Optimized video editing

[ghijohansson]

New laptop and new camcorder have both arrived, so time for me to choose video editing program.

1.
Corel is my number 1 alternative. Since I will edit on a laptop I guessed it would be best to choose a program which has the capability to use proxy editing.

The problem is that customers complain about poor customer support no matter which program is chosen. So I have more or less decided to act like this. Download the trial version. If the trial version works, then I buy the program on a disc. Corel has one retailer in my country which sells the newest version on disc, sells it cheaper(!) than I would have to pay for ordering it from Corel.

I guess that would be an almost fool-proof method to buy the program. If the trial version works, all I need to do is connect the laptop to the internet, enter the "serial number" on the disc, and then the program will continue to work. Or alternatively, if this doesn't work, then I send the disc back to the retailer and is refunded.

Or have I forgotten some problem?

2.
Is there anything I can do to optimize my laptop for video editing?

For Pinnacle Studio I found a list with optimization suggestions, but strangely I have not seen any similar list for any other video editing program.
http://declic-video-fx.com/Tutorials/ID ... iting.aspx
In practice those suggestions are useful for all video editing programs so i try to use as many as possible of them. Yes, I understand that the list is a few years old while my new laptop uses Windows 8.1.

Like most laptops, mine has one disc (5400 RPM) in two partitions. Should I use the disc as it is or change to one single partition?

It is a popular advice to tell people to use multiple discs when editing video. I have an 8 GB USB memory. The laptop can also use SD cards. So I don't have to have all files in the same place. And it would be possible for me to use ReadyBoost. How meaningful would it be to do anything like that?

I don't know if it matters, but my projects are normally both trivial and long. Hundreds of hard cuts and normalization of the sound level.

[skier-hughes]

I'd leave it in two partitions, all programmes etc to the one, all info, files etc to the other.

[ghijohansson]

-Thanks for answering, as you can see from my latest posting, I have downloaded the trial version.