Couple of newbie video-editing questions

cubix

Got myself a second hand mini dv camcorder(canon mv600) and am going to start to do some editing of the clips I have taken,I hope:D . So my questions are
With in reason what kind of a rig would I need to edit my footage ie:cpu/memory/HD space. Do I need to get a fancy input card like one of those Pinnacle's or if I have a decent spec machine would it be enough with just a firewire card. From what I have read some of the higher end video editing cards do a lot of the work saving your cpu.

My dv tapes are running out and I dont think I have time or the proper rig right now to edit them. So if I just dump them onto my HD what format does it put them into and how much space would a 60min tape take up on the HD. When editing your vids what format do most people here save them as

Thanks Cubix

TheDuke

you'll want something half decent.... I have a 3GHz P with 1/2GB mem and 128MB vid card which is ok for the job... mem could be greater though.

The crux is how much do you want to do, effects, etc, and what resolution will you be working with (DAT is VERY big and will take quite some time). Since most of my stuff ends up on VCD's the data volumes I work with are limited so everything works fine.

Hope that answered your question.

cubix

Cheers

Lump

I'd advise you get a gig of ram, if you're doing any effects etc you'll need it. Also you're right about the "Fancy" input cards, they help with the rendering of effects by doing the calculations on the card instead of it happening in the CPU.

However having a firewire card will do the job, just a bit slower.

John