Computers & Video Editing Software

Duk Dog · #1 09-03-2010, 10:08 AM

Recently I purchased a video camera and soon found out that our 5+ year old PC isn't up to snuff for dealing with video. It always seems that one purchase leads to another, funny that. So I am going to at some point be in the market for a new computer (undecided - PC or Mac), and video editing software. I'd rather not break the bank, but on the flip side want to end up with a system that will be easy to work with. Curious what everyone is using? What sort of system specs should a guy be looking at in a computer? Hopefully there will be people on both sides of the PC/Mac debate.

simmered · #2 09-03-2010, 10:21 AM

I have not done to much with video editing on my Mac but I do lots of photo stuff. I recently purchased the midgrade 15" mac book pro and I can honestly say, I will never go back to a PC EVER!!!!! There will be lots of opinions on how much ram how much memory etc. All i can say is the computer I bought handles my photo processing very well. I don't keep any photos on my computer I keep them all on an external hardrive, that way you don't slow down the computer. I'm sure this would hold true for your videos. It also depends on how many programs you will have running at a time as to how fast your computer is. The more programs running the slower it goes.
As far as price is concerned they are a little more pricey but the bang you get for the buck is worth the price. I have had my laptop for a year and have not had a single virus spyware or anything at all. I have scaned it once or twice to make sure. Don't even have an antivirus software program installed. If you are located in or around Edmonton go to westworld computers over any Mac store. There you can buy refurbished Macs from people who have to have the latest and greatest. They are pretty much brand new computers at a very reasonable rate.
I have heard of some very good video processing programs for the Mac. Final cut express is one of the better ones.

Slannesh · #3 09-03-2010, 10:29 AM

First off, i'm a PC guy. I work in Networking and do PC's for a living.

If easy is more important than affordable, for video editing, buy a Mac.

At home I use a PC and it works fine for video editing but it's fiddly at best.

Basically you can't have both cheap and easy, it's one or the other. The iMovie software that comes with macs these days is apparently very easy to work in and very intuitive. It comes bundled with most macs as part of the iLife package. To do any serious video you'll want to be looking at a Mac Pro or a Macbook Pro. Neither is inexpensive.

If you want to go the PC route there is a myriad of software you can purchase for video editing, some of it is brutal, some of it is ok. The new stuff that comes free with Windows Live Essentials seems to be basic but reasonably ok. It's free which is nice, but it doesn't have all the bells and whistles that a lot of the other programs do. it's also a hell of a lot easier to use.

Once you've choked down the price of the Macbook Pro and Mac Pro take a look at a well appointed PC in either a desktop or laptop running a core i7. It's plenty of power for doing video editing but you'll quickly find that there is no such thing as too much power for it. My main machine is a Toshiba Qosmio x500 laptop which is considered a high end gaming machine and to transcode video it's sufficent. You get more horsepower for your money buying a desktop in the PC environment and I can certainly give you some parts to look at or suggest a particular machine if you prefer to go the pre-built route.

So after all that:

Mac if you want somewhat easy and much more expensive
PC if you want much cheaper and considerably more complicated.

In the end they both will get you a similar result. If all you're doing is pulling video off the camera, trimming out the boring/crappy parts and doing some simple titles, adding music and squishing it down to upload to youtube, get the PC. If you want to be able to do fancier stuff, get the mac or the PC but be prepared to spend a lot of time learning the quirks of the software on the PC as it is much less user friendly.

Duk Dog · #4 09-03-2010, 11:00 AM

Should add - best place to buy a PC? (our present one we got from Dell) Best place for a Mac?

Thanks for the info and replies so far.

Slannesh · #5 09-03-2010, 11:06 AM

In the PC world you're pretty safe to go with any of the big boys: HP, Toshiba, Dell.

Acer used to have a bad rep but in recent years they're a lot more solid. Are you looking for a laptop or a desktop?

