I am making the jump from HD to 4K that also means I have to upgrade my otherwise very fine i7 workstation that can only just playback 4K files from my A7RII and is unable to handle real time editing in Premiere. My understanding is that to do this I will probably need a 2 x Xeon mobo and CPU with DDR4 Ram and a good graphics card? Many of the computers I see for sale with these specs are advertised as servers. What I am not sure about is if the same "server" components (mobo, CPU, RAM) would work just as well together with my HDs, LCD etc for 4K video processing as a "workstation"? Also I am not sure if 2 x Xeon and DDR4 is absolutely necessary, so any advice about what to consider would be most welcome.
Computer muscle for 4K editing?
- Thread starter lowep
- Start date
Honestly, I may get flack for saying this, fcpx is designed so well for mac computers I've found just the base apple configurations to run 4K uber smooth. I used a base model MacBook Air as my workhorse for over a year with the canon 1dc as my main camera. Granted, I convert all my 4K footage to ProRes, it really doesn't matter as much as you'd think if all you're wanting is to edit compressed 4K from your Sony.
I'd say just a base MacBook Pro 15" or base model iMac 5k display will work amazing for what you need
I'd say just a base MacBook Pro 15" or base model iMac 5k display will work amazing for what you need
Thanks Ultra, I wish... but have tried 4K files on my 2013 Macbook Pro with SSD and max RAM and no way is it anywhere near fast enough. Sure newer Macs are loads faster but probably also cost twice as much as same muscle in a win workstation, right? Plus as posted would prefer to edit in 4K rather than convert to ProRes though since output is going to be in HD maybe that is just a waste of time and money to edit in 4K?
No, you don't need a dual-Xeon system. You'll want an i7, though, and you'll want as many CUDA cores in your GPU as you can get.
joema
Active member
4K means many different things: H264, intra-frame, inter-frame, ProRes, RAW, etc. Each has totally different implications from the standpoint of editing performance and storage required. I have shot probably a hundred hours of documentary 4k video using the A7RII, and edited that in both Premiere CC and FCPX.
The A7RII, DVX200, etc. use "long GOP" H264 encoding which is very CPU-intensive to process. FCPX has a big advantage over Premiere in use of Quick Sync (on Mac) but even then it's not fast enough to edit large amounts of camera-native long GOP H264. Really smooth editing requires transcoding to proxy which FCPX has long supported and Premiere recently added. Using proxy, both Premiere and FCPX are lightning fast on almost any hardware on 4k. So if you accept the requirement to transcode to proxy, almost any computer will work. Using proxy you can edit 4k with good performance on a MacBook Air.
If your question is how do I smoothly edit H264 4k long GOP material without transcoding, IMO this is impossible at current technology. Even FCPX using Quick Sync is not fast enough. You can edit smaller sequences OK but for larger sequences or multicam it's just not fast enough. Even a 12-core Mac Pro won't help since it uses Xeon which doesn't have Quick Sync.
FCPX is definitely faster than Premiere but once you transcode to proxy they are both fast, so the difference becomes irrelevant. The A7RII and FS5, unlike the FS7, does not support intra-frame XAVC or XAVC-I. XAVC-L is long GOP H264 and quite sluggish to edit natively on almost any hardware or software.
If you use FCPX, a late-generation iMac 27 is your best choice. The new 2017 iMac 27 is a little better. If you use Premiere, I'd personally use a Windows PC since you have more options on hardware configuration. You do not need Xeon, in fact that is a disadvantage on long GOP codecs since Xeon with over 4 cores does not have Quick Sync. That was an Intel design decision years ago which has hurt video editors a great deal. To my knowledge Premiere does not use Quick Sync on Mac. On Windows Adobe says they do but this doesn't explain why export performance to H264 is 1/4 the performance of FCPX.
I used Premiere from CS4 to CC, and if I was still on that I'd use Windows and probably get an 8-core i7 CPU and a GTX-1080 Ti GPU. This article is two years old but it evaluates the per-core efficiency of Premiere at various tasks: https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/a...Core-Performance-698/#Exporting4Kto1080pH_264
For more discussion of related matters, see this thread:
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?354879-New-iMac-Pro!/page7
Jim Feeley
Veteran
Depending on how old your i7 workstation is, and your affinity for (or willingness to work with) a proxy workflow, it could be your current workstation "just" needs a newer/faster graphics card and perhaps some SSDs.
