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Well, as I had mentioned before, the g/f is using a PII450 with 384MB of PC133, capturing 640x480 through a ATI WonderVe, it's a crappy setup.
Nonetheless, the capturing takes up between 80-90% proc time.
The slow parts are loading clip indexes into ram so that you can preview the segments and determine your cuts and fades.
Other than that, the MOST CPU intensive parts of video production are the encoding and decoding. When you take a 2GB video file and encode it to DivX, it takes 100% proc time for the duration of the encoding. If you've ever taken an Divx file and recoded it to a MPEG you'll know what I'm talking about. On a P4 2.8Ghz, I've seen a DVD quality DivX file, with a runtime of 1.5 hours, take upwards of 35-40 minutes just to convert to a MPEG.
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Now, if she's using a FireWire capture, then you will not have to run the feed into a capture card at normal runtime. The data will come off of the camera faster than normal play.
If she hasn't already purchased the camera, consider one with FireWire. Encoding the video as it's being taken off of the camera would help with the large file sizes.
Oh, and the 19" LCD.. ..how much does that eat into the budget? How much of a difference is there in a 17"?
-SF
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