Is it possible to burn DVDs on my old, slow system?

[Brian]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop,rec.video.production,microsoft.public.windowsme.hardware (More info?)

I am trying to squeeze the last megahertz out of my old, slow Compaq
Presario 5000. It is running a 750 MHz AMD Duron chip under Windows
ME.

I would like to add a DVD drive to burn a DVD of the production my son
is building with Pinnacle Studio 8. He has been able to author on
VCD; but we want to upgrade the image to DVD. The production will be
10-12 minutes and incorporate a bunch of scanned photos, plus a few
short video clips.

The problem seems to be that all of the DVD burners we can find have
specifications requiring a minimum of 800 MHz. Not many burners
accomodate WinME, but there seem to be a few out there.

Is there any solution? It bugs me to need to buy what is essentially
obsolete technology, but I am willing to do this to get through this
project. Then I'll probably spring for a whole new computer.

All of the authoring will be done on software I now own. All I really
need is something to grab the output and burn it onto the disk.

Will my 750 MHz chip speed suffice if we don't need a fast burn speed?
Or does something like buffer rate mean that I have no hope of using
the Compaq to burn to DVD.

Any help or advice that the assembled masses can provide this newbie
is gratefully accepted.

Brian
bdz000@hotmail.com

 

[rs]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop,rec.video.production,microsoft.public.windowsme.hardware (More info?)

You might have difficulty with the newer faster burners possibly. But I
recall I had a 2X dvd burner on my old Athlon 600 and it worked fine.

Not sure, but a 10-12 min DVD set of VOB's might actually fit onto a CD.
Perhaps you could author the DVD onto your HD, copy the files to a CD and if
you have a friend with a burner ask them to burn the DVD for you.


"Brian" <bdz000@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:b080028f.0411160925.72f90f8b@posting.google.com...
> I am trying to squeeze the last megahertz out of my old, slow Compaq
> Presario 5000. It is running a 750 MHz AMD Duron chip under Windows
> ME.
>
> I would like to add a DVD drive to burn a DVD of the production my son
> is building with Pinnacle Studio 8. He has been able to author on
> VCD; but we want to upgrade the image to DVD. The production will be
> 10-12 minutes and incorporate a bunch of scanned photos, plus a few
> short video clips.
>
> The problem seems to be that all of the DVD burners we can find have
> specifications requiring a minimum of 800 MHz. Not many burners
> accomodate WinME, but there seem to be a few out there.
>
> Is there any solution? It bugs me to need to buy what is essentially
> obsolete technology, but I am willing to do this to get through this
> project. Then I'll probably spring for a whole new computer.
>
> All of the authoring will be done on software I now own. All I really
> need is something to grab the output and burn it onto the disk.
>
> Will my 750 MHz chip speed suffice if we don't need a fast burn speed?
> Or does something like buffer rate mean that I have no hope of using
> the Compaq to burn to DVD.
>
> Any help or advice that the assembled masses can provide this newbie
> is gratefully accepted.
>
> Brian
> bdz000@hotmail.com

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop,rec.video.production,microsoft.public.windowsme.hardware (More info?)

You shouldn't have any problems - I was able (until the motherboard died
last week) to use an older PII/400 machine to burn DVD's on an 8x DVD+
drive - it was just a case of reducing the burn speed to one which the
hardware could cope with - say 1x or 2x.

The high processor speeds that are 'required' are either because of the
software installed for burning, or to enable the higher speed that the drive
is capable of.


--
Noel Paton (MS-MVP 2002-2005, Windows)

Nil Carborundum Illegitemi
http://www.btinternet.com/~winnoel/millsrpch.htm
http://tinyurl.com/6oztj

Please read http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm on how to post messages to NG's

"Brian" <bdz000@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:b080028f.0411160925.72f90f8b@posting.google.com...
>I am trying to squeeze the last megahertz out of my old, slow Compaq
> Presario 5000. It is running a 750 MHz AMD Duron chip under Windows
> ME.
>
> I would like to add a DVD drive to burn a DVD of the production my son
> is building with Pinnacle Studio 8. He has been able to author on
> VCD; but we want to upgrade the image to DVD. The production will be
> 10-12 minutes and incorporate a bunch of scanned photos, plus a few
> short video clips.
>
> The problem seems to be that all of the DVD burners we can find have
> specifications requiring a minimum of 800 MHz. Not many burners
> accomodate WinME, but there seem to be a few out there.
>
> Is there any solution? It bugs me to need to buy what is essentially
> obsolete technology, but I am willing to do this to get through this
> project. Then I'll probably spring for a whole new computer.
>
> All of the authoring will be done on software I now own. All I really
> need is something to grab the output and burn it onto the disk.
>
> Will my 750 MHz chip speed suffice if we don't need a fast burn speed?
> Or does something like buffer rate mean that I have no hope of using
> the Compaq to burn to DVD.
>
> Any help or advice that the assembled masses can provide this newbie
> is gratefully accepted.
>
> Brian
> bdz000@hotmail.com

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop,rec.video.production,microsoft.public.windowsme.hardware (More info?)

No problem. All of the burners have the feature which allows them to
pause recording if the PC is too slow, then resume when it has caught
up. You can even stick a DVD burner into a 100Mhz PC and have it go if
you want -- just don't expect anything more than 1x burn speeds however =P

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop,rec.video.production,microsoft.public.windowsme.hardware (More info?)

In short, Yes!

I am successfully burning DVDs at 4x from a system based around a
Celeron 300A overclocked to 450Mhz. Pioneer drive (I forget the
model, the one that did 4x max).

I might also add that for the first few burns I did not have UDMA
enabled, and for a double whammy, the source drive was on the same IDE
channel (which in line with the age of the system is chugging along at
ATA33). It took ages to burn, but surprisingly, no coasters!

The system is even OK to edit DV-based video, provided you are just
cutting and pasting, and not doing anything dramatic in the way of
effects (which requires a recalculation of the entire video frame).
The killer, of course, is the creation of the MPEG2 file. Just a
allow a number of days for the PC to do this, and bear in mind that
the better software may require a better CPU to even run (CCE requires
a a processor that supports SSE instructions, which the Duron may not
- I know that my Celeron doesn't, as it is essentially a PII, and SSE
came in at the PIII level).

Good luck,

jj


bdz000@hotmail.com (Brian) wrote in message news:<b080028f.0411160925.72f90f8b@posting.google.com>...
> I am trying to squeeze the last megahertz out of my old, slow Compaq
> Presario 5000. It is running a 750 MHz AMD Duron chip under Windows
> ME.
>
> I would like to add a DVD drive to burn a DVD of the production my son
> is building with Pinnacle Studio 8. He has been able to author on
> VCD; but we want to upgrade the image to DVD. The production will be
> 10-12 minutes and incorporate a bunch of scanned photos, plus a few
> short video clips.
>
> The problem seems to be that all of the DVD burners we can find have
> specifications requiring a minimum of 800 MHz. Not many burners
> accomodate WinME, but there seem to be a few out there.
>
> Is there any solution? It bugs me to need to buy what is essentially
> obsolete technology, but I am willing to do this to get through this
> project. Then I'll probably spring for a whole new computer.
>
> All of the authoring will be done on software I now own. All I really
> need is something to grab the output and burn it onto the disk.
>
> Will my 750 MHz chip speed suffice if we don't need a fast burn speed?
> Or does something like buffer rate mean that I have no hope of using
> the Compaq to burn to DVD.
>
> Any help or advice that the assembled masses can provide this newbie
> is gratefully accepted.
>
> Brian
> bdz000@hotmail.com