How powerful pc do you need for shotcut?

[pingu]

What PC specs is needed to edit videos smoothly with Shotcut?

I want to share my experience with Shotcut. Maybe other members in the community can find this post useful.

My first attempts with Shotcut was with a consumer grade HP laptop:
HP Notebook - 15-bw045no, CPU: AMD Dual-Core A9-9420 APU (3 GHz base frequency, burst up to 3,6 GHz, 1 MB cache). I bought this laptop new 2018 for appr USD 900.
Merging MP4 files works on this laptop. But editing is painfully slow.

I also have a business grade HP laptop with CPU Intel® Core™ i5-8265U with Intel® UHD Graphics 620 (1.6 GHz base frequency, up to 3.9 GHz with Intel® Turbo Boost Technology, 6 MB cache, 4 cores). Processor family 8th Generation Intel® Core™ i5 processor. Original memory 8 GB DDR4-2400 MHz RAM (1 x 8 GB) Transfer rates up to 2400 MT/s. Internal drive 256 GB PCIe® NVMe™ SSD. This laptop came out 2019. Price was probably around USD 1000. I bought it used in December 2024 for USD 330.
Since then I have upgraded this laptop as follows:
Memory:
Crucial 32GB Kit (16GBx2) DDR4-3200 • CL=22 • NON-ECC • SODIMM • 260-pin • 1.2V • 2Rx8/1Rx8 • PC4-25600
Disks:
Crucial P3 Plus 4TB PCIe M.2 2280 SSD SKU: CT4000P3PSSD8
Crucial BX500 4TB 2.5 inch SSD SKU: CT4000BX500SSD1
Total cost for these upgrades was EUR 638.
As it turns out 32 GB RAM was not needed. 16 GB would have been enough, but that part of the upgrade was only EUR 80. And maybe it will be useful in the future.

Editing videos runs smoothly on the business grade laptop after these upgrades (didn’t try Shotcut before the upgrade). According to task manager 7 GB RAM and 100% CPU is used during export / saving a large mp4-file. The export process takes a long time but that is not a problem for me because the laptop handles multitasking very well. I can multitask other programs while Shotcut is taking care of the export job in the background and other tasks isn’t running slower because of Shotcut. When I launch other applications, Shotcuts’ share of CPU is slightly reduced, and that part of CPU capacity is allocated to other apps I’m running. If I need to put the laptop in my backpack during travel, I can hibernate it and when I resume Windows, the export job also resumes and finishes automatically.

The reason why Shotcut export job takes long time can be the settings I have in Shotcut. Here is my Advanced Export settings in Shotcut:
No hardware encoding.
Advanced export settings:
Video tab (my changes):
Deinterlacer: BWDIF (best)
Interpolation: Lanczos (best)
Codec tab:
No change
Audio tab:
Rate control: Quality-based VBR
Quality 100%
Other tab:
vprofile=high
movflags=+faststart
preset=medium
tune=film
channel_layout=auto
The other settings are note changed so they should be as they were from the start (default).
Se screenshot:

I’m a Shotcut beginner and I must confess I hadn’t a clue if these settings would work or not. I read about the “Other tab” entries in another post. “Tune=film” is supposed to be good for videos with fast moves. I don’t remember what the other entries is for… But they have worked well for me.
My goal is to merge several mp4 files and create a new one with smallest size possible but still keeping the quality of the source files. I have compared the source files and the file created with Shotcut (watching them on large screen) and I can’t see any difference. I have no large surround system or HiFi system I can use to compare sound. I have great earphones from Skullcandy, and I am very pleased with the sound of the Shotcut export file in the Skullcandy earphones. I can’t wait to try this on a large sound system. In my experience the ultimate sound quality test is when you play music with a high end sound system in a large room with very loud volume, if the sound is great under those circumstances, then you now the source is great also.

It’s amazing how small files Shotcut export can create. For example, I had 6 mp4 files consuming 11.6 GB of diskspace. I merged them and exported with Shotcut using the settings specified above and got a file with size only 3.93 GB on disk! And I can’t notice any quality degrade!

As I have stated above I don’t know if the settings I’m using in Export Advanced Settings are the best for my goal.
Comments are welcome!

