This is an often frustrating topic for myself.  I see so many companies and editor’s picking up the latest NLE or animation program and then nickle and diming their way through the actual hardware which they run on.   This couldn’t be a bigger mistake then was Sarah Palin’s political aspirations.  In defence of some of these people, they really don’t know their undermining the workflow process when they cheap out of hardware, or better still, they don’t think their cheaping out.  But the facts are, if you plan on doing ANY multi-program work ( ie working in Avid while using After Effects /Photoshop ) or simply working in HD your just begging for corruption or freezing without the proper setup.

So here’s the deal.  What any editor needs ( especially if he or she is working in HD, which most likely these days is a given ) is a quad-core processer at MINIMUM.  You hear that?  M-I-N-I-M-U-M.   Not a dual core, not a very fast this or that, but a quad-core at minimum.  I say at minimum, because with the new i7 processors ( which I recently upgraded to ) and the 64 bit platforms things are just going to get faster and more optimized, but for now, that’s your minimum for processors. 

Next is your graphics card.  A quick note for all of you, these programs are being  more GPU focused so your graphics card is beginning to take over more and more of the rendering duties as well as the ability to display your graphics and video.  So you need to buy a high end, yes that’s right, a high end graphics card to handle these responsibilties.  How high end?  Well, I’m not made of money either, so when I say high end, I mean a graphics card with a minimum of 1 gig of ram ( yes you will need that), at a cost of around $250 and up.  I say $250 because there are really really cheap graphics cards which hold 1 gig of ram but are absolute garbage and move at a snails pace or break after one month, so be careful.  By a name brand, ( or supported affiliate) and don’t get suckered into a 1 gig $99 dollar piece of crap.  Always remember, there’ s a reason why it’s that cheap compared to another card of seemingly equal specs.

Your platform.  64 bit is definitely the way to go for the new blood of editor’s.  The ” not a lot of programs use 64 bit…” argument is about as pathetic as it comes.  It doesn’t matter if EVERY program is going to utilize the 64 bit optimized engine, the point is, they are starting to.  Adobe CS4 is completely optimized as a 64 software package, and you know what?  If your software isn’t, so what!  64 bit is backwards compatible to 32 bit so you can still run your other software while having the benefit of the ones that do run at the higher bit.  And yes, as per my Adobe CS4 blog earlier, it does make a difference.

The final and most overlooked aspect I find is the ram.  If your running 4 gigs of ram while trying to multi-task with After Effects and Avid / FCP your just begging for problems, especially if running anything in HD.  These programs ( and most others ) utilize at least 3 gigs of ram on their own.  If your holding 4 gigs or ram while operating two or even three of these programs, exactly how to think the computer can handle that.  If your running a higher end Mac or Vista operating system you can hold up to 32 gigs of ram and have it properly distributed by the OS.  That would technically mean that you can run AE, FCP and Photoshop ( given that the rest of your hardware is solid) and you wouldn’t notice a difference in speed.  So remember to get a proper platform that can handle more than 4 gigs of ram and then load in the ram.  My experience is that currently 12 gigs will take care of all your needs while multiply applications running at full tilt.

So there it is for you.  I would advise that you heed this advice seriously, otherwise you’ll be one of those ignorant persons either blaming you editor for not working fast enough or complaining that your computer or software stinks.  From an experience standpoint I can assure you, about 99% of issues with glitches or crashing in regards to post production comes down to the hardware and system setup.  So don’t skimp and you’ll avoid the headaches.