NuBee general PC video conversion questions

[DirtBikeMike]

I have a old school custom built 2 ghz dual processor PC with 2 GB ram and 2 hard drives. My main C: drive is connected to the mother board with a 80 wire IDE cable, and my F: drive is connected with a SATA card in a 32 bit PCI slot. The C: drive has all my software, program files and the Win XP OS. I use the F: drive for mass storage and video capture when I need max data transfer rates.

My questions are:

I have some 1920X1080 HD MPEG4 AVI Xvid codec video files saved on DVD that I want to edit (crop/clip) and then save to my PC for burning to DVD.

Should I copy the master files from the DVD's to my F: drive then edit and save to C: drive?

Should I edit the files directly from the DVD's and save to my F: drive?

Any suggestions are welcome....

THX

[edDV]

I have a old school custom built 2 ghz dual processor PC with 2 GB ram and 2 hard drives. My main C: drive is connected to the mother board with a 80 wire IDE cable, and my F: drive is connected with a SATA card in a 32 bit PCI slot. The C: drive has all my software, program files and the Win XP OS. I use the F: drive for mass storage and video capture when I need max data transfer rates.

My questions are:

I have some 1920X1080 HD MPEG4 AVI Xvid codec video files saved on DVD that I want to edit (crop/clip) and then save to my PC for burning to DVD.

Should I copy the master files from the DVD's to my F: drive then edit and save to C: drive?

Should I edit the files directly from the DVD's and save to my F: drive?

Any suggestions are welcome....

THX

Playback will be most stable from the F drive. Most "editing" is searching for an edit point. This would best be done from your F drive. The OS (Windows) will use the C drive.

When it comes to re-encoding, it won't make much difference which drive you write to since the conversion will progress at a snail's pace with that CPU. I'd do it all on the F drive.

[DirtBikeMike]

Thank you for the quick reply. I want to make sure that I understand completely.

You would copy the files from the DVD to the F: drive then edit and save back to the same F: drive into a different folder. Is this correct?

[edDV]

Thank you for the quick reply. I want to make sure that I understand completely.

You would copy the files from the DVD to the F: drive then edit and save back to the same F: drive into a different folder. Is this correct?

Yes. Playback will depend mostly on your CPU+any display card assist. Re-encoding will be all CPU centric. Read-Write to the same drive will not slow things down with that CPU. Those with faster CPU's may add a third drive for recode write. The benefit would be small.

[DirtBikeMike]

OK thanks. Currently I have saved the DVD files to the F: drive, then editing and saving to the C: drive and it is very slow.

So I will try - source F: edit, then save F: and see if it runs any faster.

Would it help to add a 3rd drive in a open 64 bit SATA slot?

I know my stuff is pre-historic but it is all I have right now.

THX

[edDV]

OK thanks. Currently I have saved the DVD files to the F: drive, then editing and saving to the C: drive and it is very slow.

So I will try - source F: edit, then save F: and see if it runs any faster.

Would it help to add a 3rd drive in a open 64 bit SATA slot?

I know my stuff is pre-historic but it is all I have right now.

THX

Disk read-writes aren't what is slowing you down. It is 99% a CPU issue.

It is always a good idea to separate C:\ OS activity from video operations (your F:\ drive). Direct read from the DVD drive is also slowed by OS activity. So it is best to do all video operations from and to the F drive.

The only thing that will speed encoding is a new CPU/Motherboard which will also require a new power supply.

[DirtBikeMike]

awesome...thanks.

So it would be a waste of money to add a 3rd drive in a open 64 bit PCI slot with a sata card?

[edDV]

awesome...thanks.

So it would be a waste of money to add a 3rd drive in a open 64 bit PCI slot with a sata card?

It wouldn't speed anything. Just give you more drive space.

[DirtBikeMike]

thank you for your help