What to believe and what is true - editing software selection

[SearchQuality]

Hi everyone,
Having spent many years on video capture, editing and producing subject I have fallen into desperate situation for the first time. In the past I had PInnacle, it was nice but too unstable. So I went to Ulead nice software but the authoring part was clumsy. Then I bought Vegas, which was quite stable and consistent. I made upgrades up to 12 platinum. Then that started complaining not enough memory and crushing and blocking the PC for minutes added together hours. Support could not help because there was none. Sony had sold the product to another company. Then I got recently Cyber Powerdirector. Which in no way can be compared to vegas from User Interface point of view. Again crushing when you try to produce a movie. Support says increase memory or decrease special effects. All in all I am asking the community for the best video editing software they used. Please advise.

[ChapmanDolly]

I use DaVinci Resolve 14. It's available as a free version and a paid ($299) Studio version, available from Blackmagic Design. Be aware, though, that you will need a computer that is up to the job. On a PC an i7 CPU, at least 16gb RAM preferably more, and an nvidia 1080 graphics card or higher with at least 4gb vram.

[usually_quiet]

Hi everyone,
Having spent many years on video capture, editing and producing subject I have fallen into desperate situation for the first time. In the past I had PInnacle, it was nice but too unstable. So I went to Ulead nice software but the authoring part was clumsy. Then I bought Vegas, which was quite stable and consistent. I made upgrades up to 12 platinum. Then that started complaining not enough memory and crushing and blocking the PC for minutes added together hours. Support could not help because there was none. Sony had sold the product to another company. Then I got recently Cyber Powerdirector. Which in no way can be compared to vegas from User Interface point of view. Again crushing when you try to produce a movie. Support says increase memory or decrease special effects. All in all I am asking the community for the best video editing software they used. Please advise.

Your computer specs say 4GB of RAM. Obviously, that isn't enough, especially given the error messages you are seeing. Buying a different NLE isn't likely to solve your problem.

It normally isn't difficult to upgrade memory, although you need to be running a 64-bit version of Windows to use over 4GB. It is likely that your computer's motherboard can accept 16GB.

[SearchQuality]

Hi everyone,
Having spent many years on video capture, editing and producing subject I have fallen into desperate situation for the first time. In the past I had PInnacle, it was nice but too unstable. So I went to Ulead nice software but the authoring part was clumsy. Then I bought Vegas, which was quite stable and consistent. I made upgrades up to 12 platinum. Then that started complaining not enough memory and crushing and blocking the PC for minutes added together hours. Support could not help because there was none. Sony had sold the product to another company. Then I got recently Cyber Powerdirector. Which in no way can be compared to vegas from User Interface point of view. Again crushing when you try to produce a movie. Support says increase memory or decrease special effects. All in all I am asking the community for the best video editing software they used. Please advise.

Your computer specs say 4GB of RAM. Obviously, that isn't enough, especially given the error messages you are seeing. Buying a different NLE isn't likely to solve your problem.

It normally isn't difficult to upgrade memory, although you need to be running a 64-bit version of Windows to use over 4GB. It is likely that your computer's motherboard can accept 16GB.

Quite right I have 4 GB ram. Motherboard is MSI P67A-GD65. It can take up to 16 GB, but without the necessary communication buses it is pointless to increase memory. I build up the PC myself, but I have not done so in the last 5 years. Is 64 bits absolutely necessary to support 16 GB memory. The same question for the processor. Is i7 necessary.

[redwudz]

Not clear about what you mean about 'the necessary communication buses'?

A 32bit OS can use a bit less than 4GB RAM. Some may be used by your video card.
If your system runs out of RAM, it will use a hard drive to fill in. If you have only one hard drive,
that will slow your system. Check 'Task Manager' for RAM usage during one of your operations.

You can move the 'temp memory' to a different drive and that may help performance a bit.
Or you can try 'Ready Boost' using a USB thumb drive to supplement your system memory.
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-performance/can-i-use-my-u...91e1e1e?auth=1

But best is a 64bit OS. Most all modern CPUs are 64bit. These days 4GB isn't enough RAM, especially with video operations.

[usually_quiet]

Quite right I have 4 GB ram. Motherboard is MSI P67A-GD65. It can take up to 16 GB, but without the necessary communication buses it is pointless to increase memory. I build up the PC myself, but I have not done so in the last 5 years. Is 64 bits absolutely necessary to support 16 GB memory. The same question for the processor. Is i7 necessary.

I'm not sure what you mean by "communication buses" either.

The specs for the MSI P67A-GD65 motherboard say it accepts up to 32GB of DDR3 1066/1333 without over-clocking. (You may need to change a BIOS setting for DDR3 1333 RAM to run at its rated speed.) That would be 4 x 8GB sticks.

Some 2 x 8GB kits for 16GB
DDR3 1333 G.SKILL F3-10666CL9D-16GBXL
DDR3 1333 G.SKILL F3-1333C9D-16GIS

[Edit]You don't need an i7, but encoding may sometimes be faster with a CPU upgrade.

[SearchQuality]

I'm not sure what you mean by "communication buses" either.

Well I meant signal traffic between CPU and RAMs. IF I have not used the right words I apologize for causing confusion.
The USB used as a memory extension has allready been used, but the programs crashed again. I wrote to both Powerdirector and Magix support. The answer I get is upgrade. But these programs worked on this machine in the past.

[smrpix]

All your answers are pointing in the same direction. It's time to upgrade. It happens.

There's no good reason not to stick with Vegas -- it has always made optimal use of system resources.

