Beef it Up: Basic Hardware Requirements for Editing (page 3)
Decisions, Decisions
The good news is that just about any computer you buy in today's marketplace has some capability for video editing. Free, powerful, easy-to-use editing software is available for all Windows XP and Mac OS X users. Furthermore, the hardware has advanced to the point where even the bargain-basement option on brand-new computers can probably handle simple DV editing--if you don't mind waiting a while to render titles and effects, and if you don't mind a lost frame or two here and there. Video professionals, however, should still seek the highest performance the industry has to offer, because higher-performance systems offer greater reliability, fewer crashes, less downtime and best of all, less time spent waiting for graphics to render.
Joe McCleskey is a multimedia producer and freelance writer.
