Advice on a video editing set up.

Austy88 · 26 May 2014 at 21:01

Hi all,

I hope you are keeping well.

Currently looking into purchasing a new computer which will enable me to edit videos. I typically shoot at 1080p 60fps or 720p 120 fps but I have the ability to go up to 4k 25fps. However it is unlikely I will shoot in 4k.

Looking at buying the following:
Processor: Intel Core i5 Quad core processor i5-4690 (3.5 GHz)
Motherboard: ASUS H81-MPlus:Micro-ATX, LG1150, USB 3.0. SATA 6GBs
Memory: 8GB memory
Graphics: 1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GT 630

or

Processor: Intel Core i7 Quad core processor i7-4790 (3.6 GHz)
Rest same as above.

I would like to future proof my computer is it worth the £69 step up to the i7? Considering I have a budget I would like to stick to.

Look forward to your feedback and advice.

Regards

Ross

Austy88 · 27 May 2014 at 15:06

Nexus said:
What about drives, that is something you want to budget for any video editing setup.

When referencing drives are you talking about hard drives?

1TB 3.5'' SATA-III 6GBs/s HDD 7200 RPM 32 MB Cache

Austy88 · 27 May 2014 at 15:21

Zogger said:
1TB doesn't sound like much! I mean, it does sound like much, but it will fill up quite quickly, specially at full HD or 4k sizes. Depends what other storage you have available I guess... Also consider backups etc. as you won't want to keep all your eggs in one basket.

Okay thanks for point that out to me. Any thoughts/advice on the other aspects?

Austy88 · 28 May 2014 at 10:12

Nexus said:
Depends on your needs really. Whether its something you are doing professionally will factor into the storage and systems you need etc.

I personally use a couple of drives in RAID 0 as a scratch disk for editing. This has speed, but no redundancy, thus I keep a backup of that. I also archive all my finished projects and then have another backup of that. I only really make videos these days that go on the likes of YouTube, but it nets the odd bit of money.

Thanks for the info I will look into RAID 0. Do you have a link to your videos I would be interested in checking them out.

Austy88 · 28 May 2014 at 10:13

Adrianr said:
High end video work can be a real test, almost nothing in your system can hide from a 4k workflow. CPU, Ram, GPU, hard drive speed and capacity, it can hammer everything.

As the CPU is what you're least likely to upgrade later I'd go for the most cores/threads you can afford. Give yourself room to add hard drives, ram and a good gpu if you're going to use it for accelerated workflow (Programs like Resolve for grading make great use of gpu power).

Thanks Adrianr. I will look into all that is advised.