Requirements for DVD burners

Is there a minimum system requirement for adding a DVD burner.I have two computers with AMD Athlon 550MHz and PII 450MHz processors with 128MB and 512MB RAM respectively.Both have 10GB HD.Most of the specs for DVD burners I saw need PIII 800MHz or more.Nothing is said about AMD processors.Is this a fact.Would PII 450MHz or AMD 550Mhz be able to handle a DVD burner.Thanks.

 

Both your processors should have enough power to run a dvd burner. The problem that may exist is your RAM size. 128mb of memory will not cut it. You would need at least 256 or 512. Another thing you might have to consider is your hard drive. If you dont already have a dvd rom installed, in order to burn disc to disc you would have to save the files temporarly on your hard drive, and keep in mind that a full dvd is around 4.5 GB of data. If you already have a dvd rom that is great, but burning on the fly disc to disc takes up ample system resources also, so your back to a ram problem. I am a little confused about your question, are you saying that you have 128mb of ram on the Athlon machine and 512mb on the PII? If thats the case, the Athlon 550 probably wont cut it. The PII should work, I have burned a few dvd's with Nero 5.5 burning software on a PII 400 and 256mb of ram before, but it is really slow and drains the system big time. What I would recommend is try to get an older dvd burner which is cheaper, so you wont be out a whole lot of money if you did have some problems with it. I hope this helps a little bit.

 

Thanks Cracker.You answered my question adequately.My PII 450 machine has 512 MB RAM.I think I might need more HD space.At present I have only 4.5GB free space.So what the specs are saying about PIII 800MHz probably is the ideal?Please tell me the name of a cheap machine to experiment with.Thanks again.

 

Thanx Triple6.I have the all the answers now.