February 25, 2004  Email this  Print this
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TECH
Lights, Camera, Computer, Action
by Ronaleen Roha New "media center" PCs, featured in "Media Mastery" in the April issue of Kiplinger's Personal Finance, can help you digitize and organize everything from old family snapshots and tracks from vinyl LPs (remember those?) to edit and produce your own DVDs. But if you just want to dabble in digital photos or "rip" a few songs, you may have everything, or almost everything, you need. Upgrade or replace your PC?
First, take a hard look at your computer and decide if you can add a few peripherals or need to trade it in for a newer model.
The biggest factor in the upgrade-versus-buy-new decision is processing speed. If your processor is slower than 2.0 GHz, start shopping. Many computer parts are interchangeable and simply snap or screw into place. Not so with the processor, which is embedded in the motherboard -- the machine's cerebrum. For what it would cost to replace the motherboard, you could almost buy a speedier machine.
Next, look at your operating system. If you don't have Windows 2000 or better, forget it. Yes, you could buy new software, but chances are your older machine couldn't handle it.
Finally, consider your PC's memory. You'll need a fairly large hard disc and plenty of RAM to store pictures or handle multimedia editing. Fortunately, memory is cheap. If you have room to stuff in more RAM chips and want to spring for new internal or external hard-drives, CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drives, go for it.
The bottom line: If you want to edit your own photos, music and videos and your machine is more than three years old, you may be better off purchasing new than trying to upgrade. However, if you bought your machine more recently, all you may need is a few system tweaks.
For the digital snapshooter
Digital cameras outsold film cameras last year for the first time, leading to a rapidly growing mother-load of digital snapshots cramming hard drives.
The most crucial spec for handling all those photos is a hard drive of at least 60 GB. But if you plan to store a slew of photos at hard-drive-hogging resolutions of, say, four or five megapixels, or you plan to do sophisticated photo editing such as layering photos on top of each other to create special effects, then bump up your hard drive to 80 GB or more. Hard-drive memory costs roughly $1 per gig for drives running at 7,200 rpm, the current industry standard for desktop PCs.
Processor speed isn't a huge factor with still photos, so speeds of 2.0 GHz to 2.4 GHz are plenty, unless you get into fancy editing. If you want to handle large files more smoothly, shop for a 2.8 GHz PC.
Other necessities include at least 512 MB of RAM and a CD-burner, so you can back-up your irreplaceable photos. A DVD burner is a nice extra for large photo collections, which could add more than $175 to the price of the PC. A DVD can hold 4.7 GB of data compared to less than 1 GB for a CD.
If you don't have built-in memory-card slots or easy to reach USB or IEEE 1394 ports, consider a plug-in card reader (available for about $35) or a USB hub (starting at less than $20) to make plugging in your camera easier.
Finish a desktop photography set-up with a large screen, such as a 19-inch flat screen CRT monitor or a 17-inch LCD monitor -- both give you about the same amount of on-screen editing space. And don't forget a photo printer so you can memorialize your best shots.
Good PCs for photo buffs include:
HP Pavilion A430 (www.hp.com, $800 plus monitor). This PC has slots for seven kinds of memory cards, including SD, Compact Flash, and Sony Memory Stick. It also has an AMD® Athlon XP processor 3200+ processor, a 160 GB hard drive and a combo CD/DVD burner.
Toshiba Satellite A45-S250 (www.toshiba.com, $1,600). This is a notebook computer, which includes 512 MB of RAM, a 2.8 GHz Intel Pentium 4 processor, a 60GB hard drive (80GB is the current maximum for notebooks), a DVD burner, WiFi access and an Secure Digital (SD) card slot.
Sony Vaio PCV-RS520G (www.sonystyle.com, $1,150 without monitor). This desktop with an Intel 3.0 MHz Pentium 4 processor with Hyper-Threading, 512 MB RAM, 160 GB hard drive and a combo CD/DVD burner. Hyper-Threading is a technology that lets a single processor perform like two and ensures that you can multi-task-listen to music while editing photos, for instance-without glitches.
Music to your ears
Make the most of your digital music by beefing up the sound-related parts of the system.
First, choose a high-quality sound card to improve, augment and otherwise manipulate sound. Consider the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 (www.audigy.com, about $150). A cheaper sound card works fine for simple stereo systems, but the Audigy 2 can deliver surround-sound audio to five or six satellite speakers.
You'll need at least 512 MB of RAM. Increase your hard drive to 80 GB or more and look for a hard drive that spins at 7,200 rpm, so you can load music (and any other data-rich files, such as videos) faster. Working with music isn't a processor-pusher unless you are composing digital music, so a speed of 2.0 GHz up to about 2.8 GHz is fine.
A CD-burner with a fairly fast "read speed" is also a must. Three numbers, such as 48x24x48, define CD-RW drives. The first number is the "record speed," or how fast the drive will record 150 KB of data per second (48 x 150 KB/second = 7,200 KB/second). The second number is the "rewrite speed," how fast it erases and writes the new info. The third number is the "read speed." In a desktop PC, look for a read speed of no less than 32x, but 48x is better. (The highest for laptops is currently 24x.)
Last but definitely not least: Invest in good speakers such as those from Klipsch, Altec Lansing, Eclipse or Logitech. Good speakers can cost anywhere from $100 to $400 or more.
The HP Pavilion A420 ($700 plus monitor) and the Toshiba Satellite m35 notebook PC (starting at $1,620, including a 15" wide screen monitor) are well-rounded systems that work well for music.
Hollywood-quality movies
Working with video puts greater demands on a system than handling still photos or music. For one thing, video devours hard-drive space, so go for 100 MB or more, with a speed of 7200 rpm. At a minimum, get 512 MB of RAM, though if you get serious about making videos with cool effects and sound tracks 1 GB wouldn't be too much.
Video also challenges a processor, so go with an AMD Athlon XP, such as the 3000+ running at 2.167 GHz, or an Intel Pentium 4 (at speeds of 2.6 GHz or faster) with Hyper-Threading.
For smooth video editing and playback, add a good video card with at least 64 MB of video RAM. Consider leaders such as NVIDIA (www.nvidia.com) or ATI Technologies (www.ati.com).
USB 2.0 and FireWire ports are essential for fast video transfer to the PC.
To allow sufficient screen space to see what you're doing easily and clearly, you'll want a fairly large screen, such as either a 19-inch flat traditional CRT screen or a 17-inch LCD screen.
When you're dealing with video, a DVD burner becomes indispensable for archiving video and making DVDs for family and friends. The jury is still out on which writable DVD format will gain PC dominance. Until a standard is selected, look for dual-format drives, such as those by Gateway and Sony. Their DVD drives burn DVDs in both DVD +RW and DVD -RW. Dell and HP use + RW format, and DVDs made on them play in most newer DVD players.
Sony's Vaio RZ40CG series of desktops (www.sony.com, $1,350 to $2,690, without monitor) are well equipped to handle video editing. These PCs run the Windows CP Media Center Edition operating system with Intel Pentium 4 processors (2.6 GHz to 3.2 GHz depending on the model). They'll also let you simply plug in an analog video camera and transfer 8mm video images to the hard drive or burn them to DVD. | 
GETTING STARTED