Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb!

[Jim Leonard]

chris wrote:
> (note the smiley again... although I am really hoping to get a Mac Mini 
> to do better video work then I can with my current iMac)

As a show of good faith :-) I'd like to make some recommendations if you're 
going to get a Mac Mini for video work:

- Upgrade the memory to at least 512 and preferably 1GB if possible.  MPEG-2 
encoding, multi-layer compositing, rendered previews, caching, etc. all chew up 
RAM.  I don't recall if you can upgrade the CPU in a MacMini (or add a second 
one) but it is much more important to max out RAM first and foremost.

- Stick with DV only.  DV has a nice low data rate of around 3MB/s which is 
enough for any hard drive to handle.  In fact you can composite 3-4 streams on 
any cheap modern hard drive and play them realtime.

- Assuming sticking with DV only, make sure your workspace (desk, etc.) has 
room for a small cheap TV and your DV camcorder.  Previewing on a monitor, 
however nice, still doesn't compare to an actual video monitor (or properly 
calibrated cheap tv if you don't have the cash) for checking saturation, field 
order, overscan/safe title area, etc.  Even if it's a cheap $130 15" color TV, 
it's still better to preview via firewire->DVcam->TV.  (Assuming your DVcam 
does this kind of passthrough, of course!)
-- 
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org)                    http://www.oldskool.org/
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