How much ram?Can't figure it out.Here's why!
 

Since I'm brand new at the editing game i'm wondering if there is a certain formula or ratio which goes something like this:

I import 60 minutes I need so much ram in order to import it into an application.

If I import say just 20 minutes,can I get away with less ram?

Can one assign free memory to a cache in order to potenially avoid crashes,freezes and system lock-ups?

How much ram do you need to import files/folders into applications?

Need to know.
Thanks,
Bruce

Your NLE software will have a specification as to how much ram you need to use it, usually stated as a minumum amount and a recommended amount. Around 512 megabytes is a typical number for minimal acceptable performance, but that varies with the application. Ram requirements do not depend on video length.

Sound more like you are asking about how much hard drive space you need. Storage is cheap - on the order of $0.40 per gigabyte these days - the more storage the better. A 200 gigabyte video storage drive is a reasonable starting point.

Bruce: you don't say what kind of computer or software you're using. I'm assuming it's a PC, so I've moved your post to our PC editing forum where I think you'll get a better response than the GL2 forum.

Need to know a lot more info Bruce, let us know the following:

1/ What type of system
2/ What operating system version
3/ What editing software package
4/ What video card
5/ How much hard drive space

Let's start there and work out this to get you a better answer. In my system if you want to use it as an example, I use 2 gigs of ram as my standard machine setup, I run Adobe Premier Pro 1.51 and 2.0 and have a fast video card with no less than 128 megs of memory but prefer 256 megs. Hard drives need to be fast, a RAID-0 is really nice but you can get away with a 7200 serial ata as most editing packages are optimized for that. Horsepower is key, the fastest machine you can affort will generally yield the best results.

Miguel