System Requirements

Apple's systems have always had a multimedia focus. Some of the newer, more powerful computers from IBM, Compaq, Dell and HP are excellent and economic video production systems. But almost any computer sold today is multimedia and video production ready. Some enhancements may be required but there is nothing standing in the way of your beginning to produce, use and share personal and professional video on CDs.

Make certain your system is equipped with a good quality video card. The same is true of a sound card.

While you can get by with 64MB of memory, more is always better. With memory modules so inexpensive today, 128MB simplifies your job. 256MB of memory allows you to take advantage of advanced video editing you'll want to do once you become familiar with all of the things you can do in producing your video CDs.

Individuals with 20GB hard drives often feel they have massive storage capacity but you quickly find that digital video consumes large volumes of storage space (2-4MB per second of video). An hour of downloaded video will consume more than 13GB of storage, which doesn't leave much space for OS, application and working file storage or your video editing and authoring work.

Most video production solution manufacturers like Dazzle Multimedia recommend that users add an external 40GB+ hard drive with a rotational speed of 7,200 - 10,000 rpm. Fortunately these high capacity drives have become remarkably inexpensive.

Video Input

If you already have a digital camcorder you can download your video files directly to your system and with today's low-cost video production tools immediately begin the editing and authoring process. If you have an analog camcorder your video has to be converted to DV to simplify and speed the editing process. Video production products do the job automatically. In addition, you probably have a library of old VHS tapes that you want to edit and convert to DVD.

A number of bridge solutions are available which provide both analog and digital signals in and out. These economic products - such as Dazzle's DV-Bridge - are priced under $300, work with OS-native video tools such as QuickTime, iMovie, Final Cut Pro and MovieMaker and also include additional video editing and authoring products and tools.

These products allow you to accept inputs from digital and analog camcorders as well as standard analog VCRs. They also enable you to copy the finished video to VHS tape, DVD and of course very low-cost CD-R and CD-RW media.

CD Recorder

The final piece of hardware you will need will be a CD recorder. Because of the economy and versatility of today's CD-RW drives, very few CD-R only recorders are sold. The CD-RW drive allows you to produce both write-once CD-R and rewritable CD-RW discs.

This is important in producing video CDs or CDs with DVD content because many older DVD players can not play CD-Rs but they can play CD-RW discs. If you produce your video on CD-R disc and the recipient has a DVD-ROM drive in his or her computer they should be able to play the video flawlessly. However, if you are using the video in a classroom environment or sending a copy to family and friends in other areas for playback on a DVD player, make certain they can view your masterpiece by producing it on quality, name brand CD-RW media.

CD recorders are rated by recording and playback speeds. For example an 8x4x24x CD-RW records at 8x speed (copying a full 74-minute disc in less than 10 minutes) while 16x10x40x drives copy a complete disc in about 5 minutes. These drives will rewrite a CD-RW disc at 4x and 10x respectively and will read both CD-R and CD-RW discs at 24x and 40x speeds respectively.

Depending upon your system configuration, you can choose a CD-RW drive with USB, SCSI and FireWire connectivity. All will allow you to carry out the work satisfactorily.

CD-R vs CD-RW

With your cDVD (CD DVD) or video CD you clearly have two storage options and as long as you choose quality media (see sidebar below) you can use either: