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We are looking for a good computer and software to be able to edit videos and do some voice overlays. We don’t want to go the Mac route as this computer will be connected to our network. Any ideas and/or recommendations?

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some general questions to help guide us:

  1. (most important) What is your budget for the hardware and software?

  2. Do you know what software you are going to be using? ie: adobe premier pro, sony vegas, avid?

3: Are these videos going to be shot in HD?

4: How long are these typical Videos?

5: What kind of videos do you expect to edit?

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Any mid-range desktop can handle basic video processing. Add a GPU for more beef.

A good, affordable software is Cyberlink PowerDirector

A good, expensive software is Adobe After Affects (you’ll need a high end desktop to run that efficiently)

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  1. It’s a CEO project, so I’m sure budget doesn’t matter too much. We spend about $700 on our computers, so hopefully cost of a computer wouldn’t exceed $1,400. I have already mentioned that we are going to need a computer with a better graphics card and higher RAM to the CEO.

  2. Haven’t decided on a software yet. I, personally, am familiar with Avid and Sony Vegas. The employee that is going to do the video editing is not going to understand some of the complicated functions that are done in those software’s. So much so that they would not understand what rendering is…

  3. The videos are going to be shot with a Go Pro in 1080p

  4. Videos are going to be in segments between 30-60 minutes. In the end they might be all combined and rendered out for a DVD.

  5. The videos will of our CEO talking about the company. Later, he will add some pictures and do a voice over.

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ok so based on what you said here is the system I would design: core i7, 16gm ram (32 would be best), dedicated graphics card such as an nvida quadro card, 256+ gig ssd for OS, at least 2 tb of hdd space for storage,

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David,

Do you recommend a “dummied” down video editing software?

I’m looking into Cyberlink PowerDirector now.

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the only problem with the dummied down software is that it cannot handle the types of videos you want to edit. These 30 minute videos can sometimes be multiple gigs (depending on codecs used). The pro-sumer program like vegas can handle this (for the most part)

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Windows Movie Maker? YouTube’s built-in editor?

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