Two More Newbie Questions: RAM and How to Start

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
August 6, 2020
5 replies
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Two more newbie questions:

First, I am looking at options for a new desktop computer that would be capable of running Adobe Premier Pro. I have a read that 32 GB of RAM is plenty, and that 64 GB is way overkill. When I've tried to configure a PC on the Dell site, however, sometimes the minimum option is 64 GB. Which is correct?

Second, as someone whose sole video editing experience so far is trimming the ends off of a one shot clip, I was thinking of starting with Adobe Premiere Elements for a few months and then going to Adobe Premiere Pro. However, lately I've seen it recommended that I just dive into Premiere Pro right away. Which do you think is the better option?

Thank you very much!

This topic has been closed for replies.

S

Steve Griffiths

Inspiring

Dive in! Premiere Pro will be a steep learning curve but if you want to be an 'editor' then just skip the 'consumer' software and go straight to the heavy stuff 🙂

32GB or 64GB? 32 is 'enough' but 64 is plenty. Go with plenty if you can afford it. But the critical thing is to only buy what you can afford when starting out. Make sure your choice of hardware is listed in the Adobe Premiere Pro specifications list.

D

dberkedalAuthor

Known Participant

Thank you to all who have replied. Your responses have been very helpful and encouraging.

R Neil Haugen

Legend

These days, with the CPU starting to get more capabilities for working with accelerated work with highly compressed H.264/5 media, at least 32GB of decent speed RAM.

Dell makes some usable rigs, but both SafeHarbor Computing and Puget Systems make specific rigs for video post work, with tons of information and advice on setting up for any specific app or set of apps.

Neil

Everyone's mileage always varies ...

R Neil Haugen

Legend

Premiere Elements and Premiere Pro are incredibly different applications. P-E is not a junior or beginning-level entry before using Premiere Pro.

P-E is designed for those typically prosumer users where they want to get something sorta cool done without needing to know a lot. The app is designed to give the user some options, then auto-do the work for them essentially. With some manual controls.

P-P is completely manual. It is DENSE and complex, with a billion tools/effects/processes and every one of them has multiple ways to use, apply, and control it. Yea, you can do amazing things with it, but the learning curve is steep initially, and once you get farther along in using it ... it gets steeper.

If you're going into working with P-Pro, I recommend at least two months of subscription training from someplace with vetted teachers/programs like LinkedInLearning. Pay for the full deal including being able to download the media/projects and DO the work as you watch it. Do everything at least five times.

That gets you started being able to actually work, and in three months you'll be a lot farther along than if you "poked the box" playing around with the app while occasionally watching some stray YouTube vid on "doing X in Prmiere Pro".

Neil

Everyone's mileage always varies ...

M

Michael Grenadier

Legend

Neil, just to rattle the cage, how did you figure out premiere pro? Gotta say, I just sat down at an avid, back in the day, and made it work. And I had a client in the room (of course I'd cut him a flat price and we'd worked already worked together extensively). Of course I had extensive film and linear editing experience. Same thing with FCP1 and Premiere. When I hit a wall, I'd hit the manuals, and as online resources improved, I'd google. I taught avid editing for about 5 years which I always thought was ironic...

M

Michael Grenadier

Legend

You had a lot more background than I had! You'd already worked for a while professionally in an NLE. This isn't that common any more.

I came out of many years of pro portrait photography, including having our own full pro wet-lab for most of that time, doing not only our own studio's printing but that of other studios too picky to work with the many (at that time!) pro labs printing entirely for pro photographers.

I knew Lightroom extensively, having started with public beta 0.8. I knew some Photoshop (my wife and staffers did more Photoshop than I did) ... and thought that picking up a bit of video would be good for the website & maybe even the busisness.

Got a GH3 (they'd just come out) ... and started working with Premiere Pro, SpeedGrade, and AfterEffects. Although I actually started with CS6, within months it was the original CC release. Me being me, I found the color much more interesting than cutting, so ... I was pushing SpeedGrade around pretty hard. More time in Sg the Pr.

And yes, quickly realized this was nothing like working with still images. And luckily I was befriended quickly by a number of video post pros, but past that ... I had the sense to go for the best help I could get, which to me at the time seemed to be lynda.com. Not that many actual editing 'jobs' up here in the middle of Oregon's Willamette Valley. Not a lot of peer users of an NLE to visit with even.

And I spent hours and hours going through nearly everything they had on Premiere and SpeedGrade, a bit of Ae. Realized that to really learn it, just watching wasn't enough, I had to do it ... and so upped my subscription to include the working files.

And also, normally made a project to test out what the tutorials were showing so I did the work not only with the class media/projects but in my own.

Then a noted person in the Adobe apps emailed wanting to meet me if I was going to Vegas for NAB ... I didn't recognize the name of the person nor NAB. Thought it funny, the missus said "if we were 20 years younger, you'd be going". And I was quickly on a plane to Vegas.

Which started me off on a completely different path, falling in with a group of wonderful colorists, some of whom had made the lynda tutorials I'd been going through. Who eventually hired me to teach color in Premiere Pro (after providing massive teaching for me!) ... and of course, from that first NAB on, beginning a relationship with the Adobe staffers that attend things like NAB. And then MAX.

Colorist Joey D'Anna talks of growing up with his dad in pro broadcast work as a kid. Sounds like something I'd have loved. How'd you get started in the biz?

Neil

went to "film school!" NYU back in the day. Probably the last class to be working with upright movieolas. They had one steenbeck I think, but I could never get near it. Then working for the "film doctor" who recut foreign films for the US market. and then made the move to industrials and documentaries.. Probably one of the first editors in NY to actually bring in edl's for onlines on a disk. There were one or 2 places that would take the file I created on a 5 1/4" floppy and put it on a 9" floppy that the online houses used. Online editors would sneer at me til the realized they didn't have to spend all day typing in the numbers.... I can remember the way old school editors sneered at avid editing. I made the leap, and never looked back... Just got off the phone with an editor in LA (I'm in NYC), an old friend who was looking for advice on the adobe board and saw some of my posts...