New Desktop and Video Editing

[Cantab]

The time has come for a new desktop computer. My current 14 year old custom built desktop started with XP; I later added a second hard drive with W7 Pro and dual booted it.

For the new computer, I drew up a wish list for the same business that built my previous computer. Apart from some technical matters, I said I wanted it to be good quality and reliable and hopefully capable of some video editing.

The quote I received includes the following specs:
processor: i7-9700 3.0Ghz
motherboard: MSI B360-A Pro
RAM: 16GB
video card: GeForce GTX 1660 Ti 6GB

As requested by me, it will have a 500GB SSD and a 4TB Western Digital Black hard drive.

Do these specs look adequate for occasional video editing? Overkill?

I’ve asked for Windows 10 Home 64 bit. As far as I recall the only relevant difference between Home and Pro is that with Pro one can delay the installation of new updates. (I had W7 Pro because of its ability to have workgroups but I gather that W10 Home comes with the ability to set up a workgroup.)

The quote came in for more than I was originally contemplating; on the other hand, with a bit of luck the new desktop may last as long as my previous one (14 years and still working).

[Manfred M]

If you are looking at 4K video editing, then the RAM is a bit low and I would look at 32GB. If you are sticking with HD video, then 16GB should suffice.

If your video editing software uses GPU acceleration, then you should check to see if the card you are looking at is one of the ones that is compatible with the software. The card you are looking at is one of the ones that supports Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2020.

That motherboard supports M.2 drives (installed on the motherboard). Rather than a standard SSD, look at using either using it as your system disk or adding one as your work drive. The M.2 drive is significantly faster than a standard SSD as it by-passes the SATA contoller.

[Cantab]

Manfred, thank you for your comments. The quote I received specified an M.2 SSD so that issue is addressed. I had no idea what M.2 meant until you referred to it and I then looked it up.

One of my cameras (albeit a Lumix bridge) shoots 4K so I'm seriously considering your suggestion of doubling the RAM to 32GB. The quote I received includes two optional upgrades; one is to increase the RAM to 32GB.

My previous attempts at video editing were on my W7 computer with downloaded trial software. The computer was not up to the task. So I'll need to find video editing software that fits my needs and pocketbook.

[Cantab]

I'm going with 32GB RAM. So I think I have just two decisions left.

The first is whether the M.2 500GB SSD should be SATA or whether I should pay a bit more and get NVMe instead of SATA. Any thoughts?

The other decision is the case. Many new cases have a glass side so that one can admire the innards of the desktop. But my wife feels (correctly) that such a case would not add to the ambience of the room. So more discussion with the store that will be building/assembling the computer.

[Manfred M]

The first is whether the M.2 500GB SSD should be SATA or whether I should pay a bit more and get NVMe instead of SATA. Any thoughts?

I would go that route if the motherboard supports the NVMe technology as it is extremely fast. Check with your computer store as they should know. If it doesn't the less expensive older technology will be just fine.

As for a see-through case, not my taste...

[rpcrowe]

IMO - even if a person doesn't normally shoot 4K video (now); for the sake of future proofing, I would suggest than any new computer be compatible with 4K Video. Remember when 1080 video was considered the ultimate? I suspect that eventually 4K video will take its place and a new 6K or even 8K video might be forthcoming.

After all - camera companies need a new ploy to wangle themselves into our wallets...

[Manfred M]

IMO - even if a person doesn't normally shoot 4K video (now); for the sake of future proofing, I would suggest than any new computer be compatible with 4K Video. Remember when 1080 video was considered the ultimate? I suspect that eventually 4K video will take its place and a new 6K or even 8K video might be forthcoming.

After all - camera companies need a new ploy to wangle themselves into our wallets...

The history of HD and now 4K video is interesting.

HD broadcasts were introduced by Japanese companies for the Japanese market. If you've ever been in a Japanese house, they are tiny compared to what we are used to in North America and consequently, their televisions tended to be fairly small and people sat fairly close to them. The 2K standards, given the screen size and sitting distance were pretty close to the limit of what the human visual system can resolve.

Then of course, there is North America, where we enjoy large homes and consequently much larger rooms where we traditionally watch TV. The television sets tend to be much larger than the ones found in typical Japanese homes, so to recreate the quality on the smaller screen, a new standard was required, hence 4K. Faster internet infrastructure to stream these high quality video signals was also part of the solution (DVD / BluRay technology had physical limitations on the amount of data storage, so streaming seems to be the only viable solution when integrated with newer HDD capacity). Again, given this technology, these devices (especially with larger screens) we are hitting the limit of what the human visual system can resolve.

The 8K and beyond technology is primarily being targeted at even larger screens and there is some justification to suggest that these standards are unlikely to be aimed at the home user. My understanding is that NHK (the main Japanese broadcaster) and Japanese technology companies have been working hard on this technology in support of the 2020 Olympics that are being held this year in Tokyo.

[Cantab]

IMO - even if a person doesn't normally shoot 4K video (now); for the sake of future proofing, I would suggest than any new computer be compatible with 4K Video. Remember when 1080 video was considered the ultimate? I suspect that eventually 4K video will take its place and a new 6K or even 8K video might be forthcoming.

After all - camera companies need a new ploy to wangle themselves into our wallets...

