Getting better video editing performance on my PC

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David
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I'm a photographer by trade and occasionally I shoot stock. I've just started submitting video clips to libraries, but my PC struggles a bit with editing 4k files. I either edit in Photoshop, or edit using Corel Videostudio 2020.

The processor on my PC is an Intel i5-9400F with 32gb of Ram. If I wanted to make editing 4k vids much more smoother, would I need to get a better processor (if so what would be suitable?), increase the Ram... or both?

Any advice would be much appreciated
 
Best to check what your software needs but video editing often needs a separate graphics card for best performance.

Is your pc a laptop?
 
The amount of in camera compression you are using on your footage makes a lot of difference if you are shooting heavily compressed files your PC has to work much harder to un-compress each frame.

The easiest work round if you can only highly shoot compressed footed is to use proxy files where a much lower res uncompressed version of each clip is created when you import your footage. When you export the original footage is combined with your edit to give you a full res output.

If your existing software doesn't create proxy files try Davinci Resolve, you can get a reasonable version for free from the blackmagic design site.

A better graphics card and processor will probably help but you need to spend quiet a bit to get decent editing performance.
 
I have a brand new 2019 MacBook Pro with the highest graphics card available Rtx5500 with 8gb ram (well they released a better one just after i bought it, obviously) And an i9 processor and 32gb ram.

Using files from my Fuji xt3, so 4k at 200mbs and h265 I can just about play them back smoothly after import on davinci resolve. As soon as I do any colour grading or transitions, I have to wait for the files to render before it will play back Smoothly.
Same with 4k d-log footage from my Mavic 2 pro.

The biggest issue here is the h265 format, as the computer has to decompress them before playing them, which obviously in real time is a huge resource hog.
If you can shoot in h254, then you should have better luck with playback, but the files will be considerably bigger and some cameras only allow certain formats and frame rates to be shot with h264.

As said, the other option is use proxy files. It adds a fair chunk of time to your workflow, but makes editing a lot easier.

Software can also have a massive impact.. for instance, premier pro is by far the slowest editor of all the big ones, with Final Cut Pro and resolve more level pegging, but certain tasks run better on one or the other. I’ve not used Corel so cant comment, but might be worth trying resolve and see if it speeds things up a bit.
 
You have more than enough RAM, increasingly video processing software makes significant use of your graphics card - that would be worth looking at but good one aren't cheap.
A fairly simple workaround is using Proxy files at the editing stage - then your modifications are applied to the original footage.
Many cameras will record a proxy lower res version or you can make them on first step after downloading.
 
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