Out of my Depth...(Minimum Requirements 1080p Video Editing)

subscriber

Hey guys,

I am in the market to purchase a laptop for 1080p editing and have been reading mountains of information over the last few days in relation to what the minimum requirements of a laptop are that I need to be able to do so, and honestly my brain is hurting from trying to sieve through all the info on processors, their cores and threads, graphic cards, hardrives and clock speeds, RAM, ect..I just can`t wrap my head around what the MINIMIM requirements are for 1080p editing on a laptop...

Could anyone be of assistance in this with some general guidance? It would be greatly appreciated.

In particular I am wondering:

1. Would a Ryzen 5 processor be sufficient or do I need to go to Ryzen 7?
2. Do I need a dedicated graphics card?
3. Is 128 GB SSD sufficient or do I need more storage? How much GB does 1080p editing use in storage?
4. Will 8GB RAM be sufficient or do I need to go to 16GB?

Note. I will only be looking to cut and drag clips together with some voice over commentary and put some music on top with Wondershare Filmora 9 video editor. I do not have any intention of using the Adobe suite, Final Cut Pro, Divinci Resolve or anything similar and will not be editing in 4K ever. The projects I do are very straight forward and basic with 1080p video.

Thanks for any advice..

Trojan

subscriber wrote: »

Hey guys,

I am in the market to purchase a laptop for 1080p editing and have been reading mountains of information over the last few days in relation to what the minimum requirements of a laptop are that I need to be able to do so, and honestly my brain is hurting from trying to sieve through all the info on processors, their cores and threads, graphic cards, hardrives and clock speeds, RAM, ect..I just can`t wrap my head around what the MINIMIM requirements are for 1080p editing on a laptop...

Any modern laptop (or phone) can edit 1080p video. The question is: how quickly.

subscriber wrote: »

1. Would a Ryzen 5 processor be sufficient or do I need to go to Ryzen 7?

A Ryzen 5 will do the job fine, albeit slower.

subscriber wrote: »

2. Do I need a dedicated graphics card?

Yes, if you want it to be a tolerable experience.

subscriber wrote: »

3. Is 128 GB SSD sufficient or do I need more storage? How much GB does 1080p editing use in storage?

That's two questions!

But no, 128 GB is not sufficient unless you're editing really short videos and deleting the old ones regularly. At the very least, get yourself a 1TB USB 3.0 external HDD, but ideally getting a laptop that has a larger SSD or SSD and HDD internally.

Depends on how heavily it's compressed, for me the output mp4 files are 100MB per minute.

subscriber wrote: »

4. Will 8GB RAM be sufficient or do I need to go to 16GB?

8GB will do it but 16GB will be a nicer experience.

If I was in your shoes I'd spend around €700-1000 on the laptop. An entry level gaming laptop makes for a decent video editing laptop, so look at those.

HTH

subscriber

Massively helpful answers...

There`s one thing that maybe you can shine a light on also...I currently have a Lenovo Intel Core i3 7100U 2.4GHz laptop which I`ve done a few editing trails on with 1080p...

I put approx 15 mins worth of 1080p video on the editor timeline and threw some music on top just to see how it would render ect...it actually rendered in 3 mins approx which I was pretty impressed with as most of my video productions would only be between 10-30 mins long max anyway, I definitely wouldn`t exceed 30 mins worth of video in one production at a time...BUT once exported, the finished product was a little jumpy and I would stress just a "little". Would the absence of a dedicated graphics card be exclusively to blame for this or would it be a CPU issue..or both combined??

I suppose what I am getting at, is whether I should upgrade the laptop entirely or maybe just stick a new battery in my existing one and buy an external SSD and go that route?

Trojan

I'd check if that exported video plays jumpy on another device (another laptop, phone etc). Even just do a restart and play it after everything settles down - is the jumpiness baked into the video or is it the player?

What you have is good enough to get started, so dive in and see how it does. The way shipping is this month, ordering a replacement laptop in a week or two might not be any slower than ordering it this week

Personally I wouldn't bother with a replacement battery - if the laptop needed that I'd be considering a full upgrade.

subscriber

Gotcha...Last question I SWEAR!!

Does shooting 1080p footage in 30FPS or 60FPS have any bearing on the smoothness of the editing process, rendering and output quality..or is it all 6 of one half a dozen of the other?

