PC requirements

[Sue Whitham]

I'm looking to buy a new PC for video editing. I have a Panasonic FZ330 which shoots 4K, and though I won't be doing much in 4K at the moment, it would make sense to futureproof. I'm looking at i7 Kaby Lake for 4K and HEVC, but a lot of these PCs are aimed at the high end gaming market, which I don't need, and are very expensive. Could anyone recommend a good processor and graphics card to support 4K video editing?

[aljimenez]

To futureproof, get the fastest you can afford. My pc (see specs on the right), handles 4K video just fine; I bought it about a couple of years ago and paid around $1,200

To judge your acceptance of performance, test a 4K video clip with your VS versions using your typical projects. If you are somewhat happy with the performance of your current system, then you won't need a very high end system.

[Davidk]

This is one of the recurring questions students in my video class ask. And whilst you may not be a gamer nor have any desire to be, both gaming and video editing put the same sort of demands on computational power and display capability. So the best answer you can give to this question is to focus on the best gaming platform you can afford - your local computer store will know what you want without you having to get into what a video editing platform does, and therefore the best hardware to suit.

And if you are intending to do 4K at all, or a lot, the display system that's part of it has to be able to handle that too - a resolution of 4000 x2000 or thereabouts - there's no point in paying for a hyped computer and not being able to display the resolution you want to achieve.

[Sue Whitham]

Thank you both for your info. I'll bear it in mind when choosing my new PC.

[iNate]

I'm looking to buy a new PC for video editing. I have a Panasonic FZ330 which shoots 4K, and though I won't be doing much in 4K at the moment, it would make sense to futureproof. I'm looking at i7 Kaby Lake for 4K and HEVC, but a lot of these PCs are aimed at the high end gaming market, which I don't need, and are very expensive. Could anyone recommend a good processor and graphics card to support 4K video editing?

Then why upgrade? Kaby Lake is last Generation CPUs. Why not wait until you will be doing "much 4K" and get what it current at that time? The CPUs will be better. The GPUs will be better. The RAM will be better. The SSDs/HDDs will be better. Everything will be better, an it will cost about the same as what you'd pay now... except you will actually need it then, when you do not need it now.

Getting new for the sake of getting new before you need it is a bad idea.

Future Proofing makes sense when you're already doing 4K and may have to do 5K-8k content fairly soon (professionals), or when you need performance headroom for very demanding tasks (Visual FX/Compositing in After Effects, Huge RAW files in Photoshop, etc.) or applications (DaVinci Resolve Studio, etc.), Gaming at high resolutions/framerates, etc.

It doesn't make any sense in the Consumer/Prosumer market when you are price-sensitive and what you have now works well enough or what you currently need to do.

In that case, you are better off keeping your money in the bank and just saving it up until you actually *need* the upgrade.

At which point, you get much more value out of those dollars. Otherwise, you're effectively tossing money down the drain.

[iNate]

And if you are intending to do 4K at all, or a lot, the display system that's part of it has to be able to handle that too - a resolution of 4000 x2000 or thereabouts - there's no point in paying for a hyped computer and not being able to display the resolution you want to achieve.

1. Even Laptops come with TB, DP, or HDMI ports (sometimes more than one) to hook up an external monitor, so this is largely non-factor. 2 Displays is > 1 anyways, and you just keep your Media Pool and some other things on the smaller display. 3 Displays is optimal.

2. Editors routinely edit with Proxy Resolutions (i.e. 1/2 or 1/4 Resolution) for performance reasons.

3. If you want to edit 4K at full resolution (especially H.264/HEVC), at full quality, you'll probably need a PC that the OP will most certainly not be willing to pay for. Playing back video on the timeline is one thing. Playing back Video with Filters and Effects, Overlays, Color Correction, etc. applied to it at 4K Resolution is a completely different matter.

Honestly, VideoStudio is a complete non-option for that kind of work, so I don't see an issue with someone editing 4K with a 1080p display using this software. That's precisely the types of people it's aimed at.

The people who can afford tricked out rigs with 4K displays will not touch this software. They will just use Premiere Pro, Media Composer, Final Cut Pro X, or DaVinci Resolve, instead.

People in Film School will not be using this software.