This may be a stupid question but is it possible to transfer and play HD video clips from a HD camcorder to windows XP?
I ask because a few months ago I was close to buying a HD camcorder until I read, from several different places, that transfering and playing HD clips in XP requires service pack 2, or is better suited for vista.
Hopefully someone can tell me that is a load of rubbish so I can enjoy HD
I'm not sure that you even need SP2 - but depending on the HD footage, you might need a reasonably fast pc.
If it was footage from an HDV camcorder, you can play the 1440 x 1080 video on a Pentium 4 class pc.
If, on the other hand, it was AVCHD footage, either 1440 x 1080 or 1920 x 1080, you need a moderately powerful dual core cpu, such as an Intel E6600 or better or the equivalent AMD cpu.
If, however, you have a suitable discrete video card in your pc, it can take on the video decoding away from the cpu, using a suitable software video player such as the later versions of WinDVD or Power DVD for example.
If your video card does feature h.264 hardware acceleration, you can use a Pentium 4 class cpu to play the AVCHD video.
Editing that video is a whole different ball game, though!
You might fill in the pc related stuff in your member profile so that your "system" tab shows what hardware you have. That will make it easier for people to give you meaningful replies.
If you are simply worried about installing a service pack onto an existing XP installation (In fact I had problems with SP3) then you can create a dual boot XP/XP system = one with service packs the other without.
In fact my laptop is triple boot
XP Service pack 2 - for video editing
XP Service pack 3 - for day to day use.
Vista Home premium - well it came with the computer so I am not going to simply chuck it away.