Joe's link to Puget Systems is worth following. Some of their more-recent conclusions are that Xeon CPUs are not the way to go for video. They recommend multi-core i7 CPUs. Check out their various articles here:
https://www.pugetsystems.com/all_articles.php
Joe's link to Puget Systems is worth following. Some of their more-recent conclusions are that Xeon CPUs are not the way to go for video. They recommend multi-core i7 CPUs. Check out their various articles here:
https://www.pugetsystems.com/all_articles.php
Well, that's a hard question to answer, because "specs" don't really tell the whole story. What you want to do is balance your budget to give you 1) the fastest CPU, 2) the most amount of fast RAM, and 3) a GPU with the most RAM and CUDA cores as you can get. I'd prioritize it in that order, but don't sacrifice too much of one to give you a big boost in another. They really do all work together.
Thanks for this detailed and very useful advice. Do I understand right that most people who are editing their own 4K footage these days use a proxy workflow apart from high end media production houses. If so, I better learn it fast, since being the fool I am I did not look too much into post production requirements when I jumped for a Sony A7RII earlier this year and am only now discovering upgrading not only my computer system but also my brain to edit it is not as simple as I had thought it would be... living is learning!
There is a lot of mixed up advice on different web sites that all seems to presume whoever is reading it knows more than I do. Would the following be an adequate guesstimate of editing options to consider when upgrading from HD to 4K XAVC-S footage out of a Sony A7RII:
1) proxy editing that can be done with a middle of the pack i7 quad core workstation providing one has the right software
2) entry level 4K editing with a work station with minimum specs something like i7 quad core CPU, 16GB RAM and a high end GPU like the Nvidia 1070 (ie enough muscle to at least smoothly play back XAVC-S 4K clips in VLC or Premiere that my current Win10 i7 8GB workstation cannot do
3) pro level 4K editing with a state of the art 2016 Mac workstation that costs far more than options 1) and 2)...
Nowadays I am thinking that a good solution may be to invest in a high end quad core gaming laptop with a good GPU like the MSI GS63VR Stealth Pro-068 that does not cost the earth and is easier to get started with than rebuilding my PC and should at least be able to play back 4K files, then teach myself to proxy edit.
There is a lot of mixed up advice on different web sites that all seems to presume whoever is reading it knows more than I do. Would the following be an adequate guesstimate of editing options to consider when upgrading from HD to 4K XAVC-S footage out of a Sony A7RII:
1) proxy editing that can be done with a middle of the pack i7 quad core workstation providing one has the right software
2) entry level 4K editing with a work station with minimum specs something like i7 quad core CPU, 16GB RAM and a high end GPU like the Nvidia 1070 (ie enough muscle to at least smoothly play back XAVC-S 4K clips in VLC or Premiere that my current Win10 i7 8GB workstation cannot do
3) pro level 4K editing with a state of the art 2016 Mac workstation that costs far more than options 1) and 2)...
Nowadays I am thinking that a good solution may be to invest in a high end quad core gaming laptop with a good GPU like the MSI GS63VR Stealth Pro-068 that does not cost the earth and is easier to get started with than rebuilding my PC and should at least be able to play back 4K files, then teach myself to proxy edit.
joema
Active member
Re "has the right software", if you are experienced and happy with Premiere, stay with that. FCPX is somewhat faster on long GOP H264 but you still need proxies for the smoothest editing. Proxy on either Premiere or FCPX is easy to use -- there's really no "teaching yourself to proxy edit". That is a fairly recent change for Premiere which long required a manual proxy workflow (if proxies were needed).
On either Premiere or FCPX, once you build the proxies, *editing* 4k long GOP H264 is lightning fast on almost any hardware. Effects are another matter, which more likely involve the GPU. Also when you must render or export the timeline, that requires encoding which is CPU-bound. So even though you can technically edit 4k on a fairly modest machine there are phases of the larger editing task that benefit from a robust CPU and GPU.
Re can't play back 4K XAVC-S in VLC or Premiere, do you mean at 1x speed or faster? I have an older Windows PC that can smoothly play back 4K XAVC-S in VLC, but only at 1x speed. Also the VLC playback engine is not terribly efficient on XAVC-S. Windows Media Player or Quicktime Player do a smoother job on the same hardware. If you mean at 2x or 3x, that is difficult on any hardware.
