The fact is that the main video editing application makers must find a balance connecting the truth and what appears appropriate from the marketing viewpoint in terms of minimum system prerequisites.
They recognize that if they provide the optimal system configuration for you to use their editing software productively you might give up as it may perhaps seem disconcerting. Conversely they still need to provide some kind of reasonable suggestions to make certain their software application isn't going to continually fail on your computer system.
Here is my own attempt at a realistic evaluation of specifically what is really needed that is relatively truthful and ideally not excessively frightening.
Video Adapters:
In past times, having RAM as part of the video adapter was beneficial to have but generally speaking, not essential. Currently however, it is a considerably different story.
A number of recognized video editing software program producers are constructing their programs to bring into play not only memory existing on video display cards, but additionally any sort of available processing capacity that a number of the latest cards can furnish.
Only a couple of software brands present any sort of particular recommendation on this point but the same as RAM, make an effort to get the best your financial budget will permit.
Monitor Image Resolution:
A number of video editing software applications designers give you a minimum standard here while others do not. The truth is, for almost all the new, accepted software you require the absolute minimum monitor display resolution of 1024 x 768.
Should you attempt video editing at a size in any way lower than that you'll find that the majority of applications will basically not function whilst the ones that do, act unpredictably and will be prone to crashing constantly.
Hard Discs:
Following the creation of extremely well compressed video files along the lines of HDV and MP4 you may perhaps think that the size of the free space on your hard disc drive would be of lower importance currently. In truth the real situation is entirely opposite to this.
Given that video editing enforces such a major pressure on any computer's resources, the movement of internal information by the computer system is placed under significant stress. A way the system may lower the stress and keep clear of data bottlenecks is to actually drop information on to the hard disk drive just about anywhere it can.
This creates extensive amounts of information being spread out all over the hard disk drives and to permit the system to carry this out it must have a great amount of totally free space.
Numerous software companies endorse 100GB of disk drive for high definition and 20GB for standard definition editing. What they really mean is 20GB of harddrive of which 10GB is totally free space for standard definition and for high definition they mean 100GB of disc drive with about 60GB of absolutely free space.
Random Access Memory Capacity:
The most common minimum value stated in this specification is for 512MB and that is a number that seems to come from someone's overactive imagination. 512MB of RAM will barely supply sufficient to get the vast majority of operating systems running before we possibly think of progressing to video editing! For anybody who is editing standard definition video clips on an aged home pc you may get the job done.
Equally, the most typical recommendation from the video editing application producers is for 2GB of memory if you are going to be dealing with high definition video clips. Once again, this is just simply too low and only if you are able to aggressively turn off almost every other service running on your computer you will end up being subjected to continuous locking up and crashing.
CPU Power:
There does exist ordinarily a great variation here in what exactly a large number of video editing application companies will assert to be a minimum requirement. Frequently they cite the processing capability expected to accomplish the simplest steps the application can engage in.
Most of the time they will demand a dual core processor of some sort working at a minimum at roughly 2.0GHz which will manage many typical editing jobs.
Also remember that if you are planning to work on high definition assets the necessity for superior processing power steps up dramatically.
Those items represent the basic computer criteria for a computer handling video editing, of course you will encounter other sorts of software and hardware variables to decide upon dependent on your personal requirements. One of the main ways to avoid dissatisfaction with your selection of video editing computer program is to download a free trial offer and check it out on your computer's settings.
Always subject it to an extensive evaluation including the most common actions while using the same sort of video file extension you are aware you will be routinely dealing with. That way, you're able to work out for yourself as to whether the system you have is up to the task.