That said there's no reason not to try Resolve and/or Premiere as well.

Pinnacle and Powerdirector are at best crossgrades with Vegas Studio, and IMHO not as good.

[jagabo]

The USB used as a memory extension has allready been used

Using a USB drive as virtual memory is just insane. Even if you get your USB interface to work reliably it will run 1/1000 the speed of real DRAM.

[SearchQuality]

All your answers are pointing in the same direction. It's time to upgrade. It happens. 

There's no good reason not to stick with Vegas -- it has always made optimal use of system resources.

That said there's no reason not to try Resolve and/or Premiere as well.

Pinnacle and Powerdirector are at best crossgrades with Vegas Studio, and IMHO not as good.

Pinnacle, number of years ago, was very friendly but very unstable. That is why I abandoned it. As to Powerdirector it has many weaknesses in editing. For example it is quite difficult to make a voiceover track. The User Interface is not intuitive. These are my subjective opinions of course. Vegas is much better if I can get it to work.
To Jagobo: I agree the usb cannot be compared with internal memory sticks.

[usually_quiet]

I'm not sure what you mean by "communication buses" either.

Well I meant signal traffic between CPU and RAMs. IF I have not used the right words I apologize for causing confusion.
The USB used as a memory extension has allready been used, but the programs crashed again. I wrote to both Powerdirector and Magix support. The answer I get is upgrade. But these programs worked on this machine in the past.

The bus speed between CPU and RAM is perfectly adequate for adding as much RAM as your motherboard allows. You do need a 64-bit OS to upgrade the memory. Otherwise, the OS cannot use it. You should also install the latest BIOS prior to installation as added insurance that the new RAM sticks will be compatible. Some of the BIOS updates were to improve RAM compatibility.

[solarfox]

I'm not sure what you mean by "communication buses" either.

Well I meant signal traffic between CPU and RAMs. IF I have not used the right words I apologize for causing confusion.

If your motherboard has "X" number of memory slots, and claims to support "Y" amount of RAM (usually as "X" modules of "Y/X" size), then by definition, your motherboard has sufficient "communication busses" between CPU and RAM to support that amount of memory. I think you're confusing hardware support for more than 4GB of RAM with software support for it.

It is true that if you're using a 32-bit OS, such as Windows XP or earlier, then you will not be able to use more than 4GB of RAM. But that has nothing to do with whether your hardware supports it or not; that's purely a limitation of the 32-bit operating system. (To keep the explanation as simple as possible: the reason a 32-bit OS can't address more than 4GB of RAM is because it uses 32-bit values to address and point to locations in memory, and 2^32 = 4,294,967,296, which is 4096MB, or 4GB. Addresses beyond 4,294,967,295 are unreachable because that's the maximum value a 32-bit register can hold; to go beyond it would require a 33rd bit.) So even on a motherboard which supports > 4GB, a 32-bit OS literally can't go beyond the 4GB limit because, in a sense, it doesn't "know" how to count higher than that.

However, if you're using a 64-bit OS such as Windows 7 (or Linux, if you're so inclined), those can reach addresses beyond 4,294,967,295, because they use 64-bit values to address and point to memory. A 64-bit value can count all the way from up 0 to 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 -- which works out to 17,179,869,184GB, or 16EB (ExaBytes), which is 16 quintillion bytes of RAM -- which is well beyond anything any current hardware supports, so a 64-bit OS will easily have enough capacity to support as much memory as you can physically install into the computer.

[SearchQuality]

Solarfox, thank you for the explanation and clarification. Indeed I was thinking of 32-bit operating systems when I wrote that. As you say due to addressing limits 32-bit operating systems cannot operate on more than 8 MBytes even if the MO supports them. As to Win 7 That I am using are you sure that it uses 64-bits? Because at this point the all encompassing solution seems to be adding two more sticks to the keyboard, which I can easily do myself.

[Cornucopia]

You cannot expand until you get a 64bit version OS. That's the 1st order of business.

Do NOT use XP or earlier for this, as there are compatibility issues.

Win7 and higher does have 32bit versions - DO NOT mistakenly get them, get 64bit for sure. If you need 32 bit for certain processes, you can use a VM. IIWY, I would use Win7 (best for legacy), 10 (best for current) or possibly 8.1, avoiding 8. Get the Pro version, not Home.

Then, while you are upgrading the OS, increase your RAM. 16 or 32GB are recommended for video editing/compositing/processing tasks.

STRONGLY recommend using SSD for boot drive (if all drives not currently feasible). But if you can also swing it, multiple units of fast JBOD or RAID for vid data storage will substantially speed up & smooth editing & processing operations. And if doing much compression, a vid card that supports full range of hardware assisted compression (such as the aforementioned nvidea 1080 series) is recommened.

By then, you will likely see a different experience with Vegas, which you might then feel you can stick with, though Premiere would be a good alternative.

Scott

[jagabo]

As to Win 7 That I am using are you sure that it uses 64-bits?

Win7 comes in both 32 bit or 64 bit versions. You can determine which you have by left clicking on Start, right clicking on Computer, and selecting Properties. Look at System Type. It will say 32 bit or 64 bit.

[Srivas]

Yep, as Scott said, upgrade the system and your favourite NLE will get the job done.

[SearchQuality]

Thank you all for the very useful info you have given. To summarise (just to be sure) I need two more memory sticks, Windows 7 Professional (The one I have is 64-bit ready), upgrade of the BIOS of MOBO MSI and with this combination I can run those memory-hungry vegas 14 platinum movie studio modules. Again many thanks.