GH4 Computer system requirements for 4k editing?

brandonanthony1 said:
I've been having the same kind of issue actually. When using CUDA, if I apply effects and try to play back, it either does not play at all, or I get a white/blank playback screen. I have to actually turn CUDA off to get full support. Any ideas on what could be causing this?
Click to expand...

Quick post - 1 idea.

Not all graphics cards are Adobe approved. If they aren't in a text file as approved, Adobe may not use the GPU's. At least as of about 2 years ago.

What card do you have?

Do a quick search on "adobe cuda hack" or similar. Here is one thread discussing ot, although I am not familiar with this one, and don't know how clear it is:

https://forums.adobe.com/thread/629557

I used this web site when I upgraded my video and tuned my machine for CS6 about 2 years ago. I amm not sure how dated it is, but there is a lot of good information to help you understand how Adobe used the GPUs. Plus I think theyu have/had a script to automate the :hack.:

Good luck!
Michael
 
CMerlin said:
I have i7 3930k, 32gb RAM, GTX 670 2GB. Premiere pro CC works real time whit C4K set at full. But when i put some effect, i can hear the audio but the image is not playing. I change to 1/2-1/4 and happens the same... Maybe my premiere pro and AE aren't setp up good for work maximum power. I have CUDA ON.
Click to expand...

I have the 670 as well, and it is not on premiere's list of supported cards, which seemed weird as it has great specs with its DDR5 memory. I guess there's a reason, because I have issues with mine as well at 4k with effects some times.
 
That's an old post, but bloody hell expecting people to get a Quadro is a bit OTT for video editing!
 
I recently upgraded my editing workstation because of the 4K footage from my GH4. I was experiencing long render & export times (longer than with the 1080p footage from my GH3), and if I applied more than one filter to a clip in the timeline then I'd get stuttering playback (I have the playback quality set to 50%). This was annoying, so I decided to upgrade. I've been getting better render & export times and smooth playback with the new workstation.

Here's my old configuration:

3.33GHz 6-Core
32GB RAM
GeForce GTX 680
OS & Apps on SSD and everything else on RAID 0 arrays

New workstation:

3.46GHz 12-Core
48GB RAM
GeForce GTX 680
OS & Apps on SSD and everything else on RAID 0 arrays

Basically, I just upgraded my CPU and RAM. It's cut my render & export times in half, and now I can have two filters on a clip in the timeline with smooth playback (at 50% playback quality). However, I also upgraded my monitor (which I mentioned earlier in this thread, and which is mainly why I'm reposting about it). This monitor is visually amazing, except for one drawback: I can get only 30Hz on it.

At first I thought that it was a cable problem. Initially I had to use an HDMI cable with the monitor, and I knew that UHD at 60Hz wasn't supported through HDMI on this monitor or on my graphics card (Nvidia GeForce GTX 680). So I ordered a mini-DisplayPort-to-DisplayPort cable... but that didn't fix the problem; still only 30Hz. So I ordered a DisplayPort-to-DisplayPort cable... and that didn't solve the problem either. I searched for solutions in all the nVidia, Dell, and Apple forums trying to troubleshoot the problem. I discovered that my graphics card, although technically able to support UHD 60Hz through its DP 1.2 output, may be the problem. So now I've ordered a new graphics card, the Nvidia Quadro K5000, which should have no problem streaming UHD at 60Hz.

The card arrives Friday, so hopefully I'll be able to report back that it's the solution to my problem.
 
Benjamin, what CPU did you use before and which on did you buy? i7 4930k maybe? I also need to upgrade as my i7 950 isn't cutting it any more. I get 15 fps in Resolve, playing UHD 25p material and very very choppy playback in Media composer 6. And that's with the lowest monitoring resolution set in the timeline of MC. MC is unusable with my setup.

This is my setup:
i7 950 (not overclocked),
quadro 4000 (GUI),
GTX470 (render),
24GB RAM.

It would be great if others could post theirs computer hardware and what playback time do they get in Resolve, etc.
 
Last edited:
KINOKS said:
Benjamin, what CPU did you use before and which on did you buy? i7 4930k maybe?
Click to expand...

