What upgrade to pc for video editing ?

[grahamricho]

Hi all, I want to improve my pc for video editing, it sometimes crashes when editing !
I have a pentimum 4 3.2ghz processer with 1 GB of ram and a 160GB of hard drive.
Would adding more Ram improve the editing (1GB) ?
Would adding an external harddrive and using then using two hard drives improve it more ? and how would you do that? is ther any links on how to set up two hard drives, I believe you add the editing program on one of the drives and the videos on the other ?

[mstenn]

Ram is so stupidly cheap at the moment you would be silly not to upgrade that first.

If its a ready made PC what is the model - will be in a better position to advise then.

having a secondary internal hdd would be better than external - but more ram is defo the way to go first!

[skippi]

Hi grahamricho

I agree with Mstenn that adding memory will help greatly and is so cheap at the moment. I use Pinnacle Studio v12 with a P4 2.8MHz PC with 2.5GB of RAM and editing is for the most part fairly painless. I jumped from 512MB to 2.5GB of RAM so the performance increase was very noticeable, this may not necessarily be the case for you as you already have 1GB. I also use a second internal SATA drive and use this for the video data and have put the OS swapfile on this drive also. Putting the swapfile on a different drive to the OS helps to improve overall system performance.

I guess that it also depends on what you are editing and what apps you use to edit the video with. I do not edit high Def video, if so more memory would definitely help, as would a fast HD (10K or 15K RPM if you can afford it).


I hope that your upgrades go well and you get the performance you seek.

[The Crofter]

Yep, speed and storage is everything when editing video. Do not use external disks except for backup. You need the transfer rate of an internal drive to shift data as quickly as possible. Get another drive with good capacity, probably a 1TB as video files eat storage like there is no tomorrow. Keep this drive for your video and the program on C:. This allows both drives to work at full speed instead of forcing the heads on a single drive to work overtime.

Ensure that both drives are defragged on a regular basis, especially the video drive. Also suggest you add as much ram as possible but there is a limit that xp (vista?) will see (3GB ish). Finally look at your graphics card as that will also have an effect on rendering speed etc.

I use Adobe Premiere which allows me to setup scratch disks to take the pressure of the C: drive. Have a look at your program documentation.

You have not got the fastest processor around so try not to run any other applications when editing. Worth running windows task manager occasionally to get an idea of how your system is performing and if the CPU is being maxed out.

[MarkE19]

Originally Posted by The Crofter

Do not use external disks except for backup. You need the transfer rate of an internal drive to shift data as quickly as possible.

eSATA or firewire external drives are plenty fast enough for video editing. Even USB2.0 drives should be fine, but an internal drive will be cheaper.

Originally Posted by The Crofter

Get another drive with good capacity, probably a 1TB as video files eat storage like there is no tomorrow.

capture of a miniDV tape will eat approx 13Gb per full tape

Originally Posted by The Crofter

Keep this drive for your video and the program on C:. This allows both drives to work at full speed instead of forcing the heads on a single drive to work overtime.

If the drives are IDE then put both on the same cable as a DVD/CD drive on the same cable will slow the HDD down. Also make sure DMA is enabled and a full spec IDE cable is used rather than the cheaper optical drive cables.

Originally Posted by The Crofter

Ensure that both drives are defragged on a regular basis, especially the video drive.

As a HDD fills up it gets more fragmented quickly. This makes the HDD work harder and therefore slows it down.

Originally Posted by The Crofter

Also suggest you add as much ram as possible but there is a limit that xp (vista?) will see (3GB ish).

Extra RAM will speed up rendering, but actual editing will not be effected much by the RAM. All 32bit Windows (that's most versions) can only see around 3.25Gb of RAM. XP 64bit or Vista 64bit can see a fair bit more, depending on the version depends on how much.

Originally Posted by The Crofter

Finally look at your graphics card as that will also have an effect on rendering speed etc.

Not true unless the software is specifically written to use the GPU (most consumer editing software isn't).

Originally Posted by The Crofter

You have not got the fastest processor around so try not to run any other applications when editing. Worth running windows task manager occasionally to get an idea of how your system is performing and if the CPU is being maxed out.

With my old PC running XP I stopped all other software (inc AV & firewall) before doing any editing etc. - just make sure you are disconnecteed from the internet first!
I used a free program called EndItAll to stop everything that can be safely stopped, and just rebooted to start everything back up - do a search for a download as it can still be found on the internet.

Mark.

[Ken42]

What minimum spec PC should I get to edit HD video (from a Canon HV20) and create Blu Ray DVDs?

Will a Laptop be up to the job, or will it run too hot?

From the advice on this forum it seems that Sony Vegas will do fine for software.

[MarkE19]

Have a look at the recommended specs for the software you want to use and get at least those specs - don't base the purchase on the minimum required specs though.
A desktop PC will be easier to upgrade as and when required, and almost certainly cheaper to buy. However if space is tight then a laptop (of the required specs) will be good enough for editing, although an additional HDD will almost certainly be required.

Mark.