encode my edited videos. im using a three year old dell dimension 4300. what would be the most cost effective solution to speeding things up significantly. specs are as followed:

Processor: 1.6Ghz P4
RAM: PC133 2x256
Vid: 32mb GeForce MX

i think the processor is socket 478 but i don't know. i was thinking of upgrading the processor.
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#2
The_Sloth

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A new processor would definitely help, but 2 things that would be cheaper and easier to upgrade would be to at least double your RAM and get a video card with at least 128 MB of RAM. With a new processor you might have to upgrade the motherboard, which might mean having to replace all of your RAM as well.
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#3
audioboy

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that machine would make it rather difficult to do video work!

its an older dell, so upgrades could prove difficult if not impossible. they like to use some propietary stuff, so you have to buy from them for upgrades.
take a look at the dell site, see what the possibilities are.

all that said, your best bang for the buck will be with more ram. 512 is the minimum I would want to run XP with and do anything processor intensive. things like video which are moving large amounts of data around would benefit greatly from 1 or 2 gigs of system ram. if that machine can handle it...

the video card is pretty old as well, an upgrade to that would help-again, assuming you can.

ram would be my strongest suggestion, followed by video.
also consider that yours is a fairly old machine, so how much money do you want to dump into beefing it up, compared to getting a new machine- store bought or build yourself, you can get an incredible upgrade to that system, in the $600-700 range.
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#4
humorsavesmysoul

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well, i took it apart and found out some bad news. the processor is a socket 478B, and the motherboard is mounted with one screw into a tray. and there are no other mounting holes for screws :tazz: . so it doesn't look like i'll be able to upgrade it. oh well, maybe it's time for a new pc ;) . thanks for the replies
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#5
audioboy

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sorry to hear that, though Im not suprised. dell, hp, compaq, etc are not very upgrade friendly.
if you decide to build your next machine, read the pinned topics at the top of this and the system building/overclocking forum, and ask if you have any questions. we like to help!
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#6
humorsavesmysoul

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actually it's my rents computer. i don't think their ready for an upgrade, maybe in a year or two since i just built my own for school. i think it should be sufficient ;)
...[bleep]in DELL :tazz: lmao, thanks again
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#7
Tyger

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Something that will speed up video editing a great deal is a second hard drive, even an external drive will work very well. The reason one drive alone is slow is that your computer is reading from and writing to different parts of the same drive, meaning it spends a lot of time seeking. With two drives it can read from one while writing to the other. Something else I've found that helps editing is to convert the original file, of whatever format, to an rgb.avi, which is basically a sequence of bitmaps that have ALL the information available in the original, and then convert that to the final form. Because the rgb.avi can be as much as 60 times larger than the original or final form the large extra drive is very handy. This gives the best possible results and despite needing two steps is fairly rapid.
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#8
audioboy

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good point on the hard drive tyger, thank you. using your main drive to hold the applications, and the second drive to store your data can make a big difference in speed.
dont forget, adding more ram to that machine will still help it quite a bit. even if you have to buy the ram from dell (a bit more expensive) to ensure compatibility, it will speed things up a lot.
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#9
humorsavesmysoul

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ok, i'll try putting the data on the external, and keeping the the apps on the main drive. i've already maxed out the ram according to dells website at 512mb unfortunately. i'm never buying or letting my parents buy another prebuilt computer again. lmao but thanks again for all your help, its very much appreciated

Edited by humorsavesmysoul, 15 July 2005 - 08:56 PM.

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#10
audioboy

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its not that the prebuilt machines are necessarily bad, its just that they severely limit upgradeability. they want to sell you a whole new machine, not just a couple new parts...

I have had luck in the past buying from local or some small chain computer shops, who offer ready built systems, but use the standard open architecture parts, so future upgrades are easy.
thats what I used to do, until I realized how easy it is to build a good machine myself.

anyway, good luck, let us know how it goes!
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