minimum computer specs for video editing?

Chevitz · Nov 22, 2016

Hi i'm new to the drone hobby, I ordered a mavic october 28, and still don't have it. that said, i am in the process of replacing my old laptop, and was wondering how important it was to have a dedicated video card, for editing video?
I'm thinking of going with a lenovo flex 4, but i don't know if i should pony up an extra $150 for a better video card and 256mb more hard drive space.

What do you people think?

Any suggestions for a black friday deal coming up would be much appreciated.

Chase R · Nov 22, 2016

Chevitz said:
Hi i'm new to the drone hobby, I ordered a mavic october 28, and still don't have it. that said, i am in the process of replacing my old laptop, and was wondering how important it was to have a dedicated video card, for editing video?
I'm thinking of going with a lenovo flex 4, but i don't know if i should pony up an extra $150 for a better video card and 256mb more hard drive space.

What do you people think?

Any suggestions for a black friday deal coming up would be much appreciated.

Really not a Mavic specific question. See if whatever you buy can handle editing 4K video.

I know my Macbook Pro ME865LL/A (lowest specs available when I purchased) can and my top of the line (at the time) Late 2007 iMac cannot.

Rom3oDelta7 · Nov 22, 2016

The answer to your graphics card question really depends on the software you plan to use. Check to see if it utilizes the graphics card in doing rendering. Many low-end applications do not (or don't utilize it very effectively). I do a lot of photo and video editing on my computer and I would not even consider using anything less than a Core i7. I would also suggest at least 16GB memory and definitely an SSD (preferably one that is NVMe). CPU horsepower is still the most important criteria though. The CPU is the key factor in determining how long it takes to render previews and your final video. The other components such as memory and the SSD will have a lot to do with how snappy the user interface feels.

I do most of my editing on my desktop, but I also edit segments in the field. I just upgraded to an ASUS ZenBook Pro UX501VW and I'm very happy with it. I run Adobe (Lightroom, Photoshop, and Premiere) as well as Davinci Resolve.

Sent from my iPhone using MavicPilots

finalfantasyfans · Nov 22, 2016

Do offline/proxy editing if you have low spec computer. When you are ready to export, let the computer render it overnight when you go to sleep.

Sent from my iPhone using MavicPilots

Chase R · Nov 23, 2016

Chase R said:
Really not a Mavic specific question. See if whatever you buy can handle editing 4K video.

I know my Macbook Pro ME865LL/A (lowest specs available when I purchased) can and my top of the line (at the time) Late 2007 iMac cannot.

I will add on that I downloaded Davinci Resolve last night to try out and I couldn't get clean preview of 2.7K video. I had previously tested the 4K footage on iMovie but I didn't realize how few features were actually included.

I downloaded a trial of Final Cut Pro X to see if it can do anything better.

RJ_Make · Nov 23, 2016

Your not going to find a better free video editing program IMO. You just need to learn how to use the proxy tools within Resolve.

Sent from my ASUS_Z00AD using Tapatalk