It depends what you do, and what  kind of video, you want to work with.
Just plain data backup DVDs should be OK .

Video is a different matter. If you try to capture mpeg-2 on the fly with a
500 you will end up with lots of dropped frames and poor video quality.
With that CPU you are going to have to capture raw, in avi format and then
encode it down to either a DVD, SVCD or even VCD.

Say you have a piece of captured Video that you want to use a burner
program like Ultra Nero 6.X to re-encode and burn to a DVD or SVCD.  A PIII
500 is going to take 6 to 8 hours to encode one hour of captured video into
mpeg-2 format. A Celeron 1.1 Ghz will drop that down to 4 hours, a Celeron
1.4 Ghz with Tularian core and 256cache will bring that down to around 3
hours, a P4 3Ghz 800 Mhz FSB will do it in around 70 minutes and a dual
3.06 Xeon will crank it out in around  35 or 40 minutes. So yeah, video is
all about the processor, and speed is a big deal.

With a 550 It is going to be one of those things that you setup and then go
to bed.... been there...done that!

Rode
The NOSPIN Group
http://www.freepctech.com/rode/


>Is the speed really essential?  Can I get by with 500MHZ, or will it either
>not work or be unbearably slow?  Thanks!

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