Laptop Suitable for HD Video Editing?

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WestC07

New Member
Hey guys,

Could anyone comment on how well the computer in my signature would do for editing HD video? I'm thinking of getting a Happauge HD PVR (which does all of the encoding) and making video game montages for myself and my friends.

My main thing is I'll only be doing the raw basics like taking the HD footage, overlaying music, chopping and syncing, etc. These aren't going to be burned on BluRay discs for showroom footage... just editing basic captured HD footage and uploading to YouTube.

Now I know "recommended" builds include Quad Cores, 4+ Gigs of ram, 512 Video cards, etc... but since the HDPVR does the encoding itself and all I'm doing is taking the video file chopping it up and overlaying music then saving it would what I have do alright?

If the specs won't suffice, how much help would adding another gig of ram be?
 
fastdude

fastdude

Active Member
It would help alot. The GPU is slow (but acceptable) , the CPU is good, adding another gig of RAM would help alot. What speed is the RAM?
 
fastdude

fastdude

Active Member
Hold your horses, don't upgrade yet, 1GB of RAM at a lower latency and faster speed can be better than 2GB of cheap slow stuff. When your computer boots up, There should be a screen that displays the speed of your CPU, RAM, and other things. This is called the P.O.S.T. [Power On Self-Test]. This should tell you the speed of your RAM. (Usually this screen has "american megatrends" somewhere on it :p

Alternatively, download CPU-Z http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html

This will also tell you the speed of your RAM :)
 
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WestC07

New Member
I dual boot between XP and Mint so I ran a Memtest which showed me:

1022M 2435 MB/s RAM 277 MHz (DDR554) etc. etc. It's two 512 sticks.
 
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WestC07

New Member
I tried the CPU-Z just for good measure. No, I don't know anything about overclocking.

CPUz.jpg
 
fastdude

fastdude

Active Member
Yes, you have 553Mhz DDR2 :)
(266Mhz x DDR [Double Data Rate] = 533Mhz)
If I were you, I'd upgrade the RAM to 2GB. Laptops are much harder to upgrade than desktops, You can't upgrade the integrated VPU, try OverClocking (A LITTLE BIT!) the CPU.

Can you change Values in the BIOS? My laptops BIOS is fully locked.
 
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WestC07

New Member
Mine is too, everyone says the Dell BIOS is decent but fairly restrictive.

So overall you think I'd be fine for what I'm doing, especially if I upgrade the ram to the link I provided?

Just for an example lol, I don't want to be able to do this (at least not anytime soon):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vi4gvELC7eE <=== Pro

I'm shooting more towards something like this just starting out (just the first basic montage I came across):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7qdI1w3ADA

And by the way, thanks again for all the help.
 
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