Help Computer to cope with HD video

[MeadsMan]

Hi,I am considering to upgrade my P.C,as it does not cope with the HD video from my new camera.It also takes a while to upload the RAW files for me to view aswell.It is four to five years old now,but was serving me well till I upgraded my camera.Can anyone offer advice on what I should be looking for regarding processors,memory and graphic cards ect.I am not very tech minded,but Blue Ray does seem to be the next big thing in line since DVD.I am leaning toward a lap top,Budget can stretch to £700,but would like to spend nearer £500.Any advice much appreciated.

[artdemole]

Best buy the new edition of computer active.Issue 321 10th to 23 June.Out now.Page 10 has Blue ray burning.CDBurnerxp.is able to burn HD video discs.HD softwear Can be purchased for Around £70.00 Pc needs to be powerful enough and 50gb of hard disc space and,2GB of memory.Any way,Magazine has 4 pages of the info to which will be of help to those more technical on computer. Hope the knowledge is of use .Price of mag is £1.95

[ollyk]

Can you tell us your current specs? I am running Windows XP with an XP2400+ processor on an abit motherboard released in 2003 and 1gb DDR ram oh and agp graphics all very dated and as long as my windows installation is clean I can watch HD video with no probs. My desktop also runs at 1280x1024 and I have a second monitor (same graphics card) on extended desktop that runs at 1024x768. Not always used mind.

I can also play a few modern games obviously not with highest detail!

If I don't look after windows then things become messy and HD stuff is a nono...

Oh try and download this or this much better than bog standard windows media player!

Basically what I am trying to say is that your computer *might* be capable of more than it is able to achieve atm with either a good clean-up (nothing beats a format and fresh install!) or an upgrade!

[ollyk]

Oh I would not get a laptop to replace a desktop only ever buy laptop if you specifically require a portable computer!

[MeadsMan]

Originally Posted by ollyk

Oh I would not get a laptop to replace a desktop only ever buy laptop if you specifically require a portable computer!

Why ? I thought Laptops had come on leaps and bounds.

I can only at present play the video through quicktime.It is jerky and slow.I did ask a chap at work,about an upgrade of my P.C,he did not seem to think it was worth while.I would have to pay some one to do it anyway,which is another added cost.

[ollyk]

ok you are not going to get the performance of a good PC than with a comparably priced laptop. Also repairs and upgrades are generally limited.
Lifespan is less as they get hotter and inevitably get knocked about, unless you keep it in the same place but in that case why pay the extra for portability?


Can I ask how fast your processor is and how much memory you have? To quickly find out Hold the windows key and press the pause / break key OR goto settings>control panel>system and system properties box should come up.

[artdemole]

If you buy laptop/notebook you would also need a slim dvd writer around £37.00 as well.also the price of discs has to be taken into consideration. By the way.Did you buy the mag?

[MeadsMan]

Hi Ollyk,I think this is the info you want.But I don`t think I will be chopping and changeing things,My P.C will never work again.....

I have 192 GB free space on my C drive.

Pentium (R) 4 CPU 3.o6GHz 3.07 GHz,0.99 GB of RAM

I hope that is the info you were interested in.

And thank you for all,for the help so far.I have not as yet purchased the Magazine,as I have only read your message today.

[MeadsMan]

By the way dosn`t the Graphics card,also have some thing to do with how video will run ? Mine has intel graphics media acccelerator 900.

[Porsupah]

Originally Posted by MeadsMan

By the way dosn`t the Graphics card,also have some thing to do with how video will run ? Mine has intel graphics media acccelerator 900.

Yes. Most, if not all, GPUs now offer various levels of hardware assistance for video decoding, even down to the mobile graphics chips used by smartphones and media players. That can make a huge difference - on my 2.8GHz Core2 Duo MacBook Pro, the same 1080p file (the Tron Legacy trailer, to be specific ) can take around 50% CPU without such assistance, or around 16% with.

If you're looking at anything current, it's likely to have hardware video decoding assistance in the GPU, though to be certain, you may want to check out the specific GPUs of systems you're interested in.

This isn't to say a GPU offering hardware help to video decoding is a requirement, of course - just that the load on the CPU(s) can be substantially reduced, leaving them available for other tasks.