New Laptop for GoPro Studio

Stevo10

Hi there

Got a GoPro + for Christmas but we have a very old laptop so was looking to buy a new one which will mainly be used for browsing we and video editing. Videos will be family holidays etc and currently just looking to use GoPro studio software.

I was wondering if anyone can recommend a reasonable spec/ price laptop for this?

Thanks

LazyD

Are you on a tight budget or you want to shell out loads for this machine?

Because a laptop/PC that can render video quickly is pretty expensive, and if you're not using it for video purposes all day long it's normally not worth paying the big money for as it sits there all day not using up all its power.

This is the cheapest good general purpose laptop right now, and for the best price (don't bother looking elsewhere, you won't find it cheaper than here with this exact spec);
http://www.dabs.com/products/hp-350-g2-intel-core-i5-5200u-8gb-500gb-15-6--windows-7-professional-64-bit---windows-8-1-pro-k9j04ea-abu-BRBV.html?refs=54590000-54950000&src=3

Now this is a great value laptop, it's based on a Core i5 processor (don't compare it to the cheaper Core i3 or AMD processor based systems as they are significantly worse, performance wise). This system has 8GB of RAM. It's not going to be a gaming or video rendering powerhouse, but for a general purpose laptop that you want to edit a bit of video on every now and then, this is unbeatable for the money. Actually in general this is a great laptop for everyone and if you go through topcashback or quidco I think you'll get around a tenner off. The hard drive is not massive at 500GB but pound for pound this is the best deal available now. HD is cheap anyway, if you outgrow 500GB in a years time or whatever, you can buy a 2TB hard drive or SSD for not much money.

If you want to spend £700+ then there are better options.

paddyrg

Video editing is one of the hardest jobs for a laptop to do well - actually the editing part is fine, it's the everything else which strains it (decoding, rendering, reencoding) simply because the throughput of data from a 4k (oR even HD) steam is enormous. GoPro records that in a very compressed form, so the laptop has to decompress the file on the fly to be able to view it, and effectively recompress it into a form for editing where you can get frame-level editing control, plus handle the sound for that. It's a big ask.

The laptop linked by LazyD certainly looks like it's a good value machine. The hard drive is smallish by current standards, but spending an extra £50 on an external hard drive would mitigate this and provide a sensible way to store your working files (ie everything you scrape off the device before you edit it into 2 minute watchable films) whilst you beaver away. A large external HDD, especially a USB3 one (the laptop supports USB3, many don't), will be fast and convenient, and leave you plenty of space on the built-in disc for normal day to day stuff.

Stevo10

Thanks for the help. As you say it wil be editing video every now and then so I was reluctant to go too expensive for a very high spec but the one recommended looks a good option.

Thanks again

wba31

I don't think you need anything too mental, the Hero+ only records in 1080p max so 4K conversion is not something you are dealing with.

I have a GoPro Hero (exactly like the + but minus the wifi bit) and I put my footage through a 2008 Aluminium MacBook, which has 4Gb of RAM and isnt the fastest machine in the world (looking to change to an SSD anytime now...)

I don't use GoPro studio for editing film together as it's not the most intuitive system. I import video to iMovie as it's easier to use so would recommend getting something that will run a basic and decent video editor (apologies - cannot recommend for Windows/ChromeBook)

Enjoy, I love some of the stuff i capture with my GoPro (mainly my son in the bath etc) - I'm certainly not a surfer or snowboarder who catches anything super cool...

RobTang

Just try it on what you have now the time saving on faster encoding is close to zero for home footage as you can just leave it running overnight or whenever you're not using the computer.


Reviewing + editing takes much longer