Disk Space reccomendations

[Jenny]

Hi :-)

How much hard disk space is recommended for editing video?

I only want to make/edit videos that are 2 to 10 minutes in length. Will this be a factor is the amount of disk space I need?

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MY COMPUTER
Speed: 700 MGHZ
RAM: 448
Hard Disk: 20 GB (15 is being used)
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Thanks.
Jenny

[TheInformer]

Jenny:
You'll have to let us know what type of input and output first.

Input: Is your source a DV file, an AVI file, or what?
Output: Are you going to convert the input file to MPEG-1/2? DiVX?

Let us know this first and then maybe we'll be able to give you an answer that will be of use to you, ok?

[Jenny]

Hi guys.

Input: I guess my source file would be an AVI file? But I'm not sure what you mean on this.
I'd be taking the following route to put video on my PC:

Analog camera --> external analog to digital converter --> Firewire Card
(Sometimes I'll be coming from a VCR.)

Output: I'm in the middle of figuring this out right now. I want a quality picture that has a small file size because I'm posting these short videos on the internet. I guess ASF or MPEG, but again, I'm not sure maybe you could help me out on this one? Eeek!

Thanks.
Jenny

[TheInformer]

Jenny:
Ahhhhhhhh ... information leads to help!

When it reaches your PC, your input video will be in a format called DV, which stands for Digital Video. DV is a standardized format that is used by MiniDV camcorders and many other digital devices. DV is somewhat disk space intensive, with 1 minute needing 216 megabytes of hard drive space (3.6 megs a second times 60 seconds).

You say you want an output file size that is small because the files will be posted on the internet. IMHO, your best bet then is to bypass MPEG-1/2 entirely and encode your videos using the DiVX v5.0 format. DiVX encoding is good for low bitrate data streams like your posted videos.

You can get the new DiVX v5.0 at http://www.divx.com
The free version should be sufficient for your needs.

[Jenny]

Hey.

You say you want an output file size that is small because the files will be posted on the internet. IMHO, your best bet then is to bypass MPEG-1/2 entirely and encode your videos using the DiVX v5.0 format. DiVX encoding is good for low bitrate data streams like your posted videos.

If I use DivX then won't people need DivX codecs installed on their PC to view my videos?
Another thing... I don't really want to stream (cost). I just want the visitor to select the file and open/save it.

You can get the new DiVX v5.0 at http://www.divx.com
The free version should be sufficient for your needs.

I have DivX on my PC. At least I downloaded 'The Playa'. I'm kinda confused here. Are you saying there's something on divx.com I can download that will enable me to save in DivX format?

Thanks again.
Jenny