FS7: FS7 and editing workstation discussion thread

I have a late 2013 maxed out iMac and it works really, really well, so I would image the new 5K iMac would be even better.

I thought about a Hackintosh, but I'm quite busy with work - shooting and post. I asked my very techie editor friend who built a Hackintosh, and his advise was: "Gene, you work a lot so you don't have the time for a Hackintosh." Apparently it's quite tricky to do right. One of the studios I work at has their IT guy build Hacktintoshes for them, and they work pretty well. Not quite as perfect as a real Mac, but pretty close and probably a bit cheaper.

As for Pro-Res on PC, a friend of mine who is on DVXUser and has done numerous technical tests for the FS700 forum tested a number of the PC Pro-Res emulators and I seem to remember he concluded that the Pro-Res that's kicked out of the PC emulators are not of the same quality as Pro-Res from a Mac. I remember seeing the pics from the test, but I don't remember the link. I'll ask him about it again.

For me, it's not a PC or a Mac issue as they both work fine. However, in my freelance studio circles here in LA, it's about 99% Pro-Res when dealing with video. Very, very occasionally we might get a DNxHD file, but it's very rare in my parts. Therefore to be compatible I have to use a Mac.

So I guess the question is how badly do you need Pro-Res? If your freelance circles are predominately Pro-Res, then you should get a Mac. If your freelance circles don't depend on Pro-Res, then you'd be fine with either. I guess a Hackintosh could be the best of both world, but yeah... you gotta have some time and know how for that.
 
I find Prores managable with UHD content on a 2007 built quadcore PC. Maybe 7-12 dropped frames in 5 minutes of playback. But XAVC-I? Forget it. 42 seconds of playback had 990 dropped frames.

The other thing favoring Prores is that XAVC gets ugly real fast with complex scenes. Prores doesn't care how complex or how much motion there is in the scene. It produces consistently excellent image quality.

My only grip with Prores on the PC is that Quicktime engine that runs it is 15 years old and is still 32-bit. Thus to run it on a 64-bit OS, it goes through an emulation layer, and that results in a 50% performance hit.

The other problem is that the Atomos folks have just admitted that the Shogun may never do 4K Prores via the HDMI inputs. I nailed them pretty hard about that in the beginning of June when I couldn't get any picture on the Shogun when I had my FS7 output set for 4K. That was when I learned that it only worked with QFHD signals. Now they're saying it'll do 4K RAW, but the FS7 doesn't have RAW output, as shipped, and requires another $2,000 add on for that. I really want 4K Prores though. XAVC, though 30% smaller in file size, is 900% harder on the CPU to edit and suffers block artifacts that pop out really bad with just a bit of sharpening applied. Prores can be sharpened to absurd levels and still looks good.
 
Its not that bad on my Macbook Pro- Slow but not that bad. I guess that's what it all comes down to on this thread though - how strong a computer do you need.
 
I'm currently working on a late 2012 27' iMac (3,4 GHz, 2 GB NVidia 680 GTX, 24 GB RAM + Fusiondrive), running OS X 10.9.5.
I play 4k XAVC fluidly in Premiere CC, FCP X, Resolve...

I'm satisfied with that little machine so far.
 
basspig said:
I'm learning quickly that 4K 24P requires extraordinary resources. In the planning stages for my next NLE:

Dual E5-2699 CPUs
512GB RAM
2 (upgradable to 4) Titan 12GB GPUs
100% SSD storage and boot drives.

That should be enough to edit 2, 3, maybe even 4 streams of 4K 24P.. now 60P.. is another story.. that will require 2.5X more processing power. This system may only handle one stream at a time, and I may have to accept a dropped frame now and then, if using LUTs during editing/playback.

XAVC-L remains yet another potential obstacle, as word has it over on the Sony forums that no PC has enough umph to play it without serious stuttering.

I heard that there is a new E5 processor that's more powerful than the 2699, but with a $12,000 price tag, a pair of them is into second mortgage territory. We're already looking at $32K for the system, RAM, drives, GPUs, etc. I would choose a motherboard with at least 1TB expansion capabilities. Seeing how application bloating is exponential. I can't believe how much more RAM the newest versions of two popular NLEs use over the previous versions. It's as if the code writers were told not to worry about RAM or performance, that we want to drive the need for more powerful system hardware. They sure did that! I'm pretty sure if an NLE were written in Assembler, it would run just as well on a '486-50 with 64 MB RAM as today's NLEs do on an i7 with 64GB RAM. It was amazing what Wavefront Technologies and AT&T could accomplish on a '286-8MHz PC back in '86. If the code were written that efficiently for today's processors, the things we could accomplish would be unimaginable by today's mindset.
Click to expand...