Richard, yes, future proofing has been at the back of my mind. The M.2 connection will be NVMe. If the new computer is able to remain useful as long as my current one has, I'll be into my mid 80's. The only outstanding matter is the case. It has to be one that my wife is visually comfortable with.

Now I have to start thinking about new software. My W7 computer still runs Office 2010 (and Outlook 2013) and stand alone Photoshop CS6 and Lightroom 6.

[Cantab]

Well, my new computer is up and running. I'm gradually getting it customized so it looks and feels somewhat like the windows 7 computer.

The time has almost come to copy my photos to the data storage hard drive on the new computer and to succumb finally to Adobe's subscription plan: PS and Lightroom Classic (no cloud for me). I've downloaded a very helpful ebook (from Lightroom Queen) on moving to a new computer but it doesn't appear to also address a switch from LR6 to LR Classic.

Several years ago I remember reading threads here at CiC as some folk battled with the transition to the subscription system but I haven't been able to relocate the threads. Any comments would be gratefully received!

[DanK]

Bruce,

Lightroom classic is just an update of Lightroom 6. There is nothing special needed to switch from 6 to classic.

If you have moved your images to a location with the same drive name and directory name, things are simpler. If you have done this, just copy your catalog and the associated files that are in the same directory. After you install Lightroom classic, don't open it. Instead, double click on the catalog. I think it will tell you that it needs to update the catalog. If so, just say yes. You should be done.

If your images are going to be in a differently named location, you will have to tell Lightroom where to find the images.

If anyone has done this recently and thinks I have messed this up, please chime in.

[Manfred M]

Bruce - I resisted the subscription model at first, but switched over when Photoshop started getting some exciting features (content aware stuff) that I use all the time.

The only "issue" is that your computer has to communicate with the Adobe server at least every four months or less to validate the licence. Updates are more frequent than that and in general they issue some updates every month or two. One can run the software on two computers at a time and if one wants to use in on another machine, one has to deactivate on one of the computers in order to use it on another. This is something I do when I am on the road; I don't need the software running on my desktop at home and I activate it on my wife's laptop. This literally takes about a minute. I switch back to my desktop when I get home.

[Cantab]

Dan and Manfred, thank you for your comments. The process sounds straight forward.

[Cantab]

Success! After everything was moved and installed, etc., I double clicked on the catalogue and almost everything then happened perfectly. The only glitch was that LR "lost" a few photo file folders, all from 2014. I have no idea why these folders were singled out but the procedure for relinking LR to them was straightforward and all appears to be well.

[davidedric]

Respectfully disagree, Dan

Yes, Lightroom 6 continues to operate (unless you're running a Mac with Catalina : it works but cannot be installed or re-installed). There have been a lot of additions/improvements since v.6, and I for one would certainly not want to go back. Whether they matter is of course an individual thing. I'm not going near the subscription debate

Bruce,

Lightroom classic is just an update of Lightroom 6. There is nothing special needed to switch from 6 to classic.

[DanK]

Respectfully disagree, Dan

Yes, Lightroom 6 continues to operate (unless you're running a Mac with Catalina : it works but cannot be installed or re-installed). There have been a lot of additions/improvements since v.6, and I for one would certainly not want to go back. Whether they matter is of course an individual thing. I'm not going near the subscription debate

Dave,

You misunderstood my post. I was not commenting at all on the functions of the two and did not recommend that Bruce stick with version 6. I was commenting on Bruce's question about what he needed to do in order to install CC:

The time has almost come to copy my photos to the data storage hard drive on the new computer and to succumb finally to Adobe's subscription plan: PS and Lightroom Classic (no cloud for me). I've downloaded a very helpful ebook (from Lightroom Queen) on moving to a new computer but it doesn't appear to also address a switch from LR6 to LR Classic.

My response is that he doesn't need to do anything special because of the change in versions. He just has to move his catalog files and photo files and execute whatever version he has installed on his new computer.

Dan

PS: I use the subscription version of LR classic myself and would not go back, but that is a different question.

[mariah]

Whatever you buy please do not go for AMD gpu, Choose Nvedia. I use AMD and there are so many complications with the driver. Their official driver does not work sometimes. I still have my driver installed which when starts does not show the icons to close it. I have to make a guess and click without seeing a button and as I have memorized where the cancel button was, it works. If I redownload and reinstall I am not even sure that will work or not.

[Manfred M]

Whatever you buy please do not go for AMD gpu, Choose Nvedia. I use AMD and there are so many complications with the driver. Their official driver does not work sometimes. I still have my driver installed which when starts does not show the icons to close it. I have to make a guess and click without seeing a button and as I have memorized where the cancel button was, it works. If I redownload and reinstall I am not even sure that will work or not.

Sorry to disagree, but I use an AMD graphics card because it supports 10-bit colour whereas the nVidia ones, unless one uses the more expensive Quadro cards, do not generally do so. I've used graphics cards from both AMD and nVidia and found both to work well.

If you are having a driver issue, then there is something strange going on with your computer.

So far as I know, Apple uses AMD graphics in all its machines.

[DanK]

I also use an AMD (a two year old Radeon R5 430) to drive my color-critical NEC monitor. It works well.