Will a firewire drive let me do this?

[MikeS]

I have 2 computers but only one has a capture card. I want to be able to process the captured avi files on both computers at the same time to speed up processing.. is this possible? I mean, they wouldn't have to be working on the same file, just on the same drive..

[Darth Paris]

If the PC's are on a network then one PC could access the drive of another.

[painkiller]

I happen to have such a setup myself.
I don't believe that you mean to actually double the same movie on both machines at the same time.
This, by itself, won't speed up overall processing.

However, the way I use my setup - if I had captured a movie on one computer, and it is in the process of converting digital video to dvd compliant mpg file - then the other computer is free to capture a different program - while the first computer is doing its own conversion. That is how I have my firewire connections from my ADVC-100 feeding two separate computers (even though they are networked also via ethernet).

In that way, you are speeding up processing.

The only other way, that I suspect you will find out, to speed up overall processing will be that you will notice one machine is faster than the other at doing certain functions. Then you will trade off working some methods from one machine to the other.

Have fun.

[painkiller]

I would also like to point out that by sharing a drive from one computer (so another can see/use it) will likely slow down the second computer's processing of any file on that shared drive.

While ethernet can be fast, most home users have a typical 10/100 Ethernet card, it isn't necessarily as fast as your computer's busses on the motherboard.

So, if you want the raw speed of any computer to work on processing video files - it's best to put/move/copy/capture what you want over to the computer inquestion - then process it.

For what that's worth to you.

[Capmaster]

Sharing drives between PCs is easy via ethernet. You want to get an ethernet crossover cable, and map the drive on one machine from the other using "Map network drive".

The other PC's HD will then appear with a drive letter in explorer. Make up some IP address for both machines in TCP/IP setup (make the first three numbers "192.168.0.XXX"), and enable "802.3" as the type under IPX/SPX settings for both ethernet adapters And enable file sharing on the PC with the drive you want the other PC to access.

[dun4cheap]

Well in all seriousness, you may get better performance if you network the computer via firewire instead of lan. I have not done this, but the perforomance in theory should be faster since firewire does not require a lot of cpu processing.

[jimmalenko]

Can we get a clarification ?

I've read and re-read the OP a couple of times now, and judging by the responses, we're talking about a basic home network, and not some sort of "video docking" (I believe Vegas can split the processing of the one file between two machines so as to speed up the overall process, but I can't remember the exact name that they call it).