PC requirements for editing software

[Ztopgun28]

I'm read the system requirements needed to run vegas pro or vegas movie studio for video editing, but says I need 8 core, and 16gb ram to edit 4k videos. That seems like a lot to edit 4k drone videos. My PC is a quad core and 8gb ram. I would think I would be fine, but who knows? From my new mavic air I haven't used yet, I just want to eventually add drone clips together with background music. That's it. Should I just stick with 1080p clips instead of 4k then when I adjust the drone video settings? And my pc wasn't powerful enough to run the free davinci resolve software, which I tried to install it today.

 

[steve_lyt]

the fastest processor you can get , ssd drives, and as much memory as you can

 

[Johnmcl7]

Which quad core processor is it? There is a free trial for the Vegas software as well which you can try but if your system can't run Davinci it doesn't sound like it's going to be powerful enough for 4K video editing which does rely heavily on your cpu performance.

 

[Marty Markoe]

I'm read the system requirements needed to run vegas pro or vegas movie studio for video editing, but says I need 8 core, and 16gb ram to edit 4k videos. That seems like a lot to edit 4k drone videos. My PC is a quad core and 8gb ram. I would think I would be fine, but who knows? From my new mavic air I haven't used yet, I just want to eventually add drone clips together with background music. That's it. Should I just stick with 1080p clips instead of 4k then when I adjust the drone video settings? And my pc wasn't powerful enough to run the free davinci resolve software, which I tried to install it today.

Have fast Quad Core with 16GB Ram. Adding a fast dedicated video controller, Radeon RX 580, made DaVinci Resolve usable.

 

[4wd]

It depends what you will be doing.
If you are buying a replacement to do it those specs are on the mean side - if you later start going in with Adobe Premiere layers or changing speed while rendering.
If you are patient any half decent machine will churn through it eventually but you won't get live rendering of any changes made.
Computers which are barely coping soon become frustrating.

 

[Dave Maine]

The easiest answer will come from doing some experiments. The pc demand will depend on a couple of drone things. 4K, 60p, recorded with the h265 codec will be the hardest. HD at 24p with the h264 codec will be the easiest. There are a number of intermediate steps in there that offer different difficulties.

In general, the highest performance you can afford in a computer is worth it. High definition video is very resource intensive.

 

[Ztopgun28]

Ok thanks guys, this is my PC...

 

[CareyL]

Ok thanks guys, this is my PC...

Cheapest upgrade would be (2) 2TB SSD's (Samsung 860 EVO or equivalent). You can take these to your next system. A water cooled cpu. Your graphics card may not be up to 4k.

 

[Deleted member 114292]

I suggest you start with 1080 until you get more into it.
All the reasons to use 4K are higher level and chances are you won't see the difference until later at which time you can maybe upgrade.

 

[Johnmcl7]

Ok thanks guys, this is my PC...

Unfortunately although it's a quad core, not all cores are equal and given it's a very old budget processor its performance is very low and it's not suited to video editing. You could certainly give some basic 1080p editing a go which should be doable if you're patient with the rendering.

 

[Ztopgun28]

Ok, good to know all this. I'll just stick with 1080p actually with my computer setup. Should be good enough right?

 

[Recoveryone]

I run Vegas Pro 17, my rig has a 2nd gen I7, 32gig Vengeance Corsair Ram, Twin MSI GTX 980 Ti Video cards in SLI mode, SSD 500 Main drive, 2TB external for photos and 6TB external for video files, PU EVGA 780 SuperGold, 24" 4k Dell Monitor HDMI. I can edited with no problems, but when I had just a I3 CPU and only 16gig of ram it was unusable at 4k. 1080p is just fine to edit in and render. 4k looks nice on 4k TV's and monitors, but it can create havoc on lesser systems and bandwidth when viewing. Most people that are viewing your content are only seeing it in 720p (phones/tablets) or 1080p on many computers and TV's.

 

[tck444]

You cannot overlook the video card either. While you may be able to process the 4K video, it will not run smoothly on your monitor. So, you will need to know the power requirements and motherboard specs to choose the correct card.

I needed to upgrade and think the minimum requirements to would be a 4GB card, Price $150.00 and up.

 

[Recoveryone]

You cannot overlook the video card either. While you may be able to process the 4K video, it will not run smoothly on your monitor. So, you will need to know the power requirements and motherboard specs to choose the correct card.

I needed to upgrade and think the minimum requirements to would be a 4GB card, Price $150.00 and up.

100% correct, I don't have one of the newest cards out, but they are 6GB. In SLI mode doesn't mean they share the memory, but one handles the bulk of the processing while the other helps. It gives me very smooth editing abilities and no crashes with the software as many have suffered when working with 4k files.