What to buy for video editing

[Trevor Shipman]

Yeah I’ve heard the same from many folks. Apples are indeed expensive but they just work.

With that said I’m the proud new owner of the following iMac

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https://www.ebay.com/ulk/itm/283245746334

Thanks to everyone for their input and helping me send my money. Hope it fits the bill.

 

[robert843]

@Trevor Shipman congrats on the new set up. So I went through this a few years back I wanted something for video editing and after going through three PC laptops in three years I asked the same question if it was worth spending the money to go to an Apple Pay. The basic answer is as expected my Apple laptop is now approximately three years old and still works awesome way better than any PC I’ve had over a three year stretch. The one thing I will say about the Mac computers because even though I am an iPhone person the learning curve has been huge even three years in I get frustrated sometimes because I just can’t figure something out on the Mac and have to go watch a you tube video on how to do it. If you can take a class on how to use a Mac I highly suggest it as when you fully utilize the computer they are awesome

 

[2kwik4u]

@Trevor Shipman congrats on the new set up. So I went through this a few years back I wanted something for video editing and after going through three PC laptops in three years I asked the same question if it was worth spending the money to go to an Apple Pay. The basic answer is as expected my Apple laptop is now approximately three years old and still works awesome way better than any PC I’ve had over a three year stretch. The one thing I will say about the Mac computers because even though I am an iPhone person the learning curve has been huge even three years in I get frustrated sometimes because I just can’t figure something out on the Mac and have to go watch a you tube video on how to do it. If you can take a class on how to use a Mac I highly suggest it as when you fully utilize the computer they are awesome

My buddy and I used to go round and round on this topic. Apple vs Mac and price vs performance and all that.

He buys MacBook Pro's every 3 years. I buy Lenovo Thinkpad's every 3 years. We've found that "premium" is the key, not the brand.

 

[2kwik4u]

Ditch the workstation card and go with an older Fermi or Maxwell GeForce GPU. I use one of my CAD stations in a pinch at work if I need to render a video alongside my other “render rig” and I have top level Intel Xtreme processor but capped by Quadro 5000 and Tesla and it can’t hold a candle to my 4770k multi-GeForce GPU rig. Even my home rig with 4770k and one GTX780 is faster (by a LONG SHOT)! The Quadro’s just aren’t up to the video editing task IMO. You can get up some older GeForce for cheap. The reason I suggest a GeForce is because Adobe software takes use of Nvidia CUDA cores for render encoding. Otherwise that rig will be good to go. I like to keep my OS on its own SSD and have other SSD’s for data, games, software, etc. I keep a large HDD for large file storage because I don’t want the unnecessary writes to an expensive SSD. Basically only “the good stuff” gets priority to live on an SSD in my environment and anything less important goes on the cheaper HDD where you can rewrite to your hearts content without feeling guilty.

I've been debating on moving this card over to a newer GTX something or the other. If I understand correctly most Autodesk products use DirectX now as well instead of OpenGL for graphics rendering. I'm wondering if some of my FEA workflows would be improved with the card switch as well. Hard sell for the boss without some backup data though.

My initial question was aimed more at software though. Any thoughts on some inexpensive and easy to use editing software?

 

[Trevor Shipman]

Yeah, I used to be in the computer game and knew what to get but that time has sailed by me. It does worry me a little bit about the age of the computer but the stats on it seem to be inline with a good fast working computer. 3.4 i7 processor, 16gb ram (upgradeable to 32 - which I prolly will do), and 1tb drive.

With that said, I think I’m going to go Final Cut Pro as it’s an Apple product and I assume it plays best with the Mac. Anyone have any tips on getting that at a decent price? Or should I look at another software?

 

[OCMD]

@2kwik4u you are set up perfect for Roxio creator software.
https://www.roxio.com/en/products/creator/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIsNaKzsPC3gIVRVYNCh2djwzwEAAYASAAEgIXe_D_BwE

Simple and easy to use. I use NXT 4 to this day and haven't upgraded - not really necessary. I also use Adobe Premier Elements on occasion, but it is not as user friendly as NXT.

