Hello, my wife wants to upgrade her computer to do light video editing. Basically she wants to be able to cut up and process video files taken from a DSLR. She's not trying to make a feature film but more just things like little lectures, and she also makes slide shows with high quality jewelry pictures.

Currently, it takes her computer sometimes several minutes for a single operation. She has a fairly basic business HP PC from several years ago.

Sorry if this is kind of vague. Any suggestions? Would want to keep it below $2K, preferably more like $1K.

Has she tried doing it on her phone?

I have a Youtube channel for my other hobby, metal detetcting, and produce videos using an app called Power Director (which has a desktop version too).

It mainly uses videos that I've filmed on the phone, but I often add vid files I've filmed on my go-pro too and it handles it all fine, interface is easy, editing a doddle, you can add photo's, sound, titles etc.

Could be a low cost alternative.

Neither of us are comfortable using our phones and are definitely desktop people, but thanks for the suggestion. It is amazing what can be accomplished on these little pocket dynamos, isn't it?

Welcome to SS!

Her "fairly basic business HP PC from several years ago" is probably bottlenecking on memory. You can tell for sure by running Task Manager and turning on "More details". Click on the Performance tab if you want the nitty-gritty.

Either the CPU, the memory, or the disk will be pegged at 100% during a video operation. Upgrading any of those things on a years-old machine is probably not worth the effort, but it will give you an idea which specs to look for in a relatively cheap replacement.

If you’re just talking about 8 bit HD video (dlsr standard) I would think any of the newer multiple core machines could handle it. Probably look for 8 GB of ram or more and a solid state drive if it’s within budget.

But, I would go through the forums of whatever editor you use first. Tons of settings can be changed to expedite processing. There should also be threads dedicated to building PCs best for that editor. For example, premiere Pro depends  mostly on the CPU. Davinci Resolve dumps a lot into a graphics processor to share the load. So that editor needs a GPU to run best. They’re all geared a little different.

Just google “Build PC for video editing” and you can usually find examples by budget. Even if you don’t want to build one, you’ll be able to see what it has under the hood.

James

Thanks everyone!

Any decent gaming desktop or laptop should be OK.

You want at least 16gb memory if you're doing 4k...32  gb is even better.

And ssd HDD are also good.


Best to go for CPU that ends in HQ,a s well...they are the ones tested to extremes and last longest.