PC specs for editing HD video?

Hey everyone, so here's the deal—in a couple of days, I’m getting a drive with some semi-pro concert footage from a photo studio, and the goal is to cut it all down and put together a little promo video.

I used to dabble in this kind of stuff back in the day (way before the Democratic Party era), but the issue is there's a massive amount of material here, like over 100GB total across two different camera angles. I mean, each individual video file is probably sitting at 50GB, maybe even pushing 60 or 70GB.

So, my main question is, do you think I can actually get anything done with my current rig? It’s running an Intel Xeon X5260 with 6Mb cache clocked at 4.25GHz, an NVIDIA GeForce 210, and just 4GB of RAM.

Maybe if I use a converter first to shrink everything down into some kind of AVI format, would that make it easier to handle in an editor? Honestly, the quality doesn't have to be top-tier.

P.S. This is kind of both a software and hardware question, so if I've posted this in the wrong section, I guess a moderator can just move it.

Thanks

What exactly is the harm in giving it a shot? I mean, I have a colleague who manages to edit high-definition video footage on a setup that is significantly less powerful than this one.

I mean, sure, it isn't costing me anything, but I guess it would be worth driving a little further if it actually gets me what I need, just so I'm not wasting my damn time if it's not going to work out anyway.

What really matters to me is just making sure my PC doesn't totally brick when I try to open this, you know? Like, I need to be able to keep working, and honestly, whether it takes a day or like five days to sort itself out, I don't really care.

You’ve probably got some movies lying around. Take whatever software you're planning to use and just merge random clips—you can even use the same one over and over—until you hit about 70GB. Then you'll see how it actually holds up...

Yeah, I mean, that could actually be a pretty solid idea.

It’s just, the file formats are totally different, you know? Like, this concert is running about two hours and it's over 50GB, whereas the movies I usually have are maybe 3GB at most. I wonder if there might be some kind of connection there?

I guess the folks who really know their stuff around here might be able to tell me what kind of format I should expect to see when I get it (since it'll be straight off the camera).

You can give me all the advice you want, but it doesn't mean much if you don't know what kind of camera is being used or what the settings are actually set to. 😬

http://camcorders.about.com/od/camco...le_formats.htm

Like I said, just merge 20 clips and boom, you're looking at 60 GB... Anyway, that link should cover the most common formats.

Alright, I'll just have him drop it off and then we'll see what's what. I tried merging about twenty different clips and setting the output to 1080p video.

The PC didn't seem to struggle or anything, but I guess the render time ended up being around 80 hours.😬

It should technically be capable of handling everything, but let’s be real—it's going to feel incredibly sluggish compared to a high-end rig loaded with an i7, 16GB of RAM, and so on...

I mean, I know it'll work out. Honestly, I just want to cut down about 20 minutes of footage and get it ready to upload to 🙂YouTube. I don't really feel like trying to edit the entire concert or anything like that, I guess.

Borrow some RAM from someone else for a few days to get through the grind. It’ll make life easier... or just go out and buy another 4-8 GB. It's not like you're breaking the bank. ☕

cosmiceagle8 said:Look, I just want to cut down about 20 minutes of footage and get it ready to upload to YouTube. Editing the entire concert isn't really my goal here.🙂

To be honest, the real time-sink won't be the editing itself, but rather sifting through all that massive amounts of footage to decide what actually makes the cut. That's where the real creative work happens...

I guess I'm just saying that, you know, if we really look at how things are going, maybe there's more to this whole situation than what's being reported on the news right now... I mean, it feels like we're all missing something important, I guess. It’s kind of hard to wrap your head around it sometimes, isn't it? I don't know, maybe I'm just overthinking things, but it seems like there's a pattern emerging here that most people aren't even noticing yet, which is pretty wild if you think about it. I guess we'll just have to wait and see how it all plays out, though. kaže:
Maybe just borrow some extra RAM from someone for a few days to get through the grind. It might make your life a whole lot easier... or honestly, just go ahead and buy another 4 to 8 GB yourself. It’s really not that much cash, I guess. ☕

It's DDR2, like some Mushkin Super Ultra Black 1066 thing or whatever. I can't find that stuff anywhere anymore, and honestly, I don't really want to mess around with mixing different sticks, since my rig has been running on a pretty heavy but totally rock-solid overclock for years now.

The drive is pretty old and definitely showing its age, so I don't really want to push it too hard. It’s been acting up lately—it kind of shows its displeasure whenever I try to swap out any hardware, almost like it's playing dead on me sometimes. With all the miles on it, I honestly wouldn't mind calling it Tiger Woods, though I guess I haven't quite reached that level of madness where I start naming my gear just yet. 😁

Timothy Kim60 said:I mean, I guess you're probably going to spend a massive chunk of your time just sifting through all that raw footage, and then actually figuring out what makes the cut for the final edit... so, like, the whole creative side of things is going to be a pretty huge undertaking.

Yeah, I guess that wouldn't even be a huge deal because I actually played that show, so I've got a pretty clear mental picture of how we could pull it off, though having two cameras running probably makes things a whole lot more complicated than they need to be.