For Mac stuff, go to the Apple Store. In Edmonton I hear Westworld Computers is good too, though I can't comment directly on them as i've never owned a mac.

Nickote316 · #6 09-03-2010, 11:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duk Dog

Should add - best place to buy a PC? (our present one we got from Dell) Best place for a Mac?

Thanks for the info and replies so far.

http://www.memoryexpress.com/ for PC's

There are locations in Edmonton and Calgary

And for Mac best bet would probably be an apple store

Rackmastr · #7 09-03-2010, 11:13 AM

If you dont want to 'break the bank' a guy can find a faster PC for a lot less money than a Mac. Macs are NOT cheap in any way, shape or form...lol

If you do go the Mac route though, the best place to buy it is online from Mac or an Apple Store.

My friend used his PC and a very easy program to create a great quality hunting DVD.

Or, postpone the purchase until you feel you have the cashflow, bring me down your footage, and we'll sit down for 3-4 hours and get it all on DVD and looking good.

Slannesh · #8 09-03-2010, 11:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rackmastr

My friend used his PC and a very easy program to create a great quality hunting DVD.

Which program?

I've used a few and haven't found a great fit yet. I'm currently using Corel Video Studio 12 which is a couple versions behind and it does an OK job but I don't love it.

Duk Dog · #9 09-03-2010, 11:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rackmastr

bring me down your footage, and we'll sit down for 3-4 hours and get it all on DVD and looking good.

That is the big thing for the time being as I do the research - I want to get the video backed up and off of my video camera HD.

Rackmastr · #10 09-03-2010, 11:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duk Dog

That is the big thing for the time being as I do the research - I want to get the video backed up and off of my video camera HD.

Bring it down and stuff it on my External Hard-drive if you'd like. Lots of room.

Or, a guy can easily go buy one and load it on there to keep it safe while you look at purchasing...

Slannesh · #11 09-03-2010, 12:07 PM

That reminds me.

Proper backups.

Just to save everyone the long spiel as to why it's a good idea i'll paint a scenario for you.

The next time you go to use your computer assume that the hard drive has crashed and is not recoverable without a clean-room platter swap (IE Several thousand dollars worth of data recovery)

What have you lost?

It's not as far fetched an idea as a lot of people think.

Now, I go totally overboard with backups but I generate a lot more data than most people.

Currently I have the original copy of data (be it a photo, document or video) on the computer that originally created it, as well as a backup of all my computers to my Windows Home Server.

In addition I have the home server backed up to a large external HDD that I really should be keeping in a remote location in case of disaster or theft.

End result is I have at LEAST 3 copies of any data that I care about. Any two of them can fail and i'm still covered.

I can't sing the praises of a Home server enough. They're relatively cheap, do automatic backups of up to 10 PCs (and now Macs with a recent software update if I remember correctly) and allow you to share that data to any machine on your network.

It's total overkill if you just have one or two computers, but who only has one computer these days?

That being said, the absolute minimum I would suggest is an external HDD so you've got at least two copies of your data. More is of course better, but it really boils down to how much you care about said data. Considering most of mine is digital pics and videos of our kids and family vacations and such? It's pretty important to me.

209x50 · #12 09-03-2010, 12:25 PM

I edit in both worlds out of necessity. I prefer my Mac pro with quad core and 8 gigs of ram, mostly because Final Cut Pro Studio 2 runs fairly well on it. I use Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 on the IBM machines. Either of these software cost more than the average computer but they are professional grade and have the least amount of problems. My IBM's I have built by a local shop and I get ten times the machine for half the cost of the dells' and HP's.
One strong feature of the Mac world is Firewire 800 and the ability to daisy chain peripherals like hard drives. I have 4 TB of drives plugged into one another and the last one goes to the machine. This communication is just as fast as if I have the files on on the 8TB of hard drive in the machine. The IBM world doesn't come close with the USB. PC world is faster with innovations and for some of the new codecs I have to work in PC. Mac is terribly slow on innovation and has almost fixed the disaster of Snow Leopard.

