4K video editing - Needs a super computer???

[geekl33tgamer]

Hey everyone,

I've got around 2 hours worth of 4K footage I wanted to edit down into something nice for YouTube. While editing the video in Corel VideoStudio 9, every time I import one of the video clips (stored on SSD) the software hangs for around 3-5 minutes as the 3-4GB video file is dropped in.

Timeline scrubbing and clip trim/cut/move or any filters/transitions spike the CPU usage to 100% for minutes at a time and it's completely unworkable. I always assumed my PC to be of a very high spec (even though it was built 18 months ago) as it's primary purpose is to drive gaming at 4K - perhaps it's the software, and if so - What is recommended?

Basic specs: Intel i7 4790K, 32GB DDR3 RAM at 2400Mhz, Intel 750 NvME SSD 1.2TB, SLI Dual Geforce GTX 980Ti, Windows 10

 

[Dronefriend]

Try other video editing software. Those specs are more than enough.

I can't recommend any free software for editing, I use AVID and Premier Pro myself. Though, DaVinci Resolve is a free colorgrading program (and an excellent one to that) with editing capabilities.

 

[RJ_Make]

I 2nd Dronefriends recommendation of Resolve. It is crazy powerful and it's editing capabilities are improving leaps and bounds every version. Resolve is a resource consuming program, but you have more than enough power to handle it. You will absolutely need to use 'Generate Optimize Media' for your 2.7 and 4K media. It's very easy to do right inside Resolve

 

[4wd]

That computer seems twice as powerful as mine about five years old now. Not sure what's wrong but yours should play with it however rendering e.g. 5 minute video could still take a couple of hours depending how many changes you make.

 

[tcope]

Still, a 3-4GB 4k video is huge amount of data. My recommendation would be to try to make shorted videos if possible. I'd still agree that the computer is good enough to edit 4k.

 

[geekl33tgamer]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I've looked at Premier Pro and I don't mind purchasing it if it's good/reasonably easy to use.

I've also thought about just recording in 1080P at a higher FPS instead? I'm going to run out of space really fast with the raw footage file sizes!

 

[jadebox]

I'm not sure about other editors, but Adobe Premiere makes a temporary lower-res version of the video to use for previews while you are editing. Then, when you export the media, it uses the full-resolution files to create the final product. You'll sometimes see a message that Premiere is preparing the media which is normally done transparently in the background. But, once that's done things work pretty well on a somewhat powerful oomputer.

My desktop is a few years old and works okay with 4K videos in Premiere. But, things still get slow occasionally. Working in 1080p is much smoother.

My laptop is faster and has more memory. But it also has a 4K display so it works harder generating the previews. Overall, working in Premiere is about the same as using the slower, older desktop. But it is nice to be able to see full 1080P previews.

I prefer starting with the 4K video, but editing in 1080P, so that I can crop and zoom the source video. But, the resulting quality is about the same (and editing is faster and smoother) when I start with 1080P raw footage. So, I will usually record in 4K, but sometimes will drop back to 1080P to make life easier later.

-- Roger

 

[Tenly]

Recording in 4K gives you a 4:1 digital zoom capability that leaves you with a true 1080p quality stream.

Your problems are most likely caused by your software - or possibly low-disk-space on a highly fragmented hard drive.

I have a core i7, 4.0GHz quad core with 48GB RAM, a 5k monitor and a 500GB SSD (internal) with a 16TB RAID connected via USB3 and editing with iMovie is fast and smooth. I routinely shoot and edit 15 minute movies at 4K. Previews are smooth and output rendering in 4K or 1080p rarely takes more than 5-10 minutes.

I recommend that you boot from an SSD, have lots of fast hard drive space available (7200 rpm, USB3 or better) and try out the free trial of Adobe Premiere.


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