Test Bench:
Compaq Presario 7000Z DVD-R Turnkey Editing Computer (page 2)

Burning the Discs

By upgrading Adaptec's EZ CD Creator software to the Deluxe version, we were able to make a video CD, an inexpensive (CD-R discs are far cheaper than DVD-R discs), low-res alternative to burning DVDs. After a few minutes of authoring, the machine burned a video CD of our 42-second movie in two minutes, 33 seconds. This played without problems in a Philips DVD 940 DVD-Video player. The quality was the standard low-resolution MPEG-1 quality of video CD.

The installed LE version of Sonic Solutions' DVDit! did not have an MPEG transcoder (the SE version would have), and therefore couldn't make a DVD from our test .avi file. Compaq avoids a turnkey demerit here, however, because StudioDV, as installed, had an MPEG encoder built-in. We brought our finished movie into the StudioDV timeline and output it as an MPEG-2 clip. We were able to address this MPEG-2 clip in the DVDit! project and output the finished project to a DVD-R disc.

Summary

To achieve the full functionality we reached, add the cost of an NTSC monitor (we used a small, cheap one), audio adapter and Adaptec EZ CD Creator upgrade to the cost of the computer. We'd recommend having Compaq install the Adaptec upgrade before shipping. Considering that, a year ago, the cheapest DVD-R drive alone cost $2,000 more than this whole computer, and considering the 19-inch monitor and set of seven speakers, we found the price of the Compaq Presario 7000Z reasonable. It performed its video editing, DVD authoring and even, when upgraded, video CD authoring tasks favorably and quickly. It was easy to set up, and had everything necessary for video editing and DVD authoring already installed. Compaq's tech support team was quick, reliable and well-equipped. We give it an "A."

TECH SPECS

Platform: Windows
CPU: AMD Athlon 1324 MHz
RAM: 256MB
Hard Drive: IBM 71GB DTLA 307075 DMA HD
OS: Windows Me 4.9
Sound Card: Creative Labs SB Live
VGA Card: NVIDIA GeForce2 GTS
1394 Ports: 2 TI OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 (Pinnacle Card)
DVD-RW: Pioneer DVR-103
CD-ROM: Compaq CD-ROM LTN403
Floppy Disk Drive: 3.5-inch generic
Five PCI slots, One AGP slot
Monitor: Compaq FS940 19-inch
Speakers: JBL Platinum stereo, Klipsch ProMedia v. 2-400
Installed Software: Windows Update R, Windows MovieMaker, Pinnacle Studio DV 1.06, Sonic Foundry DVDit!, Adobe Premiere 6.0, Media 100 Cleaner 5, EZ MS Works 6.0, Adaptec EZ CD Creator 4, Compaq WinDVD Player, Sonic Solutions DVDit! LE 2.3, Real Player Plus 7, Basic QT Player 4.0, Windows Media Player 7.0

Strengths