Well...
... I may be a nut about all sorts of consumer electronics things - but one of the things I have not really started much into is digital movie editing off a computer.
HOWEVER.... I am not without working thoeries on potential solutions.
Off hand I would think your memory size might (or might not) be an issue - but really NO ONE was enough memory to handle large video files as single frames. And hence no one would design software that did not work with the finite constraints of todays' computers.
What that means is memory should not be an issue IF your computer is reasonably current and moderately powerful. I think - in order for the computer to handle processing of such a large file as a video movie it has to be able to manipulate it - and the only space large enough to do that is the
unused STORAGE space of your hard drive. Ask your husband to check how full your hard drive is ... he can look quick at this by selecting "my computer" from the start button... and just pointing the cursor to the "C" drive... assuming you have only ONE hard drive hooked up. A temporary window will pop up and the top line will say "free space" and the bottom line will say "total size".
GENERALLY.... for routine operation you need to have about 1/3rd to 1/4 of the total drive capacity free - otherwise the whole thing begins to bog down or freeze up. I have had this problem in the past and routinely clean off unusual or underutilized files - like photos. I transfer these files to an external drive and erase the original on the primary drive... thus freeing up space. I'll bet - when he created the movie he took up a LOT of extra space onthe drive and now it has insufficient free space to manipulate the file!
At BEST BUY I saw a 160 GB external drive on sale for I believe only $79 today... after a $60 instant discount at the counter. Also, you could get an external hard drive at Costco. I was there today and they had drives from $90 up to about $200 or so. If you buy an external drive it is a simple matter of plugging it in the USB port and your computer will automatically "see and recognize" it. You want to carefully right click on the start button and select "explore".
Open the file VERY CAREFULLY where the big movie file is stored... and click and VERY CAREFULLY drag it to the new external hard drive icon.
SLIPPING while you do this could inadvertantly move the movie file into another folder - thus scrambling something. OR -
selecting the wrong file and moving it inadvertantly could crash your computer on the spot. I know because I litterally destroyed a computer with a slipped file/folder move. I described what happened to a tech savvy friend and he just laughed... and said the thing was almost dead but HE could salvage the files. You might not want to go through what I went through.
SO... having transferred the BIG movie file - you can now ERASE the original one on the primary drive - thus restoring the main drive to it's normal working capacity. If this does not work - then I would consider moving the ENTIRE FOLDER with the big movie files he might have been accumulating and working with. Sometimes you cannot move a "BASIC" master folder - and you'll have to move the individual movie folders one by one or manually with a click and drag across the field of several movie files.
I am guessing if he has been playing with editing movie files to finally create a nice big vacation one then he must have a few (or many) stored and soaking up tons storage space.
SO... you might be wise to just get a BIG external hard drive to support future movie making. The 250 GB ones are generally cheap. I bought one from Circuit City by Western Digital for $69 with a rebate on sale (not a black friday deal ... equal to the Black friday deals they ran this year). AND... if you are a real power hungry sort - the drive I WANT to get and would recommend to a POWER HUNGRY USER is a
1 TB (ONE TERA-BYTE... or 1,000 megabytes ... or a BILLION kilobytes of storage)
RAID drive. These cost a little bit more -
ut you can set it to RAID configuration "2" ... or the "other" setting from the one it comes with from the factory. This reconfigures the drive (when new) to operate as a RAID array. The 1TB drives are acually made of 2 seperate drives with 512 MB capacity. In configuration "1" (on a western digital RIAD drive) these two drives operate as if they were a single 1 TB drive.
BUT... in RAID configuration "2" they act as two seperate 512 drives. AND anything sent to this drive letter will automatically be written IN DUPLICATE to each drive. Thus... if you were to suffer a random drive failure on ONE of the drives then you would still have a functioning drive. OLD MAIN FRAME computers boasted of incredible industiral redundency and security for business applications - and having seperate redundent storage with a wide range of other extreme data protection designs was a hallmark. THIS is a very secure method of storing precious data in mass! Provided you don't suffer a physical accident with the case holding BOTH drives in the RAID array! THAT might damage or destroy oth drives depending on the accident that occurs!
I want a RAID array because I have 6 years with 50-55MB of images and movie clips stored on it. Thats' probably about 45,000 images plus maybe 100-200 movie clips, plus lots of other critical personal files with value not measured in space occupied. AND now I store these files redundantly MANUALY split between two external drives ... ocassionally backed up. Doing the backup to two drives manually is a real PAIN. SO ... some time soon I am going to switch to a RAID array drive and retire the 250MB and 80MB drives I use now.
I paid $80 for the 80M drive a couple of years ago and $69 for the 250GB drive a few months ago. Both had rebates on them.
NOW... if I am wrong then I recommend you simply walk up to the tech window at Best Buy and talk your problem with their technicians to see if they give you any real understanding or ... practical insight into a solution utilizing their services. Also - you could ask them whether an external hard drive might help IF you use it to free up more space on the primary drive so it has free space to use for huge swap files. They might say yes... or that it would make NO difference at all.
Hope this helps. If not then I would normally call one of my best freinds to ask him about your situation - only this week is CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas... and he is there this week "working". Shoot - I would be there to hang out too if I didn't have cousins from Hawaii visiting now and doing Disneyland every other day. So... if you still don't have a solution by the weekend then I will call my pal and ask him what he would try to resolve your computer issues.
This was fun to reply on....
BTW... Best Buy had a nice little Pirates of the Carribean pinball machine on "advertsied" sale for only $199 today. It looks cheap enough (compared to the real ones) to try out - as my older one has recently developed an interest in pinball games. ONLY, I am not sure where I would put a full size machine - and I want something that delivers most of the pinball game experience without having to spend 2-3,000+... or at least not until I verify that her/thier interests are not merely temporary interests. $200 is an impulse decision considering the potential of the thing from the photos on the box - a display was NOT out to try unfortunately.
AND... I am having a problem with the "B" key on my keyboard - so it does not register sometimes and some words above may be misspelled because the "B" is missing. I tried editing it - but gotta run now to get the kids and go to dinner. One of our favorite restuarants is running a wednesday nite special - so I gotta run now....
Cheers,
Tom
certainly NOT you! It's just conjecture... and my budget is always focused firmly on being the "cheap skate"! So... we wait for the 2008 prices to emerge - and I will be speed dialing on the 31st to check for the lowest rates I can find! 
