is pc fast enough for dvd writer upgrade, amd 600mhz?

[mixa666]

hi,

a friend has asked me if his computer is fast enough to install a dvd writer on a AMD 600mhz with 128 of ram and 10gigs hard disk space?... I think this may be the bare minimum spec, as his existing dvd rom drive will play films smoothly, and he could always read and burn at x1 speed if the pc is too slow.

thanks,

mixa

[lenti_75]

it's fine for reading and burning, but NO WAY for editing

[mixa666]

thanks for your reply.. all they want to do is backup pics.

cheers,

mixa

[Noahtuck]

thanks for your reply.. all they want to do is backup pics.

cheers,

mixa

To back up dvd9 to dvd-r you will have to use something like DVD Shrink and it will definately be Sloooooow going, but for just burning things to dvd-r like photo's it sould be fine. I've actually ran programs on pc's with those spec's and it took hours and hours and hours to convert but it did do it.

[Prot]

Your friend's specs are nowhere NEAR being able to backup DVDs, so if that's what he wants to do, tell him to forget it, or get a new computer. A DVD holds just about as much space as your friend's entire hard drive, so there is no way he could back one up. The hard drive space is also too low to even convert to divx/xvid.
The only possible reason to have a dvd writer at this point is to back up files, then remove the writer to put into his new computer when he gets one.

[Noahtuck]

I pretty much agree with Prot except you could do it from the disc with dvd shrink & only need a little over 4 gigs free but it would be a long slow chore & i would not recomend it.
PC Upgrade!!!!!!!!!!

[Prot]

Noah, you are correct about only needing about 4.3 gig, but that will still take up half of his hard drive, and it's pretty likely he has less than that amount as available free space. He could always upgrade the hard drive and add more memory, but in the long run he would be better off with a new PC since the cost of the upgrades (mb, cpu, ram, hard drive) would come close to the cost of a new computer.

[Noahtuck]

Noah, you are correct about only needing about 4.3 gig, but that will still take up half of his hard drive, and it's pretty likely he has less than that amount as available free space. He could always upgrade the hard drive and add more memory, but in the long run he would be better off with a new PC since the cost of the upgrades (mb, cpu, ram, hard drive) would come close to the cost of a new computer.

Oh i know, just saying it is possible, just prob. not worth it that's why i also said

PC Upgrade!!!!!!!!!!

[Gritz]

Go with a new PC that has a DVD burner and necessary software. He'll get software and hardware he needs to start learning about DVDs, and even have some inital success. What he has is grossly underpowered to even function minimumly for any DVD work .... and sure to depress even the most adventurous.

[44echo]

mixa,

Your friend should have no problem burning pictures (jpg, that is) with his computer. If he's referring to "motion pictures," then he needs a bigger hard drive (and preferrably a new computer). I've been using a Pentium III 550 to capture, encode and burn DVDs. My PC doesn't meet the minimum requirements for the burner, so playing DVDs doesn't work out too well. I'll have a new computer in the next month or two. I set it up to encode while I sleep.

Good luck!

[snafu099]

hi,

a friend has asked me if his computer is fast enough to install a dvd writer on a AMD 600mhz with 128 of ram and 10gigs hard disk space?... I think this may be the bare minimum spec, as his existing dvd rom drive will play films smoothly, and he could always read and burn at x1 speed if the pc is too slow.

thanks,

mixa

I think you have correctly judged the situation. He should have not problems as long as he understands the limitations of his system.
Don't expect high speed burns
Don't expect high bitrate captures

I did well enough with an AMD 450mhz using usb hdd, burner and hardware capture device. Limited caps to 4mb/s or less at 352x480 and burned at 2x (and that was usb 1.1)

Your friend should know that jpg to dvd means making a video from the jpg files. Yes you can get very fancy with effects/transitions and all that, but you only need/want to share a large nuber of jpg with family or friends, IMHO, he is better off just burning them to cd as data. Most standalone dvd players will not only reconize them but will also auto play in slideshow. Even though the dvd holds more date, a reasonable display time per jpg limits the number of pics to less than can be put on a cd

As a side note, I just bought 2 nec 3520 burner and the only system that will burn high speed is an old 600 mhz which sets the burner to pio mode3 and burns just under 8x 4g=7:12 minutes which is pretty much the sustained data read/write of the hdd. New Compaq intel 2.5mhz sys only did 1.7x burn. Sys got sent back to Compaq, waiting for return to see if they found a solution

[cyflyer]

untill yesterday I had 20Gb HDD, and it was barely enough to do a single dvd. I doubled it now can work more comfortably. As the others said, with your current layout, forget it, and get a better computer.

[obs]

Hmm, I've been using a PII 350 and it burns fine at 4x. I use DVD Shrink and it may take a few hours but I'm in no hurry since it's a spare computer. Of course I don't have a lot of junk running in the background. The only thing this guy really needs is a bigger HDD if he just wants to copy movies. If you guys need faster computers to do simple things, you may want to clean up your OS.

[cd090580]

My NEC bruner works fine on a PII 300 Mhz with 192 MB RAM. DVD Shrink works very well too (The shrinking process takes about the movie duration to be done. Much longer on some movie if I use the AEC feature).

I burn at full speed without any problem (I don't use the computer while burning and I don't want to try to avoid making a coaster).

The only recommandation is for him to buy a new hard disk. (I have a 10 GB for OS + Programs and a 40 GB for storage only and video processing)

[44echo]

I think you guys are missing the most important point...

.. all they want to do is backup pics.

[Gritz]

Ohhh ..... I think you're right! I was just assuming that if you buy a DVD Writer you would be doing DVD projects! But for just jpg or bmp pictures .... either a CD Burner or a DVD burner would work just great!

[cd090580]

Video is possible on a PII, it just takes a lot of time to encode. I've done once a AVI->DVD without any problem with mainconcept.