My old CPU was an Intel Xeon X5680 6-Core 3.33GHz

My new CPUs are two Intel Xeon X5690 6-Core 3.46GHz

I've seen some benchmarks that show the new i7 chips out perform my older Xeon chips. Your chip may not be the bottleneck. Have you looked at a CPU Activity Monitor while playing UHD footage in MC? If the CPU isn't at maximum capacity while playing UHD footage in MC then the bottleneck is elsewhere. Do you have your OS and Programs on a SSD? Do you have your media on a RAID 0 array?
 
Hm, my CPU in MC isn't maxed out but this is probably because of the code the MC uses to playback the footage. I can playback the UHD mov files with a player like VLC without a problem. It's when I try and playback the footage in MC or Resolve when the fun starts.

The disk can't be the bottleneck, this is 100Mbps VBR, with an average of 80Mbps. That's 10MB/s.
The graphics card show little use in Resolve and in MC (MC uses the GPU for rendering more or less only clip effects) when playing back the UHD material. Which means that both programs use the CPU mostly to decompress and playback the footage. But the CPU isn't nowhere near 100% when playing in Resolve or MC. It's somewhere around 50% when in Resolve.

So you went from a single CPU to a dual setup! Nice. What are your other components? What motherboard, which RAM and what playback rates do you get in Resolve when playing UHD? Do I understand you correctly; you are using only one GPU in your sistem?
 
I have been editing my RED and GH4 footage on my 2012 Mac mini. All I did to it was put a 1TB SSD and max out the ram at 16GB. I can edit on Premiere at ¼ res with no issues whatsoever.
 
KINOKS said:
The disk can't be the bottleneck, this is 100Mbps VBR, with an average of 80Mbps. That's 10MB/s.
The graphics card show little use in Resolve and in MC (MC uses the GPU for rendering more or less only clip effects) when playing back the UHD material. Which means that both programs use the CPU mostly to decompress and playback the footage. But the CPU isn't nowhere near 100% when playing in Resolve or MC. It's somewhere around 50% when in Resolve.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure but I think that NLE Editors like Adobe PP and Avid MC have more processes in the background than a simple video player like VLC, which is perhaps why the playback is slower in MC for you. A faster CPU would probably help speed up your system, but I also think it's helpful to have your OS & Programs on a SSD and your media on a RAID 0 Array. It's been very helpful for me. Here's my configuration:

2010 Apple Mac Pro (I don't know what kind of motherboard it has)
48GB 1333MHz DDR3 ECC RAM
Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 (only one graphics card as my other PCI lanes are full)
PCI-E SSD for OS and Programs
PCI-E SSD for Adobe Cache
RAID 0 (two 4TB disks) for media
RAID 0 (two 4TB disks) for project files
SSD for exports
RAID 5 (four 4TB disks) for media back up
RAID 5 (four 4TB disks) for project file back up
Apple Time Capsule 4TB for OS & Apps back up




KINOKS said:
What playback rates do you get in Resolve when playing UHD?
Click to expand...

I don't have Resolve. I do all my color correcting within Adobe AE and PP. In AE I'm getting about 10 fps playback at 100% quality. Playback increases to 14fps at 50% but doesn't get any better even if I go to 25% quality.

In PP I'm getting full 23.976p playback at 100% quality with no filters on a clip. With one color correction filter on a clip I'm getting about 20fps at 100% quality and 23.976p at 50% quality. With two color correction filters on a clip I'm getting about 10fps at 100% quality and about 20fps at 50% quality.

Camerapilot said:
I have been editing my RED and GH4 footage on my 2012 Mac mini. All I did to it was put a 1TB SSD and max out the ram at 16GB. I can edit on Premiere at ¼ res with no issues whatsoever.
Click to expand...

I can edit at 25% quality as well but I find it difficult to color correct and grade at that low resolution.
 
Benjobe said:
I just got the Dell UP3214Q 32" IPS UHD monitor to replace my old 27" Apple Cinema Display and so far I'm very impressed with it. Finally, a matte screen that doesn't show my reflection! The color rendition is better than the Cinema Display as well, which no matter how many times I tried color calibrating with my Spyder Pro 3 always looked blueish greenish. The Dell comes color calibrated right out of the box. The GH4 UHD footage looks spectacular on it. There's so much more work space, I feel more productive just sitting in front of it. It's got a USB 3 hub and a SDXC card reader built into it which is very convenient. The only downsides I see so far is that there's no built-in webcam, it runs hot, uses more power, and needs a DisplayPort 1.2 connection for 60Hz refresh rate.

