Operation Manual

MEDIASTUDIO PRO USER GUIDE
86
Tips for capturing good video and audio
Capturing video utilizes a huge chunk of the computer’s memory and it puts
your system resources to the test. The better your system is, the better the
results will be. Below are some guidelines for the type of system setup that
works best for video capturing. Reading this will help you optimize your
machine’s potential and create the best captured videos possible.
Getting the right hardware
There are three key components to capturing video that account for much
of the demand on a system's resources. They are the video capture board/
card, the CPU, and the hard drive. Each is equally important and a
bottleneck in any one will adversely affect the performance of the others.
The video capture board converts the original analog video source into
digital data. In general, the faster this board is, the faster video can be
digitized and then used by your computer. While the video capture board
handles video input, it is the CPU which handles the delivery. The faster
the CPU is, the more video (as data) can be processed and thus the better
captured video file.
If you have a DV camcorder, you will need to use an IEEE-1394 (FireWire)
interface card. DV capture cards provide device control over the source and
complete transfer of video data between the tape and your hard drive.
Once the video has been processed by the CPU, it is written on your hard
drive. If you try capturing a full frame with full motion video, your hard
drive may not be able to keep up. As a result, your computer will end up
either dropping or skipping frames. It is recommended that you use at least
a 7200 RPM IDE drive. If necessary, use a RAID (Redundant Array of
Independent disks) hard drive system.