Many computers that we use for work don’t require extensive optimization. There’s not much need to fuss over the specifications of a laptop we mostly use for word processing; it’s effectively just a Wi-Fi-enabled typewriter. The peak performance of your computer is a significant factor when it comes to working closely with video. Not only do you need to punch up your computer’s capabilities, but you’ll also need to do some physical and virtual maintenance on it, too. Here are a few steps you can take toward optimizing your computer for video editing.
Give Yourself Space—Virtually
Your average word processing document is about 20 kilobytes. A six-minute high-definition video clip, on the other hand, is at least 360 megabytes—and that’s a finished product. As you work with video files, your computer creates scores of temporary files to facilitate workflow. Opening, closing, editing, undoing, and redoing fills up your computer like a fire hose filling a kiddie pool. This means your computer needs ample space and heavy muscle. Make sure you’re working with a hard drive that numbers in the terabytes, not gigabytes. Load up on RAM, or random-access memory, which allows your computer to smoothly retrieve data as a task is in progress. If your computer doesn’t come equipped with at least 1 GB of RAM, buy more—up to 32 GB.
Check on Your Monitor
Professional-grade video calls for professional maintenance of your monitor. If your monitor is not giving you a perfect representation of your material, it will affect the way you edit video. Take, for instance, your monitor’s brightness levels and color balance; if your screen isn’t well-lit enough, you may compensate in post-production by brightening your footage. Once it appears on other monitors, that same footage looks washed out. The same goes for a monitor that inadvertently gives everything a bluish cast, affecting the way you correct color. Rigorous testing of your monitor’s capabilities is an important step to take before you immerse yourself in the meticulous work of editing video.
You Had One Job
Modern computers are all-in-one devices, the likes of which are not even those classic infomercials could have imagined. It does homework. It plays movies. It retouches old pictures. It’s a video game console. It keeps you in touch with your friends. However, a unit that edits video shouldn’t be a jack-of-all-trades. When it comes to optimizing your computer for video editing, you’ll need to purge the computer of anything that doesn’t relate to the task at hand. Do your gaming elsewhere, eliminate superfluous applications that run in the background and waste precious memory, and generally devote the unit to one job, and one job only—turning the video you worked hard to shoot into a finished product.
