I'd like to pick up a used computer (PC or Mac) that is fast enough to edit very short 4K video clips, generally less than 1 minute. Someone, on this forum or another, suggested that I pick up a used gaming computer, but I have no idea what specs constitute a gamine computer. I'm not well versed in computers, but I've used both PC and Mac. The only thing I've done internally to a computer is upgrade the memory in my macbook. I don't need a 4K monitor, just something that is fast enough to play the video without making it choppy.

Also, do PCs come with any free editing software like macs. I'm using iMovie to trim the clip, remove audio, and export as 4K ProRes movie. That's all I need it to do. Thanks.

and export as 4K ProRes movie.
That rules out PC. 4K is still overrated for most people.
Also you never quoted your budget.

Hey Larry, referencing another one of your threads here - on your current computer, what are you playing the 4K ProRes clips from? Internal storage, external hard drive? The data rate of 4K ProRes is quite high, so before you spend big money on a new computer, make sure that the pipe you're trying to play the clips back from is sufficient.

Nate

I record in 4K on a Lumix FZ 2500. I import them into iMovie on my computer. I edit them. Each clip is no more than one minute. After I edit (trim the ends and remove the audio) and export, I move on to the next one.

I have no intention of spending a great deal of money on a new computer. I intend to search for used one. As I stated I'm looking for a used gaming computer. I assume that means a computer with a fast video card, but I'm unsure.

I'm not sure what you're referring to when you say, "pipe".

So you're currently importing to an internal hard drive on a Mac? What I mean by pipe is the way the video is stored when playing it back. If you're editing off a USB 2.0 hard drive for example, the very method of connection may be too slow to play back ProRes 4k (at least 471 Mb/s for 24p). In that case, you might be able to upgrade internal storage to SSD for a fraction of the cost of a new computer.

Try this too: open up activity monitor and play back a ProRes video. If your CPU maxes out on the little chart, you'll know where the problem lies.

OK, I'll play along provided someone address my initial question afterwards.

I ran the Activity Monitor (a first for me) while playing a very short 4K video, as you suggested. The VTdecoderXPCservice rose and spiked above 100% during the playback. What does that mean.
And how do we know that it's not my video card, which I understand can't be switched out. Specs of my computer are shown below, but I've upgraded to 8GB memory.

Thoughts on this? https://www.videomaker.com/article/f6/17135-editing-in-4k-minimum-system-requirements

Is iMovie considered online or offline editing.

Your budget is probably too limited to buy a proper used mac, so it's best staying with what you have.

I'd get FCPX, work off the internal drive and edit with a proxy. Exporting to 422 4k is overkill mpeg4 should be sufficient.
Will it play smoothly to your liking hard to say but your options are limited.

You also might need to lower your sights to 1080p. Realistically 4k workflow might not be right for your budget.

Hey Larry, I believe I understand what you're needing to do - play back the ProRes files to proof them before uploading to Pond5, and not necessarily "edit" the clips in any significant way. iMovie would not be considered "offline" editing as you're using the original files, not generated proxy files (as you can do in FCPX).

I dug out my 2007 white MacBook, with a similar 2.16Ghz Core 2 Duo processor and tried playing back a 1080p ProRes file and also a UHD ProRes file in Quicktime. Both 24p. Playing back the clips from the internal drive off the desktop, I was JUST able to view the UHD file with minimal skipping IF I resized the playback window to the minimum dimensions. This makes me think that your computer should also be able to play back the clips for approval purposes. Though perhaps not at full-screen.

Hope that helps.

Your budget is probably too limited to buy a proper used mac, so it's best staying with what you have.

I'd get FCPX, work off the internal drive and edit with a proxy. Exporting to 422 4k is overkill mpeg4 should be sufficient.
Will it play smoothly to your liking hard to say but your options are limited.

You also might need to lower your sights to 1080p. Realistically 4k workflow might not be right for your budget.

Pete,

Thanks for the reply. I would certainly consider buying a proper used mac if I knew what specs were needed. I would also consider keeping what I have if I knew how to upgrade it to meet my needs.
I have no intention of down-ressing to 1080p before uploading to Pond5. I want to offer 4K and HD.
I like the idea of using Final Cut Pro X (had to look up that acronym) and editing a proxy file. I edit my stills in lightroom using proxy files (smart previews).
Please don't assume that you know my budget. Budget has nothing to do with the (minimum) computer specs needed to meet my needs.


