Using trial X3 How good a computer do you need?

[Doug2006]

I bought a cannon hv30 and have ulead 10 and X2 on my computer. I downloaded x3 and am trying that. I have a Amd 4200 X2 with two gigs of ram and a sata harddrive. I captured the HD video in X2 and it did that okay. I have a 52 minute file that is 9 gigs. I went to load it into the X3 program and from the time I clicked on the file to when it loaded into library was about 15 minutes. I then put it to the time line. That took about 15 minutes. I then opened it in multitrim and that took another 15. I was able to view it in multitrim and it looks outstanding. I was able to scrub it back and forth in there but didn't get carried away. I cut out a 3 minute clip and closed multi. That took about 15 minutes. Then I clicked on share and waited 15 minutes before coming upstairs to this computer to ask you, what do I need to do? From what I am seeing I would need a 10 core processor and 20 gigs of ram! I cannot live with these times. It is unworkable. Doug

[Roberto]

Perhaps 2 GB RAM might be not enough: Windows itself will "steal" 1GB RAM, so you might be left with les than 1GB for Video Studio application.
You can check how much RAM its' being used by pressing CTRL+ALT+DEL and monitor the RAM taken by VideoStudio process task.
I might be that Windows is swapping and this makes everything slower.

Anyway, I never worked with such a huge file (size & length) but in case I should (and if my pocket is there enough bucks...because these "toys" are still expensive), I would consider to head for a SSD drive (e.g. from FusionIO vendor) and/or a HW Ram disk (e.g. from Gigabyte vendor), which can definitively help to speed up.

[pepegota]

My P4 Northwood,3.2 ghz does a good job with one meg of ram. and Win XP SP2. Newer OS's would require more ram.

[Black Lab]

As you can see from my System Button I also have a P4 machine running 1 GB RAM on Windows XP. I also have a Canon that shoots in HDV. I have not had the problem you seem to be having, but I will admit I have not tried an HD project as long as yours.

[Doug2006]

I did some more work this morning and I noticed one thing. I captured 58 minutes from a sony cam that is 4:3 standard def. I captured it with windv and the file size is 12 gigs. I can move that file around in X3 with instant results. If I move it to the time line it happens as the mouse clicks. If I click multitrim it happens instantly. The HD file was captured by X3 because windv doesn't seem to recognize the Cannon. X3 seems to capture in mpg format and I don't think I can change that. But the resultant file from that is only 9 gigs and I can not do anything, easily with it. I have it in the library and I wanted to check the file size again, so I right clicked on it. The hard drive immediately spins up and you wait five minutes just for the right click menu. Now digital files are just ones and zeros so why should a 12 gig avi file be no problem and a 9 gig hd file cause so much trouble. I could see maybe in editing the file, but just moving it to time line or checking properties should not be any different then the avi file. Is there a program that I can use to capture from the sony in Avi. Doug

[Black Lab]

No, your HD file is MPEG2. That's what it is, and that's probably why WinDV won't capture it. Try HDV Split for capturing HD and see if it works any better.

[Ken Berry]

You might also want to update your System details since it still shows you having a pretty ancient computer!

But with HDV, which is of course what your camcorder shoots, there is no reason of which I am aware for any slow response. HDV is easy to open, play and edit on any halfway decent computer.

As Jeff has said, it is high definition, upper field first mpeg-2, and cannot be captured by WinDV which can only capture, as its name suggests, standard definition DV! HDVSplit is what I use as it -- as it's name implies -- splits HDV by scene during capture... X2 and X3 can also capture HDV but does not split it.