Video editing software programs need plenty of memory, processing power and free disc space in order to run smoothly. The ideal situation is that you and I have dedicated video editing computers that we don’t use for anything else….yeah right! I don’t know about you but that’s not going to happen at my house!
So…there are some simple steps you can take to greatly increase your chances of success with video editing on your multi-use computer that won’t break the bank and will help keep your blood pressure down.
One of the keys to successful video editing is to understand exactly what you are dealing with and what your computer is trying to do when it is handling the various video file formats you may be dealing with. Now I know the video editing software makers promote everything as “point and click your way to success” and “any idiot can do it!”
My experience over the years has been that the truth is this: any normally intelligent person can be made to feel like an idiot because they have been lied to about just how much they need to understand about the process they are undertaking.
Just a basic knowledge of what your are doing and how the computer is doing it will open you up to a whole world of relatively stress free video editing!
First of all lets take a look at video file formats.
One of the original digital video file formats was called uncompressed .avi. This format occupied about 65gig per hour of video and at the time it came out NO-ONE had that kind of real estate on their hard drives so although it provided the best standard definition quality it was near impossible for the home user to edit.
Next came DV.avi. This one is the standard definition video format that is used on all tape camcorders and has for years been the workhorse of home video editing. It is slightly compressed but in a way that makes recording, playback and, most importantly, editing a breeze. All common video editing software right now will eat this format up with relish! It occupies about 13gig per hour of video and requires very little processing power. It is recorded at 25Mb per second because that is the maximum the tape recording system can handle reliably.
A few years back MPEG2 came into being and this is important because it marks the departure point of where it all went haywire. MPEG2 was solely developed as a distribution format. There was never any consideration given as to how it could be edited because the assumption was that the original format would be DV.avi or uncompressed .avi.
A little later Sony came up with the idea of DVD camcorders using MPEG2. Sony rather stupidly assumed that people would just record to the DVD in the camcorder, bang it in the DVD player at home and watch it. The general public ate up this idea and Sony sold gazillions of them as did all the other DVD camcorder manufacturers.
Of course it was only a matter moments before the public started to call for the ability to edit their DVD camcorder files and the fun began! What followed were about three years of “tears before bedtime” until the video editing software programmers finally nailed down the ability to edit those MPEG2 files reliably on home computers.
The inherent problems with MPEG2 were that it was never designed for editing and that it’s method of compression involved actually throwing away repeated data from the original captured images. That was balanced out by pretty good video quality at standard definition and vastly smaller file sizes, around 6 to 7 gig per hour of video.
Finally we had an explosion of very highly compressed video file formats that are typically MPEG4. They come under many names like DivX, Xvid, H.264, .mov and on and on. These once again were not designed for editing and the way they get that incredible compression is by throwing away huge amounts of data. To achieve playback and rendering of those files an enormous amount of work is thrown on to the CPU (processor) of the computer.
The slow trade off over time has been video files that have been getting smaller whilst maintaining quality but requiring greater and greater processing power for playback and most importantly editing. Then along came High Definition and the demands on the computer went through the roof!
There two types of High definition video files at the moment. HDV which is just MPEG2 recorded at a higher resolution and very high data rate. I like to think of it as MPEG2 on crack!
AVCHD, which is an MPEG4 variant again recorded at a higher resolution and a very high data rate that requires big, big processing power to playback and even more to edit!
When we add to all of that the complexity of other programs already existing on a computer and other functions the average home computer has to perform sometimes it seems a miracle that we can edit video files at all. But edit them we can…and do.
Even if you don’t want to understand all of this there are some basic steps you can take to help your computer deal with either the huge file sizes or the heavy demands placed on it for video editing.
1. Disconnect From the Internet.
There may be any number of programs on your computer, including Windows, that at any time wish to do an “E.T.” They may suddenly decide it is time to “phone home” and check for updates or whatever. Normally this is fine but if your computer is halfway through handling some huge amount of data transfer or some wildly complex calculation then this may just be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
2. Switch Off All Unnecessary Programs
Prior to an editing session go through the computer and shut down any programs that may be running in the background. This can include anti-virus programs, screen savers or any program that pre-loads itself just in case you may need it.
This will free up memory and your video editing software will thank you. You can also go into the task manager in Windows and take a look at the “services” that are running. Very often you will see programs running here that are unnecessary but make sure you know for sure you don’t need it. When in doubt…leave it.
3. Take Out the Garbage.
It is frightening the amount of crap that accumulates on the average computer especially if it is used for browsing the internet. One of the keys to successful video editing is to have acres and acres of hard disc real estate available for the video editing software to use. When the computer and operating system are under stress they will just slap data down onto the hard drive wherever they can in order to keep going. The more space you provide for them the smoother it all goes.
My favourite for cleaning up is CCleaner which used to be called Crap Cleaner for a good reason. It cleans out all the crap! It also has a nice registry cleaner as well and the price is just right…free! Do a search for it.
4. Defrag, Defrag, Defrag.
The operating system over time has a tendency to spread pieces of data all over the hard drive. This means that your hard drive may be showing a certain amount of free space but that may not be usable free space because data is littered everywhere. Defragging the hard drive results in the actual free space being grouped together and this takes an incredible load off the operating system in trying to decide where to put data on that drive.
Generally I defrag before capturing/transferring video files from an external source and then once I have completed the capture/transfer I defrag again. With that done I know that all my original video file assets are nicely packed together and all my free space is packed together. Finally just before I am ready to render my completed project to a DVD or final video file I defrag again.
5. Patience is a Virtue.
There are many steps in video editing that require either huge amounts of data to be moved from one location to another or to be processed by the computer. It is common for you to do something or tell the program to do something and you think nothing happened. This is where patience comes in. Get used to the idea that this can sometimes take time and give your computer a minute or two to catch up before you start hitting other buttons or trying to escape. This only makes things worse and may cause the program to crash or freeze when really all it was doing was what you wanted. Slow down, it’s not a notepad file you are dealing with!
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