Hey Larry, I believe I understand what you're needing to do - play back the ProRes files to proof them before uploading to Pond5, and not necessarily "edit" the clips in any significant way. iMovie would not be considered "offline" editing as you're using the original files, not generated proxy files (as you can do in FCPX).

I dug out my 2007 white MacBook, with a similar 2.16Ghz Core 2 Duo processor and tried playing back a 1080p ProRes file and also a UHD ProRes file in Quicktime. Both 24p. Playing back the clips from the internal drive off the desktop, I was JUST able to view the UHD file with minimal skipping IF I resized the playback window to the minimum dimensions. This makes me think that your computer should also be able to play back the clips for approval purposes. Though perhaps not at full-screen.

Hope that helps.

Nate,

Precisely. I'm "editing" for upload to Pond5. Trim the ends, delete the audio, upload.
You didn't have to dig out your old mac. Thanks. My 4K is choppy when viewed at its smallest size in Quicktime and iMovie.
What are your thoughts of the Activity Monitor results that I posted. What can you conclude from them.

A used Mac Pro 2009 or newer with an upgraded graphics card will run you around $1,500. There are other Mac options in that price range.

Oh I now I get it you're trying to make a living selling stock footage. When I saw your wildlife thread it seemed a bit odd jumping into a line of work without any prior experience.

I'd be interested to see if you can make a go of it. Seems like it could become a bit of a gold rush.

Some more research this evening. My 2015 MacBook Pro i7 with the 2GB AMD graphic card plays the 4K ProRes fine (obviously) - but here are some numbers to ponder, considering the CPU usage:

4K ProRes: ≈ 300% CPU Usage
1080p ProRes: ≈ 75% CPU Usage (makes sense as the 4K is essentially Quad-HD)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
4K H264 File: ≈ 25% CPU Usage
1080p H264 File: ≈ 12% CPU Usage

Now consider that this is on OSX 10.12.3 Sierra, which to my knowledge relies more heavily on the GPU to play back H264 video, so the CPU usage of ProRes via H264 may be a little skewed in that regard because of my computer situation, but you're seeing about what it takes for playback of a full-resolution 4K video file in Quicktime.

For CPU usage, my 2015 MacBook has 4 multi-threaded cores, so that equates to up to 800% of total CPU "capability" in the Activity Monitor. A single multi-threaded core (like the one in the 2008 MacBook Pro) would have up to 200% theoretical capability (as far as I understand these things). Your Activity monitor photo seems to confirm this.

Here's another piece of the puzzle. When you're playing a 4K ProRes file via Quicktime, you're playing it at full resolution all the time. If you were to use an editing program like Final Cut Pro or even iMovie, you may have better results. Here's why:

In FCPX, for example, the player window will automatically reduce the playback quality to 1/2 or 1/4 resolution when the application senses that it's dropping frames. This in turn reduces the load on the processor. When you're editing and want smooth playback the quality hit isn't a problem at all, because whenever you pause the video the full resolution image returns so you can check sharpness and the quality of the picture. The "offline editing" workflow you were referencing before is similar in this regard because you are essentially replacing the video files temporarily with a separate set of 1/4 resolution files and forcing the editor to use them all the time. BUT offline editing is not really useful for proofing files before delivery nor is it available in a low-cost/free program like iMovie.

Ok, stay with me, I think this might be the home stretch - I dropped my 4K ProRes test file back into iMovie (essentially your "final" trimmed files destined for Pond5 you would have already exported from iMovie once) and watched them back in the playback window. Looking at the Activity monitor, it read a pretty consistent 125%. Could this be a method that works for your current setup? By using iMovie as your playback application, and allowing it to drop the resolution during playback, you may just be able to eke out enough performance to check the smoothness aspect of your files, and then pause the video periodically to spot-check sharpness and image quality. Kind of an extra step, but beats dropping cash on an upgrade if it actually ends up working for you.

The other option I suppose is just trusting your footage and uploading to Pond5, then later checking their online player before sending the files off to the curator. Or render out a temporary 1080p version from iMovie for quality control purposes. There's really very little chance your actual video files are choppy, since playback quality won't affect the actual renders. If all else fails, bring your FZ2500 memory card to a local Mac retailer (Apple Store / Best Buy / etc) and see which computer does the job for you. I have a feeling anything made within the last few years with a i5 processor or better should do the trick. Good luck!

A used Mac Pro 2009 or newer with an upgraded graphics card will run you around $1,500. There are other Mac options in that price range.

Oh I now I get it you're trying to make a living selling stock footage. When I saw your wildlife thread it seemed a bit odd jumping into a line of work without any prior experience.

