Minimum RAM for video capture

[Connoisseur]

I have an HP pavilion desktop a400y. Only 256 RAM. When I capture from my DV camera, image is a bit choppy, like it is slowing down when it shouldn't during the capture. I also have a laptop with 512 RAM which doesn't have this problem on the capture. It seems the capture is better with my higher RAM laptop. Is 256RAM just not enough for video capture or is it more likely my slower processor in the desktop versus my laptop. Laptop is Pentium 4, desktop is 2.5GHz Celeron. I guess I'll have to stick with my laptop for video capture unfortunately. I'd prefer to not putting the wear and tear on my laptop HD. Maybe a RAM memory upgrade to 512 is worth it, or is this really just a processor issue?

Regards,
Connoisseur

[Gary Sheynkman]

more ram ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS is better for ANYTHING. Especially vid capture where the PC has to more time to write to the HD (and buffer to the ram)

[Suhit Gupta]

Well, one thing that is working in your favor is that the a400n is upgradable to 4GB (I think).

Anyways, if you are running Windows XP, 256MB RAM must already give you sluggish performance. My laptop is clearly suffering with about that much RAM. And video capture apps use RAM for the input stream buffering, and that would give you your performance problems. Of course the process of Video encoding is definitely CPU bound, however in this case the bottleneck seems to be your RAM. You can get 256MB for as little as $50 these days (probably even less if you looked around on the net).

Suhit

[Jason Dunn]

Yes, the RAM is likely having an impact, but some other things to check as well:

1) Capture video to a blank hard drive partition if possible. If not, be sure to defrag before a capture.

2) Close all programs, including those in your system tray.

3) Turn off screen savers.

[Suhit Gupta]

Something else to keep in mind, Antivirus programs are typically bulky and take a lot of resources, at least Norton AntiVirus does. So you could temporarily disable that. Having said that though, beware... you are obviously opening your computer up for a completely different kind of problem if you do that.

Suhit

[Gary Sheynkman]

the new G5 (apple not canon ...lol) can take up to 8gb ram :shocked!: :shocked!: :shocked!: :shocked!: :shocked!: :shocked!: :shocked!: :shocked!: :shocked!: :shocked!: :shocked!: thats nuts!!!!

You can capture video, listen to music, compile another video, watch a dvd...all at the same time :lol:

[Suhit Gupta]

... and still have RAM to spare to serve as a doorstop or whatever 8)

Suhit

[Jason Dunn]

You can capture video, listen to music, compile another video, watch a dvd...all at the same time :lol:

Those tasks have as much to do with CPU and hard drive speed as RAM, so don't get too carried away there hoss... :wink:

[Connoisseur]

Thanks for all the help. I think I will definitely pick up some extra RAM, as someone noted, it is pretty cheap these days. I do actually run Norton Antivirus, so I'm losing some resources there I'm sure. I will try the other suggestions as well until I can get my RAM beefed up. Any suggestions for reliable brands to buy or bad ones to avoid? Great board, by the way. I think I will be enjoying this hobby! :D

Regards,
Connoisseur