Many years ago, it would have been inconceivable to edit footage at home since it could only be carried out in specialized editing suites. Happily now things are very different. If you have a desktop computer with sufficient hard drive space, CPU speed and RAM it's easy to put together high quality movies with many different effects you can see in contemporary professional movies.
If you are editing movie clips a large amount of processor power is being utilized as you move quite a lot of data both to and from the hard drive. Owning a fast computer system means that you can write and render in minutes but if you have an underpowered computer, the task can take many hours.
For anyone who is doing a large amount of rendering and writing files, Pentium Quad Core computers are fantastic. Pentium models can cover the data stream however when you're running some other applications, the video editing software will most likely slow down visibly.
In order to edit video clips adequately you should pick out suitable software. For those who have Windows XP, there is already integrated software that lets you edit raw footage. If however you have Windows 7 you will need to go to the Windows Live site to download the free application from there.
Which video editing software should you choose? The answer to that could possibly rely on multiple conditions such as anything you specifically need to achieve with your editing, the capabilities of your computing device, the type of video clips you could be working with as well as the type of ultimate end product you want to produce.
Irrespective of the kind of video editing software package you prefer it is always smart to look at the software developer's online site for the chance to use free demos of the system on your PC along with your movie clips. This is the only way you can know for sure that it's going to operate essentially on your system.
In addition to the central processing unit, RAM can also be a major point in video editing with computers. Whether or not the CPU is fast, the machine can still remain slow moving without enough Random access memory. Added to this is the software's capability to control the available system resources, including the Ram, competently. There's no sense attaching the the greatest possible volume of Random access memory to your equipment if the software can't put it to use entirely.
Just about the most widely advised volume of RAM for consumer video editors nowadays is 512MB. So if you're using the 512 MB RAM you should be in a position to maneuver around handling your files with comparative comfort. However it is very much recommended that you obtain no less than 1GB of random access memory as a minimum to stop crashes or lock-ups.
If you work with high definition video clips the requirement for random access memory increases tremendously since the application will have to hold more data in memory to match the consequent increase in the quantity of information being handled. That would take the minimum memory upwards to 2GB in the example of HDV video files but as high as 4GB when using AVCHD files.
Just be sure to purchase the appropriate random access memory for your computer's motherboard and in all likelihood the best way to establish this is by opening up the PC case and looking at what you currently have. If you are in any doubt get a hold of some expert guidance first because installing the incorrect type of RAM can be harmful to your computer.
As a last word, bear in mind that any 32-bit computer system is only able to handle 4GB of memory. This is a design limitation that is true for all 32-bit systems no matter the operating system version. That is why large numbers of people wishing to edit high definition video clips are switching to 64-bit systems, given that they are equipped for huge amounts of RAM.
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You can find extra resources and further reading here: Best Video Editing Software and Sony Vegas Movie Studio Review