Best option for editing 550D footage in Windows?
- Thread starter liezl
- Start date
If you're married to Windows Vista, I don't believe you'll be able to edit the footage natively (or perhaps you can, but it's a bad idea). You'll want to pick up Cineform Neoscene. It converts your footage to a format that your software can handle. Neoscene can be edited in any of the major editing suites, so it's your preference at that point.
You'll need LOTS of hard drive space.
You'll need LOTS of hard drive space.
you better have one FAST laptop w/ LOTS of memory and a great graphics card is all Im sayin...think you might share the spec's of the laptop ??
Do you mean editing software? Premiere Pro is very popular for editing DSLR footage because if you have a decent computer you won't need to convert any footage before you start editing, but I don't think it's such a big deal if you're not on a tight schedule. Sony Vegas seems to be popular with quite a few people, but I've never used it before.
I don't believe it's all versions of Premiere, but I don't know when this started. I could be wrong, but I think it's only CS5?
Anyway, I suspect this might not be your best option. Just because it can handle it doesn't mean it can handle it well. I edit DSLR footage in CS5. I have a 3GB dual-core processor, 4GB RAM, 2TB internal storage, and a modest video card. My computer just barely is able to handle the footage, and it gets jumpy after just a few seconds. I wouldn't want to use a computer any less powerful than what I've got. If your computer is a laptop, running Windows Vista, I have to suspect that your computer isn't as powerful as mine. In addition to the aforementioned specs, it's also pretty important to have a hard drive with 7200 RPM, and when Vista was being made, I believe most hard drives were 5400 RPM. I think Neoscene is going to be your best bet (no, I'm not aware of a free alternative). If money is an issue, perhaps the lower-priced Sony Vegas is a good idea (even the $50 version is decent software).
Yep, sorry, it's only since CS5 that you've been able to do that. Had assumed the OP would be buying the latest version.
Unless the laptop's ancient, HDD speed is more to do with it being an entry-level model or not - the drives in cheaper laptops are often slower simply because the disks are physically smaller, and it's harder to read the information at faster speeds when it's denser. Anyway, a fast external drive is essential for editing smoothly on a laptop.
I've already got Vegas, so that could help. And most of my experience is in Vegas and FCP, so I guess that's helpful too.
Regarding an intermediate program, I guess I'll fork out for Neoscene. Oh well.
Btw, my PC specs are as follows:
Processor: Intel Core2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz 2.40GHz
Memory: 3.00GB
That was just copied and pasted straight from my System Properties.
I do also have an external 2 TB HD which is 7200 RPM...
Regarding an intermediate program, I guess I'll fork out for Neoscene. Oh well.
Btw, my PC specs are as follows:
Processor: Intel Core2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz 2.40GHz
Memory: 3.00GB
That was just copied and pasted straight from my System Properties.
I do also have an external 2 TB HD which is 7200 RPM...
Cool - how does it connect to your computer? USB (v3 aside) isn't really fast enough to run HD video through for editing purposes. Firewire 400 is good, FW800 and eSATA better still.
You might be okay, as is. The good news is that guessing does not have to be part of the equation. Vegas has trials, as does Edius Neo, both of which will edit DSLR footage. Try 'em. If it's not up to your liking, enter neoscene.
Perfect! I think you'll be okay, but as Cracker says most of the NLEs recommended here have trial versions available, so give them a shot and see which works best for you.
What exactly does NeoScene do? I've heard about it, but I'm not 100% on it. My computer is pretty crappy (2Gb RAM, Dual Core processor), editing HD is almost impossible. Will NeoScene actually aliviate this? I understand the files it outputs are huge, but are they still HD? And will this allow me to import the footage into an NLE and actually work with it, even on my PC? And what about when you come to render the final video? Does it take significantly longer?
Unless you have a very slow internal HDD it probably makes sense to install your NLE on the system drive.
When it comes to choosing a video codec, it's basically a trade-off between any two of size, quality and complexity. Files straight off a DSLR are fairly small in size and high in quality (for the purposes of this explanation) but the nature of the compression means that they take a lot of processing power to decode and play back. By transcoding into an editing codec like NeoScene, AIC or ProRes, you exchange size for complexity. File sizes are much larger, but it's less complicated to decode and re-encode (when rendering) and so everything runs more smoothly.