video camera / computer memory help

[Mrs.viv07]

i want to purchase the adobe software for video & photo editing, i think elements does both i forget, but either way my computer says i have 14. 0 GB of free space.

i don't want more power to run 5 diff programs at the same time ( although it owuld be nice)

right now i need more "space" to add more programs into the computer so it won't fritz out on me.

can i get what i need from nest egg? oh yeah and what do i need exactly?

i was bale to get a fire wire card and install myself to be able to upload form the video to the PC and it works great slow but great

please excuse my ignorance but any help will be greatly appreciated.
i have to work with what i've got for now, since MH said i can't get a laptop if i want to go to disney. what can i tell you Disney always wins!

 

[Groucho]

I assume "nest egg" equals NewEgg. And yes, based on your message, they'll definitely sell whatever you're after.

14 gigs free is plenty to install Photoshop Elements. For Adobe video editing, I think you want Premiere Elements, but I know little to nothing about it.

However, if you want more space, what you need to buy is another hard drive. I generally lean towards Seagate brand due to their 5-year warranty. Some others offer a 3-year warranty. I wouldn't buy anything with a 1-year warranty.

If this is a standard desktop PC, then chances are that you need a 3.5" IDE hard drive. You can probably pick up a 160 gig one for $50 or less. Actually installing it into the PC may be a little trickier than the Firewire card, because there are so many different styles of computer cases out there, and many have slightly different ways of mounting the hard drive. It's usually pretty simple but it's not easy to give simple directions that will apply to every PC.

Once it's in there, you'll have another drive letter (probably E:, if you already have a C: (primary hard drive) and D: (CD/DVD)), and you can start saving stuff there, or moving pictures and/or video to there.

 

[Mrs.viv07]

yes that's it
you helped me last time with the fire wire. thanks so much
one question RAm is then for being able to run more programs at a time is this correct?

again thanks so much for the help oh and when i purchase this where can i find out how to install myself ?

 

[Groucho]

Your definition of RAM is sort of accurate. Within reason, you can run the same number of photos with a small amount of memory or a large amount, but the more you have, the less the PC will slow down when you run a lot of programs. Nowadays, a PC with 256 megs of RAM is generally pretty slow, while the same PC with 1 gig (1,024 megs) of RAM is going to be much, much faster.

For installing the drive, I would recommend buying a "retail box" hard drive instead of an OEM one. The OEM is just the hard drive itself with nothing else. The retail box comes with a few bits of pieces, most importantly, it includes instructions that should be fairly easy to follow.

 

[Mrs.viv07]

something like this?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148257

or this?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148031


doe sit matter if its internal / external?

 

[Groucho]

Well... the big difference between the two is (obviously) internal vs external. If you're not comfortable opening up your PC, mounting a hard drive, setting it and the original drive to master/slave, etc, then an external drive might be a good fit for you. You could also carry it with you if you want to hook it into another PC some time. So that might not be a terrible option for you...

 

[bostran1]

Just something to think about. Your slow computer issues wouldn't really be caused by the 14 gig remaining on your hard drive. It is most likely an issue of having too little RAM in your computer. Video editing is the most hardware intensive activity you can do on a computer. Working with video taxes the computer an incredible amount. If its really slowing down on you, installing more RAM (at least 1 gig total, ideally 2 for video) would more than likely help.

But getting a new hard drive is also a good step because video projects can quickly grow into massive sizes. I had one 20 project that was 20 gigs because I chose not to convert it from the mini DV when I imported it on my computer.