Video Editing

Snooky · Jan 2, 2018

Hi ive recently bought a Mavic Pro and spent a while flying and recording footage but unless I transform the info from my micro sd card this hobby is going to fall flat . So I would like to know an ideal set up ie card reader, what soft ware and computer requirements. The laptops look expensive. So I thought I might upgrade my desk top pc..I want to finish with a product I can show on my 4k tv. All the best.

Anthony Viscomi · Jan 2, 2018

Here is a USB SD card reader that I use:
https://www.amazon.com/Transcend-mi...1514910859&sr=1-4&keywords=usb+sd+card+reader

MadValley · Jan 2, 2018

Working in 4K is extremely resource intensive. There are editing apps that let you work with proxies (basicaly lo-res copies of the 4K original) which will speed things up on a weak machine. If you're going to be upgrading your desktop make sure it has (at a minimum) 8GB or RAM and a 4GB Graphics card. You'll need a fast HDD or SSD too to handle the rendering throughput. Do a search on video editing and you'll get an idea of what people are using.

Johnnynxn · Jan 8, 2018

Snooky said:
Hi ive recently bought a Mavic Pro and spent a while flying and recording footage but unless I transform the info from my micro sd card this hobby is going to fall flat . So I would like to know an ideal set up ie card reader, what soft ware and computer requirements. The laptops look expensive. So I thought I might upgrade my desk top pc..I want to finish with a product I can show on my 4k tv. All the best.

I am in the process of upgrading my computer for performing simple edits of my mavic 4k video

I am looking at : Dell Experion Gaming desk top
and : iMac 3.0GHz quad core

Do I need this much computer ?

Anthony Viscomi · Jan 8, 2018

To be honest with you...I don't think that Dell will do the job for you. 4K editing is very resource intensive

HiKen51 · Jan 8, 2018

Snooky said:
I want to finish with a product I can show on my 4k tv. All the best.

I plan to upgrade my PC soon, but I have been able to edit 4K video on a 2010 I7 Intel computer with 6 GB of RAM with an SSD drive using Vegas studio software from Sony, the latest version. It outputs4K as well as edits. It’s a bit slow, but you can always go do something else while it renders. As far as an SD card reader, get one that’s at least USB 3.0

MadValley · Jan 8, 2018

I'm using Vegas too. It defaults to editing 4K (version 14 anyway) as a proxy which slows down the first time you open it up but works very quickly thereafter. Rendering, as @HiKen51 says, is slow in 4K but the benefit of shooting in 4K (or 2.7) (and I am almost alone in my belief on this) is best suited for producing really well-framed 1080 videos.

Lake_Flyer · Jan 8, 2018

My 4 year old Dell XPS with 16GB and 4GB Radeon card runs 4K editing in Resolve14 without proxy mode, smoothly. I write my cache files to a 14TB, 7disk NAS which helps a lot as well.

Anthony Viscomi · Jan 8, 2018

Lake_Flyer said:
My 4 year old Dell XPS with 16GB and 4GB Radeon card runs 4K editing in Resolve14 without proxy mode, smoothly. I write my cache files to a 14TB, 7disk NAS which helps a lot as well.

+1 My prior Desktop was a XPS with similar spec. Currently eiditng on a 15" XPS laptop 32 gb ram, SSD HD and NIVIDIA 8 gb card

Johnnynxn · Jan 8, 2018

Anthony Viscomi said:
To be honest with you...I don't think that Dell will do the job for you. 4K editing is very resource intensive

Thanks for the input. I am leaning toward iMac.

Anthony Viscomi · Jan 8, 2018

Johnnynxn said:
Thanks for the input. I am leaning toward iMac.

Not an Apple computer guy...but you can't go wrong with a Mac.

Johnnynxn · Jan 8, 2018

Anthony Viscomi said:
Not an Apple computer guy...but you can't go wrong with a Mac.

Not an Apple guy either but it seems to give more bang for the buck.

Lake_Flyer · Jan 9, 2018

I have both Mac and PC.

Although any Mac is built and designed exceptionally well, the basic hardware requirement is all about the main processor, video card, memory and disk IO speed. For a Mac or PC that requirement is the same. With a PC (especially a Dell XPS desktop) you can easily upgrade along the way. With a Mac that's often going to be a problem because the neatly integrated designs usually don't allow for changing components easily, if at all possible.

That said, the Mac OS is rock solid. However, if you are not using Mac specific software (like resolve or premiere pro) that runs on both platforms, it doesn't make much difference if the specs are the same. I am pretty sure that any PC is cheaper than a similar spec Mac.

Johnnynxn · Jan 9, 2018

Lake_Flyer said:
I have both Mac and PC.

Although any Mac is built and designed exceptionally well, the basic hardware requirement is all about the main processor, video card, memory and disk IO speed. For a Mac or PC that requirement is the same. With a PC (especially a Dell XPS desktop) you can easily upgrade along the way. With a Mac that's often going to be a problem because the neatly integrated designs usually don't allow for changing components easily, if at all possible.

That said, the Mac OS is rock solid. However, if you are not using Mac specific software (like resolve or premiere pro) that runs on both platforms, it doesn't make much difference if the specs are the same. I am pretty sure that any PC is cheaper than a similar spec Mac.

Thanks for the input.
I am now leaning toward the Dell

HiKen51 · Jan 9, 2018

Johnnynxn said:
Thanks for the input.
I am now leaning toward the Dell

Five years ago I was persuaded to get a MacBook Pro for photo editing, and it functions fairly well for that, but the limitations of the Mac system when it comes to upgrading, availability of software, and its propensity for writing a lot of junk files on any media that you use in it are major bugaboos to me, and I’m going back to using PCs.

Johnnynxn · Jan 9, 2018

HiKen51 said:
Five years ago I was persuaded to get a MacBook Pro for photo editing, and it functions fairly well for that, but the limitations of the Mac system when it comes to upgrading, availability of software, and its propensity for writing a lot of junk files on any media that you use in it are major bugaboos to me, and I’m going back to using PCs.

Thanks I am leaning back toward pc.

Shaggy505 · Jan 9, 2018

Lake_Flyer said:
I have both Mac and PC.

Although any Mac is built and designed exceptionally well, the basic hardware requirement is all about the main processor, video card, memory and disk IO speed. For a Mac or PC that requirement is the same. With a PC (especially a Dell XPS desktop) you can easily upgrade along the way. With a Mac that's often going to be a problem because the neatly integrated designs usually don't allow for changing components easily, if at all possible.

That said, the Mac OS is rock solid. However, if you are not using Mac specific software (like resolve or premiere pro) that runs on both platforms, it doesn't make much difference if the specs are the same. I am pretty sure that any PC is cheaper than a similar spec Mac.

Lake Flyer makes a very valid point and I’m mostly on mac/apple products but there are times I miss functions of a pc.

kiwi flyer · Jan 11, 2018

HiKen51 said:
Five years ago I was persuaded to get a MacBook Pro for photo editing, and it functions fairly well for that, but the limitations of the Mac system when it comes to upgrading, availability of software, and its propensity for writing a lot of junk files on any media that you use in it are major bugaboos to me, and I’m going back to using PCs.

You could dual boot the Mac with Bootcamp and have the best of both worlds