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Advice needed for video editing computer

T

TorontoJen

macrumors member
Original poster
May 17, 2016
55
40
Toronto
Hi everyone,

I am contemplating starting a YouTube channel and doing some video lessons for a few various topics on Teachable. (1080p)
I am familiar with video editing as I took it in college so I’m not really worried about getting familiar with software. If I can get away with iMovie, I’d probably just use that, or get FCP.
However, I am not sure any of my current machines meet the needs for what I’d like to do.
I have the starting tier 2017 27” 5k iMac with a 1TB fusion drive (cue groan here, but as a writer I wasn’t anticipating needing more than that at the time) and currently 8gb of RAM.
I also have a 2015 MacBook Pro lowest tier with 256gb and 8gb of RAM.
Any advice on what I need to make this as smooth as possible?
Thanks!
 
Last edited:
You can probably get away with using iMovie, but FCP X is lets you do much more. Your iMac should handle it, but you definitely want to keep your media and Libraries on a fast external drive. Fusion drives are no good for video work.
 
Agreed with Screensavers above.
For 1080p, the iMac should do ok, or even "better than ok".
But... you may need to add an external USB3 SSD and set it up to become the boot drive.
A Samsung t5 would do the trick.
512gb would be good enough. Or 1tb if you want to pay the additional $$$.
 
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Fishrrman said:
Agreed with Screensavers above.
For 1080p, the iMac should do ok, or even "better than ok".
But... you may need to add an external USB3 SSD and set it up to become the boot drive.
A Samsung t5 would do the trick.
512gb would be good enough. Or 1tb if you want to pay the additional $$$.
Click to expand...

++, and also a BIG external (6-12Tb) for archiving both source files and rendered finals for each "episode" and similar for backup (preferably stored off-site). These 2 externals don't need to be the fastest, though USB 3.0 would be a minimum. It's easy to expand an external disk "farm" so there's little wrong with starting out with more modest sized drives (~4Tb) for the storage and backup.
 
Thanks for the help, everyone!
How much RAM do you guys think is necessary to add? And I agree about a fast external, but do you think it is absolutely necessary to boot from one as well?
 
ScreenSavers said:
16GB is good. 32GB is significantly better nowadays.
Click to expand...
I keep hearing 32GB is worth it, but for what it's worth, on my 2018 15" with 32GB of RAM I can hardly use 16GB, let alone 32GB

Obviously this is dependent on what you're doing with the machine, but I wouldn't say it makes a lot of sense for everyone, including those who use lots of Chrome tabs or play graphically intensive games
 
SoN1NjA said:
I keep hearing 32GB is worth it, but for what it's worth, on my 2018 15" with 32GB of RAM I can hardly use 16GB, let alone 32GB

Obviously this is dependent on what you're doing with the machine, but I wouldn't say it makes a lot of sense for everyone, including those who use lots of Chrome tabs or play graphically intensive games
Click to expand...

Yes that, but there’s also compression. If there is only 2 GB installed, it will make that work. Same with 4, 8, 16, and however many gigabytes you have.

I do agree that 16 GB is a pretty comfortable amount for 90% of average users.
 
The external boot SSD will be far more important than adding RAM.
That should be priority #1.
 
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