Need advice before I buy laptop for editing

[ghijohansson]

I have edited mini DV on a 7 years old laptop with an equally old version of another video editing program. Now it is time for me to buy a new laptop so I can edit footage from a Canon XA10.

And buy a new video editing program. Reviews are favourable for Corel Videostudio. So the program this forum is dedicated to would be an interesting choice.

I plan to record AVCHD, 24 Mbit/s, 8 bit, 4:2:0, true 1920*1080 for maximum quality. In PAL.

No, I have never edited HD.

I know that Corel Videostudio Pro x6 has the ability to use smart proxy editing. As far as I can see, this means that I can use less powerful hardware. But how powerful laptop do I need?

I guess I need an Intel core i7 processor (quad core).

Will 4 GByte of RAM be enough or do I need 8 GByte?

Will 1 GByte of graphics memory be enough or do I need 2 GByte?

Most laptops have one mechanical hard drive. Some have in addition 8 or 16 GByte SSD, but they cost more. And some have about 100 GByte SSD instead of a mechanical hard drive, and these cost even more. I have no idea which I should choose.

Editing HD normally means that one hard drive is not enough because the laptop needs to handle so much data. But how many external hard drives do I need? I want to minimize cost.

And I guess I will have to connect the external hard drives via USB 3.0 but please correct me if USB 2.0 is enough.

Yes, I have assumed that editing with Corel and using smart proxy means that I can use less powerful equipment. But I have never used the program so please correct me if I have misunderstood something.

I have assumed that the quality of the finished movie will be the same for editing with proxy, but please correct me if I have misunderstood.

My editing is normally very trivial, even though I make long movies (hundreds of hard cuts in the same film). But when I do something complicated, the result is just a few seconds long.

[Terfyn]

A good starting point is to open the Corel web site and look at the required specification to run X6. Provided your laptop meets or exceeds this spec then VideoStudio should run.
The spec for my PC is shown on the right of this post. It is based on the Corel spec but a bit better.
Technically you only need one hard drive but it is a good idea to have a backup. I run VS on my C Drive with a USB 2.0 backup drive.

I have always stuck with a tower simply because it can be expanded more easily. For example I have a FireWire card for my Canon HV20 and a second 16:9 monitor. VideoStudio allows you to move and resize the three main editing sections so I have moved the preview screen to the second monitor and opened it to full size.

You may do well to look at the various tutorials showing what VS X6 can do. I usually have about 1-2 hours of video which I cut to 10-15 minutes. I save to DVD, one in SD for my family and one in AVCHD for myself but others record to memory sticks and media drives. Some (including me) pollute YouTube with our efforts!!

[Ken Berry]

Like Terfyn, you can look at my Profile specs -- and it works just fine with all consumer variety codecs, including AVCHD and even 4K. I sometimes wonder if I should insert more RAM, but it works fine as is. Note that it is a laptop with only one hard disc. But I also tend to use an external USB hard disc for storage of video projects.

Terfyn raises the point of Firewire, which I also use since like him I also use a Canon HV20 which films in HDV format on mini DV tapes. That can be a problem if your laptop, like most (all?) these days - and indeed desktops - does not come with a Firewire port. In my own case, I have several older computers with Firewire ports, so I can capture using those, though it is admittedly a bit of a pain to then have to transfer the captured files (which are huge -- 13 GB for an hour of video) to this computer for editing. But needs must. Otherwise, you might need to look at a laptop which can take a pop-in Express card for Firewire.

Laptops do of course have great utility. For example, I just got back from a week in a rather spectacular coastal area of New Zealand. The video I was taking was all on either my GoPro Hero 3 or my Samsung Galaxy SIII smartphone, both of which film in high def mpeg-4. I could immediately transfer this video to my laptop, and start the editing on the spot -- something I could not of course do with a desktop.

[ghijohansson]

Thanks for both answers.

Yes, I have checked what Corel recommends. And what several other software companies recommend for competing video editing software. I also know that multiple software companies have put tutorials and/or a FAQ somewhere on the internet.

But at the same time I feel confused, so I thought it was best to ask somebody who already uses the program. When I read customer reviews for various editing programs it became clear that people sometimes have unexpected complaints.

Alright, as far as I can see, the following will work to edit 24 MBit/s AVCHD (with the least possible generation loss of quality).

Any Intel core i7 quad core CPU
One single mechanical hard drive, 5400 or 7200 RPM
4 GByte RAM
1 GByte graphics memory

I also realize that I have forgotten to ask one thing. When I checked my notes I realized that I somewhere found the statement that Corel supports a maximum bitrate of 20 MBit/s. And I plan to edit 24 MBit/s. So do I have a problem, or is the statement wrong?