While that system would be lovely, it is massive massive overkill for regular 4k editing and if you can edit the Epic 5k natively on a new off-the-shelf-Imac Retina, you can most can most certainly have great success with 4k using lower cost custom pc parts.
 
To the OP, Personally I think you're barking up the wrong tree.

Your current problem is because your Mac drive is doing several jobs at once. Running OS, Apps, looking for Media and rendering to the same drive

What will cure your problem without splashing out loads on a new Mac/PC is buying a Thunderbolt RAID drive like a CalDigit and 2x inexpensive USB3 1TB or 2TB Transcend Drives.

Store all of your media on the RAID
Keep you Mac Hard drive free and only have your OS and Apps on it
Then use 1 Transcend drive for your Scratch disk
and the other Transcend as your Render drive.

This way you'll separate out all of your Mac's bus speed to do their own job.

That will boost the perrformance of your Mac immensely and save you a few quid too
 
robster180 said:
To the OP, Personally I think you're barking up the wrong tree.

Your current problem is because your Mac drive is doing several jobs at once. Running OS, Apps, looking for Media and rendering to the same drive

What will cure your problem without splashing out loads on a new Mac/PC is buying a Thunderbolt RAID drive like a CalDigit and 2x inexpensive USB3 1TB or 2TB Transcend Drives.

Store all of your media on the RAID
Keep you Mac Hard drive free and only have your OS and Apps on it
Then use 1 Transcend drive for your Scratch disk
and the other Transcend as your Render drive.

This way you'll separate out all of your Mac's bus speed to do their own job.

That will boost the perrformance of your Mac immensely and save you a few quid too
Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestions. Again I am just querying everyones setups while doing some background work for the next system. I forgot to mention that I do have a 6TB G-Raid Thunderbolt RAID drive for media, and that is obviously a huge help for playback of media. Before the G-RAID, I was able to edit a music video that was shot entirely in UHD on just a standard 3.5" USB3 drive. It would play back 23.98 fine, but couldn't do 60P at all. While I know even my 2012 15"MBP Retina is capable, I am also looking to measure the degrees of performance when considering the next system.
 
Ben Scott said:
While that system would be lovely, it is massive massive overkill for regular 4k editing and if you can edit the Epic 5k natively on a new off-the-shelf-Imac Retina, you can most can most certainly have great success with 4k using lower cost custom pc parts.
Click to expand...

I can edit the 5k RED sample that I downloaded from RED's web site just fine on my current system. It plays almost as smoothly as 4k Prores. XAVC is another story. Not good at all. 95% frames dropped.
 
I've always been confused about what parts of the editing system slow you down where.
You've got the processor speed, the graphics card, the hard drive speed , the drive connection type and whether you have a raid or not.


I finally got myself a new computer coming with good processor speed and a 4G graphics card, but now I'm curious about when drives become a hang up. I've got Sata and eSata drives that use eSata> USB 3 adapters. Also have an old Seritek 2 bay hot swap enclosure that I can turn into a Raid that will be SATA > USB 3. Of course I have Thunderbolt ports on my computer as well.

I've never had problems at least ones I was aware of, and was even able to cut a 6 camera multi cam shoot in FCP 7 with my Macbook Pro using 2 drives w 3 cams on each. (A little ponderous but it ran realtime and I was even able to do some color correction while running.)

When will I need more drive speed than I'm getting now from USB3 drives?
How much advantage will I get raiding the Seritek bay?
Those are both cheap for me.

At one point will I want to bust the bank and get a Thunderbolt raid.?
 
Only Thunderbold RAIDs will be a real futureproof video drive.

I'm playing XAVC easily from old FW800 drives - not possible with ProRes.

If your processor is fast enough and you're not doing much FX, XAVC will be easier to handle
than ProRes which requires faster drives because of data rates 2-4x higher.

It'll be another story if you're doing lots of cc, fx or grading in Resolve, where ProRes is faster and the graphics card can't be big and fast enough...
 
the nicest surprise about the FS7 for me was that the XAVC-I files (4k 60fps) are so easy to work with in fcpx...no transcoding, just drop into the timeline, no proxies, and this on my 15mbp (last years top of the line maxed out)...10 layers, all with effect, no problem....there are 2 or 3 effect that slow things down but my other camera is red epic and this 5K fies are not even doable on the bp...yes they play in RCX but i can't work in resolve or fcpx....a maxed out new mac pro working on 5K raw can't compare to how easy it is to work with the 4K XAVC-I on the mbp....
i have to say thought that i tried premiere (mostly because i used to only work in it, years ago and the new version seems to have a lot of cool features) and the experience was very different....dropping the files straight off the camera into a timeline...even at 1/8 quality was very choppy....fcpx seems to have this figured out...the playback looks amazing and when you stop it automatically gives you full res....seemless...
the other great thing about the FS7 files is that i can usually have at least a day worth of shooting on my internal SSD (which gets backed up constantly locally and off site) and i can actually work on the actual 4k project wherever and without power....
 