Re state of the art 2016 Mac workstation, if you're using Premiere I'd just stay with Windows. It doesn't work any better on a Mac. If you're thinking about FCPX that is a big learning curve, plus there's no miracle editing software -- they each have strengths and weaknesses.
Premiere can edit modest amounts of 4K XAVC-S without proxy on a decent but not top-level PC, e.g, 4Ghz quad-core i7 and a GTX-1070. It's just laggy and can be frustrating depending on what you're accustomed to. If you progress to larger amounts of 4k or ever do multicam, then you pretty much have to use proxy.
You can record to ProRes or DNxHD using an Atomos or similar HDMI recorder. That eliminates the need for proxy since editing performance is higher, but it significantly increases storage size and the device itself adds cost and complexity: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1236612-REG/atomos_atomnjafl1_ninja_flame.html
Another thing you may want to consider is having your footage on an SSD drive which is connected through a PCIe slot instead of SATA. This gives you more bandwidth.
Thanks Joema, this is exactly what I need to know to make an informed decision instead of blowing in the wind like a t-shirt on a television antenna. I appreciate you pointing out switching from Premiere to FCPX also requires effort that is a good point to consider. The problem I have on my present computer when I try to play back any 4K clip out of my A7RII is the visual track freezes up almost immediately and the audio track continues, then the playback starts to hop - clearly not enough muscle. It is hard to make editing decisions when you cannot even see the clip run. I also appreciate you pointing out "Premiere can edit modest amounts of 4K XAVC-S without proxy on a decent but not top-level PC, e.g, 4Ghz quad-core i7 and a GTX-1070" that may be the best middle-path solution, since not sure if the gaming laptops I can find have enough power and a dual xeon machine would be overkill.
joema
Active member
What did you use before Resolve 14? How smooth was that?
Hi Lowep, I digged some old posts, found my specs.
PC based, Intel i7 5820K 3.3 ghz 32 gb RAM Gforce 970 windows 10 and 2x ssd cache and 1x ssd software disks. Version 14 is a lot faster than version 13 (12,5) esp. playback. Also new sound panel and plays mp3.
The great difference is playback Gopro and DJI files, very smooth now, and playback transitions is now a lot better. But with the latest beta version 14 be sure to save your projects every 4 minutes.
I would say 5-10 times faster than before.
PC based, Intel i7 5820K 3.3 ghz 32 gb RAM Gforce 970 windows 10 and 2x ssd cache and 1x ssd software disks. Version 14 is a lot faster than version 13 (12,5) esp. playback. Also new sound panel and plays mp3.
The great difference is playback Gopro and DJI files, very smooth now, and playback transitions is now a lot better. But with the latest beta version 14 be sure to save your projects every 4 minutes.
I would say 5-10 times faster than before.
I edit UHD 60P from FDR-AX1 and GH5 with EDIUS 8.5 WG on a WIN10 i7 4790K, 16G RAM no GPU other than on the CPU, OS on SSD and temp SSD drive together with storage of 6T. It uses Quicksync to decode and can manage fine especially as one can reduce preview resolution to get realtime playback. I can multicam with 1/4 resolution in a 1920x1080 project with 2 tracks of UHD 60P and 2 tracks of HD XAVC-S from a AX53 and AX100. The final edited track can be played back in realtime full resolution. Editing is of course much easier if one takes the time to use an intermediate codec like Canopus HQX in my case but this uses a lot of hard drive space and takes time to encode. I much prefer to use the native files and reduce the preview resolution.
After receiving this good advice, I decided to upgrade my workstation to a pc with the following specs that is not the latest and greatest solution available but at least a big step up from my existing system and I hope sufficiently strong enough to make playback and editing of 4K XVAC-S clips into short videos a viable undertaking without having to spend more time drinking coffee and looking out the window while the CPU and GPU struggles to keep up than editing: Intel i7 6700K, Gigabyte GTX 1060 6GB, Gigabyte GA-Z170N motherboard, Intel 600p NVMe 512GB SSD, 32GB Kingston HyperX Fury DDR4-2400 RAM