Editing 1080p Footage, Hardware Requirements?

[Delpheno]

I want to edit some 1080p videos. AVCHD

What hardware is required? Would a Core 2 Duo processor suffice or do I need to go quad-core? What about the graphics card (512MB?) and hard drive (7200RPM)?

My best scenario is getting the low-end Mac Mini to edit 1080p, but I have a feeling the specs are not good enough.

 

[spinnerlys]

The Mac Mini might suffice for editing 1080p footage if the editing application you use will encode it properly, as AVCHD will put your CPU to stress, as AVCHD is highly compressed footage, not really meant for editing.

Also a 7200rpm drive will suffice if you don't use the internal drive but an external FW800 HDD.

The graphics card is not as important for editing as the CPU. When the footage is properly encoded (Pro Res in FCP or DNxHD in Avid MC), the GPU will be hardly used. If you want to go into effects editing you might want to have a dedicated GPU.

In short: a C2D CPU will suffice, an external 7200rpm FW800 HDD is needed, and almost any modern GPU will handle normal editing processes.

 

[Delpheno]

This is gonna be such a hassle... thank you.

 

[Nugget]

All of the above and you can't have too much RAM.

 

[THX1139]

Just use compressor and convert it to a different codec for editing. Maybe Apple Prores? Then when you are done editing, export it out to whatever finishing codec you need. Hassle to convert, but much easier to edit with.

 

[THX1139]

All of the above and you can't have too much RAM.

Well, actually you can. Final Cut will only access 2GB, but it's nice to have some left over for other applications if you need to keep them running. I'd say that anything over 6gigs is probably not going to help. If you really want to speed things up, you need to have the fastest processor(s).

 

[Nugget]

Even if FCP can only allocate 2GB for itself, the rest will be utilized as file cache which helps with video editing as well. And since the guy's talking about a Mac Mini, he can max the RAM and still wish he had more.