Slannesh · #13 09-03-2010, 02:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 209x50

I edit in both worlds out of necessity. I prefer my Mac pro with quad core and 8 gigs of ram, mostly because Final Cut Pro Studio 2 runs fairly well on it. I use Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 on the IBM machines. Either of these software cost more than the average computer but they are professional grade and have the least amount of problems. My IBM's I have built by a local shop and I get ten times the machine for half the cost of the dells' and HP's.
One strong feature of the Mac world is Firewire 800 and the ability to daisy chain peripherals like hard drives. I have 4 TB of drives plugged into one another and the last one goes to the machine. This communication is just as fast as if I have the files on on the 8TB of hard drive in the machine. The IBM world doesn't come close with the USB. PC world is faster with innovations and for some of the new codecs I have to work in PC. Mac is terribly slow on innovation and has almost fixed the disaster of Snow Leopard.

I totally agree with pretty much everything you've said except for the speed of Firewire 800. It's easily twice as fast as USB 2.0 in real world use yes, but still doesn't come close to SATA 3Gb/s speeds. Add to that that USB 3.0 is available on a lot of boards but not yet in widespread use.

The reason I didn't mention getting a local shop to build a PC for him is I don't know where he lives

a custom built rig is by far the best choice but if he picks a shop that goes out of business he's left dealing with individual parts manufacturers for warranty purposes.

I suppose another important bit of info would be is he looking for a desktop or laptop?

Duk Dog · #14 09-03-2010, 02:26 PM

Not certain, but most likely a desktop and I am in Calgary.

209x50 · #15 09-03-2010, 03:06 PM

Sata and 3.0 are all wonderful in theory but you still need peripherals support and backwards compatibility. Will USB 3.0 allow daisy chaining? I'm not about to junk thousands in hard drives to fit the latest trend. Sometimes just getting something connected is an all out chore! LOL

happy honker · #16 09-03-2010, 03:13 PM

I work as a pro broadcst and production guy, so I'm fairly familiar with this stuff.
At the pro level Final Cut Pro or Avid is the standard, but quite expensive.
At home, for my "on the side" or fun stuff, I run final cut Express (around $80-$100) on a macbook pro, and it runs awsome and is very easy to use, and get something out on DVD.

As far as PC's go, I have an older tower and laptop, and I run a real cool program called "Pinnacle Studio" on both PC's (over 3 years old). Pinnacle studio was around $80 as well, and the last version I bought was very very easy to use.
An external drive or three will be a must, as video takes alot of space.

With the mac and Final cut i'm running firewire 400/800, but with Pinnacle, I'm running a USB analog capture device I bought somewhere for around $60, and I've never had a problem with the speed or quality, for my home purposes. I've even done some for hire "Industrial" video work with this program and never had a complaint quality wise.

Bottom line if you"re not doing this for broadcast and don't want to spend a pile of cash...
-if you choose to go mac, go with final cut Express
-if you choose PC, go with Pinnacle Studio

Both are very easy to use, and lots of forum/message board based help for both these programs on the net as well.

cheers
hh

Duk Dog · #17 09-03-2010, 04:31 PM

Forgive my computer ignorance, but our current PC is running Windows XP SP3, Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.8 GHz, 0.99 GB of RAM, and 229 GB HD. For those of you that know computers better than I do (without laughing) is our current system upgradeable to a functionable system?

Big Bull · #18 09-03-2010, 05:10 PM

If you are looking for a desktop, then check out the iMac. It comes with iMovie and iDVD, which is plenty to get your feet wet. Then maybe look at Final Cut Express. I switched to Mac 5 years ago after battling with codecs on my old PC. Go to an Apple dealer in Calgary and check it out.
Here's a demo of iMovie:
http://www.apple.com/ilife/imovie/guided-tour/

209x50 · #19 09-03-2010, 05:55 PM

I guess it all comes down to what a person needs to get their particular job done, I find iMovie very, very rudimentary and inflexible. So many others figure it is great.

