System requirements for new laptop - basic video mixing only

[ElectroDog]

I'm looking to buy a new computer, almost certainly a laptop. It'll be running some flavour of Linux, probably Debian. I could use some help figuring out what my requirements are.

I guess I'd say i'm fairly good at computing, but I don't really know anything about computers. As in, I can write a decent, detailed python script, but I don't know anything about hardware. I haven't got a clue about different video encodings, and I don't know anything about graphics cards. The last time I learned anything about computer internals, single-core PCs were still standard.

I'd like to be able to stream from my new laptop, eg for conferences or video chat. I don't want much, but I'd like to be able to do some basic things like taking video from 2 different cameras, and combining them into 1 stream with picture-in-picture, and then add a watermark on top or a background behind. And I'd like to get a decent resolution, at least 1080p.

What sort of hardware requirements would I need for that?

I'm guessing that ought to be pretty basic, by modern standards. Any help is appreciated.

• Getting a completely new computer (probably laptop)
• Running Linux (probably Debian or related)
• At least 2 camera inputs (1080p or higher)
• Picture-in picture, with backgrounds and watermarks (in real time)
• Streamed over the internet, possibly to multiple different sources.
• At least 1080p output.
• Possibly watching incoming video at the same time.

Other than that, the laptop will just be for web browsing, messaging, and watching Netflix.

I'm assuming I can get something fairly low cost, but I don't want to go so low-cost that it can't handle the streaming.

 

[ElectroDog]

I forgot about frame rate. (See? I really don't know much about this.)

I don't care about reaching 60fps or 120fps, or whatever's becoming the new standard. But I want it to look like watchable, fluid video, not stutter-ey stills. So long as it can reach 24 / 30 fps, I think that ought to be fine. 24fps is the standard for TV, right?

 

[Tuna]

Target 1080p at 30 fps then. 24 fps is for movie/cinema primarily, don't use it for computers.

You basically have to decide on one out of two options:

1. Use CPU for encoding
2. Use GPU for encoding

For 1. You would pick a laptop with a strong CPU, a higher core count..

For 2. you would have to decide on:

a) integrated intel GPU
b) AMD GPU
c) NVIDIA GPU

c) is known to cause the least amount of trouble and offers the best quality out of the GPU options. (you just have to live with the evangelism controversy of the closed source NVIDIA driver).

a) is most likely the weakest of the options, but you can still make it work.


As a gut feeling I would say pick a laptop with an NVIDIA GPU. It does not have to be a good/high-end model - but having a model from the latest generation offers better quality than older generations.

I think you can archive all of what you want with any of these options. It may require some more fine tuning on some though. It really depends how much you want to push the envelope on your budget.

EDIT:
For GPU make sure they have a video encoder chip on board. Not all models have them.

 

[ElectroDog]

Target 1080p at 30 fps then. 24 fps is for movie/cinema primarily, don't use it for computers.

You basically have to decide on one out of two options:
…

Thank you, this will help.

For option 1, would you be able to put any numbers on "a strong CPU"? (Frequency / core count / any other relevant stats).

 

[Tuna]

I would think 4 cores is a minimum. I recommend to have at least 6, maybe 8 (not counting hyper-threading threads). Consider that this may produce quite some thermals in the machine compared to a GPU with a dedicated chip. So check on a laptop that is not too thin and offers good thermals.

Also note that cpu demand and quality are to some extend connected. Meaning, the more energy you can put into the encoding the better the results are. So you have some control over the process allowing you to run on lower specced machines too. You may have to make compromises on the resulting video quality though. Hard to tell what quality you are targeting at - also that can be very subjective.

 

[mrpowerup]

Here is what i use and its basic specs.
It Dose a decent job.

ASUS VivoBook S550CB
Processor
Intel® Core™ i7 Processor
Graphic
NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 740M with 2GB DDR3 VRAM
with Intel® HD Graphics 4000
Storage
1TB HDD With 24 G SSD
Memory
DDR3 1600 MHz SDRAM 16 GB
Operating System
Linux Fedora 33