 

[biffdotorg]

Yeah, I used to be in the computer game and knew what to get but that time has sailed by me. It does worry me a little bit about the age of the computer but the stats on it seem to be inline with a good fast working computer. 3.4 i7 processor, 16gb ram (upgradeable to 32 - which I prolly will do), and 1tb drive.

With that said, I think I’m going to go Final Cut Pro as it’s an Apple product and I assume it plays best with the Mac. Anyone have any tips on getting that at a decent price? Or should I look at another software?

If this is your first attempt at editing, go with something that is wizard based first. It will get you started making quick movies. As you want to do more techical things, you can go through the manual process of trimming, editing, transitions, etc. Then decide if you want to spend the money on Final Cut. That may be a bit overboard for the average user.

Be sure to wipe that new computer clean. If you can restore it to factory fresh, that may be best. Most folks with a slow computer don't realize, computers don't slow down like us old folks, they get clogged up with crap. A total wipe of the hard drive annually will take it back to the speed it was when it came out of the box.

Good luck!

 

[mdchachi]

My buddy and I used to go round and round on this topic. Apple vs Mac and price vs performance and all that

Sounds like a good debate to have when you're drunk. You go off. One buys an Apple. One buys a Mac. You come back to compare notes and find that you bought the same thing!

 

[2kwik4u]

Sounds like a good debate to have when you're drunk. You go off. One buys an Apple. One buys a Mac. You come back to compare notes and find that you bought the same thing!

ROFL, that's what I get for typing faster than my brain was processing this morning. Good Catch!

 

[haknslash]

I've been debating on moving this card over to a newer GTX something or the other. If I understand correctly most Autodesk products use DirectX now as well instead of OpenGL for graphics rendering. I'm wondering if some of my FEA workflows would be improved with the card switch as well. Hard sell for the boss without some backup data though.

My initial question was aimed more at software though. Any thoughts on some inexpensive and easy to use editing software?

Autodesk reps and hard core forum users will still technically shun you if you use a “gaming card” but I can tell you after years of using both styles of cards, I don’t see any degradation using Inventor in a GeForce GPU environment. I would still say though that if doing FEA or other analysis you’ll likely want the double precision you get from Quadro’s just so you can feel better about validating the design, especially if it involves many parts in the assembly. In terms of speed though I don’t see any negatives using GeForce. I have two CAD machines I use at my work. One is dedicated for animations and photorealistic rendering using the GeForce cards. My other CAD machine uses Quadro and Tesla GPU’s. Both of those I use Inventor extensively without issue.

 

[robert843]

With that said, I think I’m going to go Final Cut Pro as it’s an Apple product and I assume it plays best with the Mac. Anyone have any tips on getting that at a decent price? Or should I look at another software?

Not sure what IOS the one you bought is running but it will probably come with imovie on it for free I would start just using that and see if you feel the need to upgrade after you have played with it. When I first switched to Mac I thought I was going to get Final Cut Pro as well but IMovie has everything I need so I never upgraded.

 

[2kwik4u]

Autodesk reps and hard core forum users will still technically shun you if you use a “gaming card” but I can tell you after years of using both styles of cards, I don’t see any degradation using Inventor in a GeForce GPU environment. I would still say though that if doing FEA or other analysis you’ll likely want the double precision you get from Quadro’s just so you can feel better about validating the design, especially if it involves many parts in the assembly. In terms of speed though I don’t see any negatives using GeForce. I have two CAD machines I use at my work. One is dedicated for animations and photorealistic rendering using the GeForce cards. My other CAD machine uses Quadro and Tesla GPU’s. Both of those I use Inventor extensively without issue.

Thanks for the info. My main job is doing FEA (Linear and Non-linear Static, and Non-Linear and Transient Discrete Frequency Response) work on Inventor models. The graphics that I get are not earth shatteringly important, however when I'm working on a model with 500k+ nodes on the screen at once, having a good card has seemed to help when probing results. I do a TON of other calcuations and programming (lots of Visual Basic programming and MathCAD work) that aren't graphics intensive. The Quadro seems to do fine at driving my 3 24in HD monitors for those tasks, and the CPU is rarely taxed unless I'm doing full recompiles or something like that.