Trojan

Well, firstly it's twice as much data if it's 60fps. That means it's twice as big, twice as slow, etc.

In terms of quality, if there's a lot of movement on video, 60fps is going to look a lot better. If you're shooting sports, for example. 30fps should be fine if it's talking head or something like that.

You can always experiment with both to see how they look.

subscriber

Trojan,

You`ve been an absolute terrific help...Thank you so much.

turbot

OP, do not be afraid of asking questions - its worth getting a video editing setup that is non-annoying.

What is your budget?

Probably the latest gen Mac Book Air or Pro would be an amazing choice - despite having limited RAM.
Ideally, you'll have a large monitor to go with it - like a 4k ACER 43 inch one.
You probably also want to have an external hard drive - a fast SSD drive.

What kinds of videos are you shooting?
What is your source for video footage?
How many video clips do you anticipate mixing together?
Will you need much colour grading or special effects?
Will you be using After Effects or similar?

Its not that hard to edit 1080P video - but if you're say - editing together a documentary - a good system and workflow is the difference between it being possible at all and so annoying that you may struggle to complete it. A short video is not so hard though.

subscriber

What is your budget?

I would say the max budget is 800 at the moment and I would need it to be a laptop setup rather than a desktop ring (which I am aware makes life more difficult in choice).


Probably the latest gen Mac Book Air or Pro would be an amazing choice - despite having limited RAM.
Ideally, you'll have a large monitor to go with it - like a 4k ACER 43 inch one.
You probably also want to have an external hard drive - a fast SSD drive.

Really not a an of Apple as I have always been a Windows and Android user but I wouldn`t rule out looking at it at all...

What kinds of videos are you shooting?

I`ve had a huge interest for years now in documentary film making in relation to various cultures around the world but only this year thanks to the situation with the pandemic, have I had the opportunity to explore it further. At the moment, I`m pulling video from the web from a mix of royalty free video and fair usage video and putting together a 15 min documentary on a topic about Japaneese Gesiha`s.

What is your source for video footage?

I am hoping that (much) later this year when COVID calms down hopefully to go abroad and capture some footage in relation to some cultural aspects (of a country I have not chosen yet, not necessarily Japan although I do have family there) and at the moment have a Xiamoi Poco x3 smartphone which has both 30FPS and 60FPS 1080p and also 4K capabilities.

How many video clips do you anticipate mixing together?

Difficult to say, I think this will vary a lot depending on the topic and availability to access any footage I am hoping to capture...

Will you need much colour grading or special effects?

I don`t anticipating needing to do any special effects or color grading.

Will you be using After Effects or similar?

I don`t feel that I will be using After Effects either but maybe the production quality will suffer if I don`t. Currently using Wondershare Filmora 9 but only doing very basic edits at present.

this hp envy with discrete gpu (mx350) and colour accurate screen on sale at the moment for 800 would do the job

https://www.currys.ie/ieen/computing/laptops/laptops/hp-envy-13-3-laptop-intel-core-i5-512-gb-ssd-silver-10212903-pdt.html

very good price -

metal chassis, 4-core i5, 8gb ram + 2gb video ram, fast ssd

nice design and portable

would imagine that it will sell out soon enough / sale finish

comprehensive review here

https://www.notebookcheck.net/HP-Envy-13-Laptop-Review-Elegant-metal-case-and-solid-performance.508407.0.html

youtube review - covers video editing. very little difference between i5 and i7 models in term of the cpu so will apply to i5 version

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odsxwFvDx4g

subscriber

Great recommendation, thanks Glasso. I`ll give it a look, Had two HP laptops in the past which I thought were complete garbage but they weren`t anywhere near on the spec level of that machine so that would be telling...

*EDIT* Do you think that machine would handle 4K editing too or is that pushing it too far?

all brands have good and bad laptops

there are more crap ones at the budget end obviously where the specs of components along with the money for build quality are going to be poverty spec

the reviews for that are pretty good

subscriber

subscriber wrote: »

Great recommendation, thanks Glasso. I`ll give it a look, Had two HP laptops in the past which I thought were complete garbage but they weren`t anywhere near on the spec level of that machine so that would be telling...

*EDIT* Do you think that machine would handle 4K editing too or is that pushing it too far?

it will do 4k but won't be that fast doing it.

it's not that it won't do it but don't be in a rush.

1080p fine.