I'd be interested to see if you can make a go of it. Seems like it could become a bit of a gold rush.

No Pete. You don't get it at all.

That rules out PC.

Magix vegas pro has proress output capability on a windows pc.

You need a PIXAR server farm.

I'm considering buying a 4K-capable camera and have also been wondering what kind of hardware I need to edit 4K video. I'm currently running a home-built PC I put together about four or five years ago.

Not sure yet whether I'm going to get a dedicated 4K video camera or possibly a bridge camera like the Sony RX10III or the Panasonic FZ2500.

The CPU is an i7 2600 quad-core running at 3.40GHz, with 8GB of 1333 MHz RAM, with Windows 10 Pro loaded on a Kingston 128GB SSD I bought last year. Video is supported by a nVidia GTX750 video card.

I recently upgraded to Magix Vegas Platinum Movie Studio 13.

Earlier today, I downloaded some raw 4K clips to see if my computer could handle the footage and render it properly. What I noticed was that the preview in Movie Studio 13 was slow and juddery at the 'Best' quality setting. Much of the slowness disappeared if I changed the preview setting to 'Draft'.

One of the clips I downloaded was a 13-second 4K AVCHD clip, and the other was a 1.5GB 4K clip running around 10 minutes in .MOV format. I put both of these clips on the timeline, cut away some of the footage, and inserted a cross-fade between the .MOV and AVCHD clips. Vegas Movie Studio took a long time to ingest the larger clip and build proxy files.

Rendering was OK and didn't take too long, but the resulting render was glitchy on playback regardless of whether I used VLC or Windows Media. Reducing the bit rate from 26Mb/s to 15Mb/s made the second render only slightly less glitchy. I deliberately chose the higher bit rates as a sort of stress test.

Removing the short AVCHD clip from the timeline and rendering just the cut-down portion of the MOV clip without changing the bit rate resulted in a glitch-free render.

Given the slow ingest, the slow/juddery playback in preview and the problems I had rendering the files, I'm thinking I may need to increase the RAM to at least 16GB and consider buying a more advanced video card.

I don't really need 4K, virtually all of my stuff is exported to Youtube anyway, but 4K video looks really nice when downsampled to 1080p FHD.

Larry, I also upload 4k clips to Pond5 from my GH4. I use MpegStreamclip to trim the ends and delete the audio. Simply mark the in and out points, delete the audio track, hit trim and "save as" which will not re-encode the whole clip. Here is a link and it is free Squared 5 - MPEG Streamclip video converter for Mac and Windows (http://www.squared5.com/)

I recently upgraded my system from my 9 year old computer:

Edius 5.51 editing software, Asus P6T mobo, i7-920 cpu, Corsair 650 watt p.s., RAM 3GB, Sapphire HD7700 video card, Noctua cooler, MX100 SSD system drive, 1TB WD Black drive, Vista 32 bit, HDSPARK preview card to Samsung LN19A330 HDTV

To this:

Edius 8 WG editing software, i7 6700K cpu, Asus 170-A mobo, 16 GB Ram, EVGA 550 watt power supply, System drive 960 Evo M.2, Video drive 850 Evo SSD, Shadow Rock Slim cooler, Evga GTX1050 TI SC video card, Windows 10, (to be added latter 4k monitor and Blackmagic 4k mini-monitor output card).

Prior to moving up to 4K i upgraded as follows;
Had a Dell XPS 87003.40 gigahertz Intel Core i7-4770

i upgraded the memory up to 24Gb

Replaced the original 2.5 TB Western Digital HD with a Samsung SSD 850 EVO 1 TB as the boot drive, I use this drive to load and edit projects before storing them on the other drives on the computer, I have a second 1.5 TB Seagate Drive for short term archiving and two external drives totalling 6 TB for backups.

Replaced the GeForce GT 720 with a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 video card.

Upgraded the PSU as well.

The main things to upgrade that will allow a better 4k experience is RAM, Fast HD and Graphics Card.
Thinking of getting a dedicated SSD for editing.