The only reason I'm even looking at Video Editing is for some timelapse video I've been taking to do time studies on the manufacturing floor. I have weeks worth of video @720P that need to be compiled and sorted so I can easily flip through it, and view individual jobs and compare it to the part being made, hoping to develop a costing algorithm that we can make quotes from........Anyway, lots of video, but simple cut/splice type editing is all I need.

 

[Julian]

Reviving an old topic....but I'm in the market for a laptop that I can edit movies on. I'm not an Apple guy...so that is off the cards. I've been looking at Dell XPS 15s and G15/16 models, along with all the ones listed here:

The Best Laptops for Video Editing in 2024

Film student or video pro? You don't need a studio to make a rough cut in the field. These top laptop picks can breeze through demanding video-editing tasks. See the best we've tested.

www.pcmag.com

Who has done video editing and can tell me what I need as a minimum. Clearly discreet graphics is a no brainer - but 4GB/6GB/8GB on the card?
How about RAM - 16, 32, 64?
SSD-I'm going with 1TB minimum.
Processor - i7 - don't think I need the i9

Then what software are you guys using to edit footage with?

 

[gt5pilot]

I have an older Lenovo laptop with an i7 processor, 32GB RAM and a 1TB SSD - I use Movavi SW (I recall it was ~$70?) and I upload all my files from my GoPro Session 5 from a days outing (about 4 hours worth of video) and by the time I am done editing down to the material I want to keep of wakeboarding, skiing, tubing, etc. and I write out a high res MP4 @ 1080P and I have file sizes in the range of 20-30GB per video...you can eat up storage space fast.

When played on our 65' Sony, the video is amazing - I don't see the need for spending whack amounts of money on HW/SW to do basic video editing.

 

[oakley24]

My thoughts:

6 or 8 GB on the video card
RAM - 32GB is minimum
SSD - 1 TB minimum. You can easily add external storage, but internal is always faster. I usually process on the internal drives, then copy the videos to external
Processor - I7 is fine. I use only AMD processors myself, so I wouldn't discount the Ryzen 7 or 9

I like the Dell G series laptops. They are considered gaming machines, but will work well for video editing

I use an open source free software called Shotcut. It does everything I need. I have a few others open source programs on my PC that I dabble with as well. Otherwise I'm not much help on the paid software

I hate when people do this, but just to let you know...I have been in IT for 25 years ...

 

[robert843]

Reviving an old topic....but I'm in the market for a laptop that I can edit movies on. I'm not an Apple guy...so that is off the cards. I've been looking at Dell XPS 15s and G15/16 models, along with all the ones listed here:

The Best Laptops for Video Editing in 2024

Film student or video pro? You don't need a studio to make a rough cut in the field. These top laptop picks can breeze through demanding video-editing tasks. See the best we've tested.

www.pcmag.com

Who has done video editing and can tell me what I need as a minimum. Clearly discreet graphics is a no brainer - but 4GB/6GB/8GB on the card?
How about RAM - 16, 32, 64?
SSD-I'm going with 1TB minimum.
Processor - i7 - don't think I need the i9

Then what software are you guys using to edit footage with?

I use apple products but my last Mac Book Pro was set up like this Intel Core i7 - 16GB Memory - AMD Radeon Pro 5300M it did just fine editing 9 videos a week even handling 4k video. I just upgraded a to the newest Mac Book and honestly I don't really notice a speed difference. I have to imagine a windows lap top with a similar set up will do just fine. As far as editing software this will depend a lot on what your doing if you just need basic trim and clip options many free programs will work but if you want to add video effects or template I would probably go premier pro. Just really depends on how professional you want your project to look many free options you won't be able to level you horizon and things like that.

 

[zipper]

I'm no expert when it comes to video editing, but I've done some research and I think I can help.

I'll bite...what have you found doing your research?

 

[buckbuck]

Careful what you nibble on @zipper

 

[tabbibus]

I edit on my phone mostly. I'm not selling my material