Increase RAM for video processing?

[fos]

My iMac has 4 Gb of RAM and a 3 GHz Core2Duo processor.

When processing HD video, the CPU activity is around 75% as reported by top. The "free" ram is down to a small number, much smaller than I observe otherwise. Other than video processing, the iMac is a very fast computer.

I can't afford a better computer like a Mac Pro.

I have two memory slots available. Would doubling the RAM improve performance with the HD video?

[danieldk]

What kind of processing are you doing? If you are just transcoding/re-encoding: it is really CPU bound. It helps to use an encoder that can use two cores (I usually use Handbrake or ffmpeg). If you are doing actual video editing, yes, adding more RAM may help. It's best to use "Activity Monitor" (included with OS X) to see how much memory the process is using.

[fos]

Thanks for the tip, I'll try activity monitor and report back.

Importing the AVCHD files from the camera and then transcoding them to various formats for inclusion on websites seem to take the longest time.

Importing an hour of video took six hours in my early trials with Final Cut Express.

Jeff