Duk, you need way more RAM and speed.

verminator · #20 09-03-2010, 06:52 PM

Hey Duck dog
I have been in to computer graphics and computers for close to 15 year. I have worked with non-for profit organizations who have a very low budget. First I have to ask when you say your computer is not up to snuff what are the issues? Is it slow to load programs software is not compatible...etc. Any how I say buy looking at your specs you should have no problem using what u have and just adding more ram and maybe depends but upgrading the video card I would think depending on what brand of computer you have it could be done fairly cheap. Also I would say it's possible judging by the age of the computer 5 years is really not that old and should have a SATA hard-drive and would be great to be upgraded larger. I'm not sure how computer literate u are when it comes to installing. But if your in the area I would have no problem installing them for you at no cost. I think judging by your post your not planning on making movies to sell but manly for home and personal use so from what I gather in your post your not looking to go out and spend a fortune by any means and spending 2 grand on a high end computer is not what's needed. By the way there's lots of open source software out there for free that could be used for editing. Depends though on how fancy you plan on getting it with the editing. That's my two cents and is hard to say what you would need based on the specs given if you could tell what brand computer,video card you have and motherboard it would be easier to give more info. I would even help find the upgrade parts at decent cost. I hope it helps and if you need any questions answered shoot me a message will try to help.

verminator · #21 09-03-2010, 07:03 PM

Sorry duck I posted my last message from phone and went over the thread again. I notice you have a Dell ok so we can still help with some things the problem with Dell they are not great for upgrading but they can be. Second I notice u said u would like to just get your movie first from camera well hd is large so I would suggest getting a large external hard drive. Copy movie over on to that. Use the DVD burning software that probably came on your Dell or with the camera and burn it to disk. I think the biggest problem u have is your hard drive size it's very small in this day and age and external hard drives are cheap even a terabit is a decent price. Again still would need model of computer.

Cheers

Duk Dog · #22 09-03-2010, 07:39 PM

Just trying to find my camera cables and such. I do have a 500 GB external HD for backing up files etc..

splitflame · #23 09-03-2010, 08:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duk Dog

Forgive my computer ignorance, but our current PC is running Windows XP SP3, Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.8 GHz, 0.99 GB of RAM, and 229 GB HD. For those of you that know computers better than I do (without laughing) is our current system upgradeable to a functionable system?

If you bump that ram up to about 4gig it would save you some time and money.

DavyBoy · #24 09-04-2010, 11:25 AM

Duk Dog,
I’m running about the same thing on an AMD with 4 GB of RAM, and lots of hard drive space. Currently running Vegas Movie Studio from Sony, no problems. This computer is 8 years old so I’d go the update route first rather then new.

Duk Dog · #25 09-26-2010, 02:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Big Bull

If you are looking for a desktop, then check out the iMac. It comes with iMovie and iDVD, which is plenty to get your feet wet. Then maybe look at Final Cut Express. I switched to Mac 5 years ago after battling with codecs on my old PC. Go to an Apple dealer in Calgary and check it out.
Here's a demo of iMovie:
http://www.apple.com/ilife/imovie/guided-tour/

Just checked out your link, that iMovie sure looks slick. Finally getting around to looking further into this Mac vs PC debate. Went to the Apple Store today, quite the place. More research to be done, but it looks to me like we'd be fine with the regular iMac with the standard software it comes with - but would welcome more feedback. Thanks for all the info and comments so far.

Duk Dog · #26 10-07-2010, 07:32 AM

Thanks for all of the input, much appreciated. We ended up picking up a Mac so now I've got to de-PC myself and try and figure this thing out. lol

Duk Dog · #27 10-07-2010, 08:07 AM

A question I hope someone can answer or confirm. I have done my video in the highest setting which is AVCHD. Am I correct that I need to first convert this to SD video in the camera before downloading the video?