I'm using a Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 graphics card to power it and my NEC EA231WMi IPS 1080p monitor.
Click to expand...

UPDATE: I've been trying to enable UHD at 60Hz on my Dell UP3214Q monitor and so far have been unsuccessful. It's currently only capable of 30Hz with my set up. At first I thought that it was a cable issue, so I bought a new DP-male-to-DP-male cable, but that didn't help. Then I thought that it was a graphics card issue, so I bought a new Nvidia Quadro K5000 card, but that didn't help either. Now I believe that it's an OS problem. It seems that Apple has enabled UHD at 60Hz for only the 2013 Mac Pro and 2013 Macbook Pro Retina. This would have been helpful to know before I purchased the Dell UP3214Q.

Here's a link explaining:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT6008

This is disappointing, and I hope that Apple fixes this limitation in the near future. I'm posting this here so that others may beware.
 
Hey guys,

Currently my current setup is:
2008 Mac Pro 2 x 2.8 Ghz Quad Core Intel Xeon
4 x 2GB and 2 x 1GB (10 GB Total) 667 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM
NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512 MB
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 for Processing

I want to get a Panasonic GH4 soon but I don't know if my computer can handle it. It renders Gh2 footage pretty easily but does not scrub like butter in Premiere Pro 5.5.

Having said that, do you think it would be financially better to upgrade my current setup (increase my total ram to 16gb or swap my graphics card) or should I just make a new PC with about $1500?
 
Is there a Mac or any other Thunderbolt equipped laptop with HDMI out that’s powerful enough to edit and playback GH4 100MBs 4K-UHD files at full resolution?
 
I’m looking for a entry level 4K UHD edit system and have a couple of questions, Is anyone editing their 100MBs UHD 4K files from a GH4 on a new quad core i7 15” MacBook Pro with Final Cut X? If you are is your MacBook Pro able to play back your edited material via a third party HDMI connector at full resolution on a UHD TV Set?
 
To answer you, and also ask a question at the same time. I have a i7 quad core macbook pro, with 16gb ram, Radeon HD 6770M 1024 MB and ssd. I can't even playback my 4k fotage. Quicktime and vlc lags ALOT. mplayerx can almost play back smoothly. Is this what i should expect? Im going the proxy route for now, but its pretty annoying to not be able to look at what i got.
 
After seeing all the new 4K equipment at NAB I think this group discussion summed up 4K best. https://vimeo.com/91442061

Is it coming and should we embrace it, the answer is clearly yes. Also can we deliver 4K masters to our clients, if we can, how will broadcasters deal with 4K and will their customers watch and appreciate 4K on their living room TV sets. Right now the answers to all these questions are simply more questions.

I would love to get on board with 4K and a GH4 camera but until theres an affordable edit system that has the power needed to edit and play it back at full resolution it seems like the old saying "Putting the cart before the horse"
 
Source: Apple ProRes White Paper [PDF], June 2014
Even more impressive may be the power of the quad-core 2.6 GHz MacBook Pro running a retina display with Nvida GeForce GT 750M graphics. It, too, can handle up to 16 HD 24p streams of all ProRes flavors in multicam, Apple said, with 4K dragging performance down to 12 simultaneous 422 Proxy streams, seven 422 HQ streams, or just two ProRes 4444 XQ streams — still pretty impressive for a laptop taking on high-quality 4K workflows.
In addition to ProRes 4444 XQ, the latest FCP X upgrade includes a number of new features related to media/library management, the ability to apply a Rec. 709 look to HDR and wide-gamut video from ARRI, Blackmagic, Canon, and Sony cameras, support for embedded 3D LUTs from the ARRI Amira, and some improvements to audio recording. For a full list, see Apple's Final Cut Pro X: Version 10.1.2 release notes.
- See more at: http://www.studiodaily.com/2014/06/...4&hq_l=9&hq_v=17e59a11a1#sthash.F4Ntb1nt.dpuf
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top