[SEMERENDO.cr]

Well Pingu, I notice two things, one of which I complained about.
FIRST. Both computers are powerful, “deceptively modern,” but not enough to work with very large encoded 4K files.
SECOND. If you work with resolutions higher than FHD, you’re always going to get stuck with the filters, even if it’s a great machine.
THIRD. If the video is for personal use, don’t export it in h264/HEVC.

"better codec" more CPU📊

Austin, Yeah, I think similarly. That’s why I don’t like photography. Those super-powered devices are a waste, because when they end up in print media like a newspaper, they don’t look good. Otherwise, the photographer edits the photos and presents us with wax figures: no blackheads, no orange peel skin, no cellulite, no stretch marks, nothing. IN SUMMARY, when exporting the video in .mpg, is there a noticeable loss in quality? Usually, what I hear is “I can’t watch the video on my phone.” May…

In my basic experience, Shotcut reminds me of Open Movie Editor, a dead project. In fact, the author recommended AVS Video Editor to its users.

It works quite smoothly, even in previews with filters, and allows you to quickly stabilize videos in parts. In fact, my computer is similar, a 2013 model.

[shotcut]

@SEMERENDO.cr

If the video is for personal use, don’t export it in h264/HEVC.

Yeah, you should use AV1 instead

[pingu]

I plan to install Plex Media Server on the Business grade laptop and watch the videos from that laptop with “Chromecast Google TV (4K, Snow)", connected to our TV with HDMI. I know this setup works with the source files because I have tried that with the consumer grade laptop before. But I’m not sure about AV1.

Plex support page states that other formats than MP4 needs to be “transcoded”:
https://support.plex.tv/articles/204377253-what-media-formats-are-supported/

I don’t know what transcoded means here. Will the Plex server convert the format from AV1 to MP4 as the video is transmitted to the Chromcast? That might be a problem if the Plex Server is running on laptop with hardware lacking the computing power required for the task.

Maybe I can try AV1 in the future. But for now I will stick with MP4.

Is “libx264” codec I’m using the right choice if I want H.264?

[daniel47]

@pingu

I don’t know what transcoded means here. Will the Plex server convert the format from AV1 to MP4 as the video is transmitted to the Chromcast? That might be a problem if the Plex Server is running on laptop with hardware lacking the computing power required for the task.

Yes, transcode = convert live by the server. Do not use AV1 for this setup. Just go with x264 (also known as H264 and AVC)

@pingu

Is “libx264” codec I’m using the right choice if I want H.264?

Yes, this is also the default. It is the most common codec, has good compression vs speed, and basically everything made in the last 20+ years supports it.

[dimadjdocent]

@pingu

What PC specs is needed to edit videos smoothly with Shotcut?

There is no exact answer to this question. Everyone uses a video editor in their own way and for their own purposes. I use a laptop with an Intel Core i9-13900h processor, 16 GB of RAM and an integrated video card. This is enough for me to edit p1080 without a proxy and 4k with a proxy. I recently reinstalled Linux, and shotcut works much better there than on Windows, smoother and more responsive.

[pingu]

Thanks! I will keep on using MP4 and H.264

[pingu]

Thanks! Running Shotcut on Linux instead is of course an excellent idea! Plex Server can also run on Linux. I have both Windows and Zorin OS on the consumer grade laptop. Zorin OS is based on Ubuntu and has a user-friendly interface. I will try Shotcut on Linux in the near future!

[dimadjdocent]

@pingu

I will try Shotcut on Linux in the near future!

I also have two operating systems on my laptop now (win11 + Linux Mint). Shotcut’s interface works much smoother in Linux, and the system consumes less RAM, which is so necessary for video editing.

[pingu]

I did a reset of one of my Windows OS’s on the consumer grade laptop and wiped all settings and installed programs, that means Windows is like freshly and cleanly installed. That made wonders with Shotcut editing! It works perfectly now, Shotcut is responding very well to my commands after this reset. So if Shotcut is slow and unresponsive, you can do a clean install of Linux or Windows (or reset). If you have the diskspace you can install on other partition (dual boot) and run Shotcut on a OS with basicly no other programs installed, and keep your current OS with all other programs installed that you need to have. When you want to use Shotcut boot the OS with no other programs installed and enjoy (hopefully) a repsonsive Shotcut experience. When you want to do other things, boot the other OS.