Larry, I also upload 4k clips to Pond5 from my GH4. I use MpegStreamclip to trim the ends and delete the audio. Simply mark the in and out points, delete the audio track, hit trim and "save as" which will not re-encode the whole clip. Here is a link and it is free Squared 5 - MPEG Streamclip video converter for Mac and Windows (http://www.squared5.com/)

I recently upgraded my system from my 9 year old computer:

Edius 5.51 editing software, Asus P6T mobo, i7-920 cpu, Corsair 650 watt p.s., RAM 3GB, Sapphire HD7700 video card, Noctua cooler, MX100 SSD system drive, 1TB WD Black drive, Vista 32 bit, HDSPARK preview card to Samsung LN19A330 HDTV

To this:

Edius 8 WG editing software, i7 6700K cpu, Asus 170-A mobo, 16 GB Ram, EVGA 550 watt power supply, System drive 960 Evo M.2, Video drive 850 Evo SSD, Shadow Rock Slim cooler, Evga GTX1050 TI SC video card, Windows 10, (to be added latter 4k monitor and Blackmagic 4k mini-monitor output card).

Thanks Mark. For now, I'm getting by with my macbook pro, late 2008 version. I'm using iMovie to trim and remove audio. I've uploaded about 125 in the last month. Even though they don't play well on my computer, once it's uploaded to Pond5, it plays well. During editting I just move the cursor slow to figure out where to trim. It takes longer to upload to pond5 than to edit.

Larry,

Is iMovie re-encoding your clips? I don't think Mpegstreamclip does so it is original footage. There is a mac version.

I'm considering buying a 4K-capable camera and have also been wondering what kind of hardware I need to edit 4K video. I'm currently running a home-built PC I put together about four or five years ago.


I have a similar situation myself but I have already made the decision to build a new system. I have used Adobe PP in the past but recently started playing with BMD Resolve. The thing I like about Resolve is the resolution independent timeline. You can edit using whatever resolution you like on the timeline without limiting the output resolution. You can pick your clips and the program decides which ones to optimize for editing purposes. I have taken 1080p60 clips and used a 720p60 timeline for the edit. I generated outputs at 720p60, 1080p60 and even 2160p60.

I spent some time watching the Windows task manager performance display as I played the timeline. The critical issue seems to be the data rate available for access to the cache files when using high quality, low compression formats as the optimized media. Low compression translates into bigger files and higher data rates. Higher compression reduces the demand on the storage system but eats up the CPU and GPU leaving less capacity for real time effects and color correction. The motherboard of the new system is an Asus Prime Z270-A which has two slots for on-board SSD (M.2 x4NVMe). The drive I selected is 1700 MB/second read and 600 MB/second write which should easily provide enough data access speed for real time editing at 720p60 or 1080p60. It may also be sufficient for real time 2160p60 but the CPU and GPU may limit performance.

For what it's worth, I was having trouble getting the old system working well with 720p60. I eventually tried a disk speed test on the RAID drive and discovered it was operating poorly and unable to deliver the 120 MB/second that it should have been able to achieve. The speed varied and dropped during repeated tests so I can only assume the old drives are failing. The drive has plenty of available capacity and isn't fragmented.

Just my 2 cents ...

Magix vegas pro has proress output capability on a windows pc.

Yes, but not "Apple" ProRes. It's a different implementation that will not pass QC tests of major broadcasters.

You either need to buy a decent Mac or build a Hackintosh.

OK, I'll play along provided someone address my initial question afterwards.

I ran the Activity Monitor (a first for me) while playing a very short 4K video, as you suggested. The VTdecoderXPCservice rose and spiked above 100% during the playback. What does that mean.
And how do we know that it's not my video card, which I understand can't be switched out. Specs of my computer are shown below, but I've upgraded to 8GB memory.

I'm having the same issues. I have a iMacPro and with multicam playback, it's choppy like crazy. FCPX goes to like 300% CPU usage, and the VTdecoderXPCservice is cranking on my CPU as well.

I'm currently as of this week, on my second level with Apple, the FCPX guys don't understand why I'm having such poor performance.

So digging more, I found an article that alleged Chrome was the culprit for VTdecoderXPCservice cranking and sending the CPU into a terrible spin. So to test, I uninstalled Chrome and the VTdecoderXPCservice did not go crazy.

Now what. I need Chrome for web design. Hmmm.

Wow this thread is 3 years old! Reading through it, saw I was rebuked from Larry for not getting it. Lol.

Yeah that weird Chrome would cause a problem. I just finished a project still using my 2009 mac, the client loaned me his 2019 imac so I would edit 4k multi clips. Wow did it breath through it. On my old computer in a pinch I can edit a couple of 4k tracks in multiclip if I create an optimize prores file It works pretty well but the render can take up loads of space.

Yeah, I found this article on a google search.

But here is the blog post that referenced Chrome.

https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/06/20/chrome-causing-final-cut-pro-x-to-freeze-and-crash

That article is from 2019.

