GH4 Offload and Playback laptop

tacotim

tacotim

Well-known member
I'm looking at swapping out my laptop for something amaller / lighter. The ONLY thing I ever use my laptop for is offloading footage to drives while on the road. I don't need a laptop for editing. Thinking of getting a macbook air, but I don't know if it can handle playback of 4k footage? I don't care about monitor resolution, just want something small that can playback clips so I can confirm that footage is good. I'm open to suggestions you guys have, mac, pc, chromebook? Here's my requirements:

at least 2 usb 3.0 jacks
thunderbolt is a plus.
small / light (screen less than 12")
Plays back 4k gh4 files smoothly.
 
Thanks Eric, I currently have a mac book pro, but i'm looking for something smaller. Mostly curious If a mac book air can playback gh4 4k files smoothly.



Erik Naso said:
I have a 2.3 Ghz i7 Mac Book Pro Retina and it plays 4K GH4 footage fine. To offload cards I bought a Lexar HR1 four bay card reader. It's USB 3 and fast. They make a Thunderbolt version too but I didnt think the speed would be worth the price.
Click to expand...
 
It should work. As we have played back from a MacBook air 4k video. Any i3-i7 with at least 4gig of ram should work.
 
There aren't many laptops that are less than 12" nowadays, are there? Even the Thinkpad X series have gone to 12.5".

The current Macbook Air isn't too bad, with the Haswell i7s. Screen is not my favourite but if you don't mind it should have the power to play them back.

I was shopping for a new notebook myself recently and I have to say, screen size isn't a good indication of weight: My 13.3" is lighter than some 11"/12" machines out there!
 
Microcenter was selling a 10" tablet with windows 8.1. It has a usb3 port that you can plug the sdcard reader and a portable hd to it. We tested it with copying file. It works well. Let me test with playing back 4k files and I will report back. It's $199 and you can add a case/keyboard to it.
 
A 10" Windows 8.1 tablet with a full sized USB 3.0 port? At $199? That sounds like a Surface 2, which is on ARM, not x86.
 
Ylee, it is the full 32bit windows 8.1 version, I know cause I have it and it is not the surface 2. Here's the link: http://www.microcenter.com/product/437498/TW100_101_Tablet_-_Black
I've installed Office 2012, Dropbox, Photoshop cs6, MovieMagic Scheduling and Budgeting, no problem so far.

And here's the keyboard part of it, it's out of stock at my Microcenter. http://www.microcenter.com/product/437428/101"_Pogo_Pin_Keyboard
 
Holy cow I know Bay Trail Atom devices could be cheap, but I didn't know they were that cheap!
 
My 8 yo MBP 17 Core 2 Duo 3g ram will NOT playback UHD or 4k. Im must first downrez in Premiere which take awhile also. MB Air should have capability with faster processors, graphics card, and ram. New MBP is on my list, tired of playback from camera HDMI
 
My Asus 2,6GHZ i5 played back UHD and 4K no problem BEFORE the update. After 2.0 with the 95-99 bitrate it does not. It stutters awfully.
The 2014 Retina Mac Pro i5 plays back perfectly and also smoothly in Final Cut Pro, but since I hate macs, I just bare with the stutter in Premiere.
 
So, just wanted to update everyone, just tested the Winbook 10.1" that I talked about earlier (from MicroCenter.com) you can get it at $199 and yes, once you plug a usb3 sd card reader to it, you can play back the clips directly from the sd card normally and it does look nice. So this would be another way to copy/transfer/playback your footage if you don't want to take your laptop. (you can get it open box at $159)

Also, Red Giant Software got a new program for anyone doing on location copy/transfer of footage, it's called Offload $49.99 or toolfarm.com for 10% off, it's quite easy that anyone who can read should be able to figure it out lol (not to replace a DIT though).
 
Wow, it really plays back 4k clips from the sd card? And that Red Giant software looks great, i have used shotput pro for years, but every version has gotten more and more convoluted. Great for DITs, not great for getting back to the hotel and just wanting to simply offload your footage to two drives.
 
mdifilm said:
So, just wanted to update everyone, just tested the Winbook 10.1" that I talked about earlier (from MicroCenter.com) you can get it at $199 and yes, once you plug a usb3 sd card reader to it, you can play back the clips directly from the sd card normally and it does look nice. So this would be another way to copy/transfer/playback your footage if you don't want to take your laptop. (you can get it open box at $159)

Also, Red Giant Software got a new program for anyone doing on location copy/transfer of footage, it's called Offload $49.99 or toolfarm.com for 10% off, it's quite easy that anyone who can read should be able to figure it out lol (not to replace a DIT though).
Click to expand...
Looks good, but that tablet only has one USB3 port and no SD card slot. How do you transfer the footage to an external drive? Or do you use a USB3 hub to plug both into the same port?
 
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