Lenilenapi said:
I've always been confused about what parts of the editing system slow you down where.
You've got the processor speed, the graphics card, the hard drive speed , the drive connection type and whether you have a raid or not.


I finally got myself a new computer coming with good processor speed and a 4G graphics card, but now I'm curious about when drives become a hang up. I've got Sata and eSata drives that use eSata> USB 3 adapters. Also have an old Seritek 2 bay hot swap enclosure that I can turn into a Raid that will be SATA > USB 3. Of course I have Thunderbolt ports on my computer as well.

I've never had problems at least ones I was aware of, and was even able to cut a 6 camera multi cam shoot in FCP 7 with my Macbook Pro using 2 drives w 3 cams on each. (A little ponderous but it ran realtime and I was even able to do some color correction while running.)

When will I need more drive speed than I'm getting now from USB3 drives?
How much advantage will I get raiding the Seritek bay?
Those are both cheap for me.

At one point will I want to bust the bank and get a Thunderbolt raid.?
Click to expand...

In your case "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"

Basically, if you think of information needing to get somewhere in as an efficient a way as possible. If you don't separate out your data streams then your Mac/Pc is using the same routes to move information back and forth.
Think of it like couriers delivering to your house. If they all used the same road it'd get busy and congested, as they roll up, wait for one to finish, back up and leave before another could do its' job.
Alternatively if you asked each courier to use their own dedicated road then it becomes faster.

Use a RAID if you can on a fast BUS port, SATA, eSATA, Thunderbolt.
USB3 might work with a slow/small RAID (I'm making a guess)
Personally I only use USB3 for drives to render to or as a Scratch disk.

So in your situation, you're using very fast drives eSATA along USB3 routes - so like a a sports car on a speed restricted road
 
Paul schefz said:
the nicest surprise about the FS7 for me was that the XAVC-I files (4k 60fps) are so easy to work with in fcpx...no transcoding, just drop into the timeline, no proxies, and this on my 15mbp (last years top of the line maxed out)...10 layers, all with effect, no problem....there are 2 or 3 effect that slow things down but my other camera is red epic and this 5K fies are not even doable on the bp...yes they play in RCX but i can't work in resolve or fcpx....a maxed out new mac pro working on 5K raw can't compare to how easy it is to work with the 4K XAVC-I on the mbp....
i have to say thought that i tried premiere (mostly because i used to only work in it, years ago and the new version seems to have a lot of cool features) and the experience was very different....dropping the files straight off the camera into a timeline...even at 1/8 quality was very choppy....fcpx seems to have this figured out...the playback looks amazing and when you stop it automatically gives you full res....seemless...
the other great thing about the FS7 files is that i can usually have at least a day worth of shooting on my internal SSD (which gets backed up constantly locally and off site) and i can actually work on the actual 4k project wherever and without power....
Click to expand...
I might have a second look at FCPX... Which effects slow it down? On PP adding any colour correction slows it down drastically. I have very similar workflow (and same machine) like yours - dropping everything to internal memory and the cut it.
 
alohype said:
I might have a second look at FCPX... Which effects slow it down? On PP adding any colour correction slows it down drastically. I have very similar workflow (and same machine) like yours - dropping everything to internal memory and the cut it.
Click to expand...
coremelt trackX/sliceX are the only ones and that is obviously local masks/adjustments which require tracking, so that slows things down a little.....but anything else (color, effects, looks,...) no problem at all...
 
Paul schefz said:
coremelt trackX/sliceX are the only ones and that is obviously local masks/adjustments which require tracking, so that slows things down a little.....but anything else (color, effects, looks,...) no problem at all...
Click to expand...
Working natively with XAVC today and CC15 and it constantly goes to black screen. Unusable... Does anyone of you have a solution? Terrible experience... :(

Edit: oh, wait. Even more: "error compiling movie. unknown error". No way to export it.
 
XAVC 4K , UHD or HD?

Actually that's a general question for people who've been complaining about Premiere & XAVC. Often its not stated.
 
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