Wow this thread is 3 years old! Reading through it, saw I was rebuked from Larry for not getting it. Lol.

Yeah that weird Chrome would cause a problem. I just finished a project still using my 2009 mac, the client loaned me his 2019 imac so I would edit 4k multi clips. Wow did it breath through it. On my old computer in a pinch I can edit a couple of 4k tracks in multiclip if I create an optimize prores file It works pretty well but the render can take up loads of space.

People always talk about one computer vs, another, etc., but in my experience it is really one's external hard drive setup that makes the biggest difference in NLE playback performance. But hardly anyone ever mentions their drives or seems to care about that huge factor in performance.

People always talk about one computer vs, another, etc., but in my experience it is really one's external hard drive setup that makes the biggest difference in NLE playback performance. But hardly anyone ever mentions their drives or seems to care about that huge factor in performance.
Everyone's setup is so different. For example I edit only on one desktop computer at home. So it's always a given I'd edit off at best an internal ssd and at worst an internal spinner. However when you get into working between laptops and different workstations at multiple locations, it makes sense to work off an external drive that you simply take with you and use with multiple computers.

But in my experience that graphics card plays a larger role for playblack than hard drive speed, since the majority of processing power is being directed to the gpu to decode the codec for real time playback. Adding 4k, multi streams, and effects all make in harder to playback smoothly. That's why transcoding to Pro Res is a big help.

Pete, my experience does not match yours so we'll have to agree to disagree. My advice to anyone experiencing poor playback remains to take a good look at their drives and how they are connected before spending a penny on other hardware.

Pete, my experience does not match yours so we'll have to agree to disagree. My advice to anyone experiencing poor playback remains to take a good look at their drives and how they are connected before spending a penny on other hardware.
I don't doubt it. I've had problems with externals in the past and have chosen to eliminate the issue by working on internal drives.

I've noticed that often you can under estimate where the bottleneck is and how it effects your performance. For example, I have a ssd and slow spinner drive. I didn't understand why there wasn't a big speed difference. What I found out was since I have an older computer that has sata2 that limited the speed to 200mbs, which virtually took away most of the speed advantage of the ssd. Likewise, I've read that most motherboards use one controller for all external ports. Meaning connect more than one device you could be cutting the bandwidth in half. In addition they always list a high bandwidth number for ports, but this is often a peak number that doesn't last very long and random reads and writes can be much slower than copying one file. So lots of factors and bottlenecks to consider.

I've done a lot of troubleshooting for clients and students at workshops and 99.99% of the time their playback problems comes down to drives. Either they are putting video files on their internal OS drive, or else using slow drives connected via USB or something worse. All I'm saying is that lot of people really underestimate the importance of drives.

BTW, I have external 4TB SSDs that give me up to 1300MBps via Thunderbolt2 and regular cheap HDDs that average around 400-500, which is still plenty fast enough for simple 4K editing and grading. Getting high speeds is not hard or expensive.

Makes me glad I opted for a second SDD in my laptop instead of a CD/DVD and bought a cheap USB Blue-ray writer, which I have only used once.

I hear what you're saying. About 7 years ago I bought a Blu-ray burner thinking that I would need it for authoring Blue-rays. When I moved two years ago to a new house the box still had the shrinkwrap on it, so I just threw it away with a lot of other worthelss electronics. Have never regretted that decision. I did have a strange feeling, though, chucking what was once a $65K Betacam into a dumpster. I just had to remind myself how much it had earned over the years, and now it's value had become reduced to less than zero. Technology marches on. :-)

So I'm at a loss. I have really good specs. I'm on my fifth or sixth Apple FCPX advisor and they can't figure out why my play back is so bad. Here's a sample of what I experience. It doesn't matter if I do proxy, or not. We've tried just about everything Apple can think of.

https://youtu.be/M31uGSqIlhE

Multiclip are very demanding. You need a newer computer to edit 4k.

You have a few options:
1. optimize the clips (this will create giant ProRes files), lower the viewer quality to better performance, don't apply any effects, filters, or exposure changes until you finished cutting the video.

2. Sync the videos instead of creating a multiclip. This will give you a timeline with each video on a layer. It's harder to edit this way but you'll be able to playback smoothly.

3. Down res and edit the original video to 1080.

Hey Pete,

I do have a newer computer, about two years old. An iMac Pro with 64 gb of memory, a Radeon Pro Vega 64 with 16gb of ram, and my processor is 3.2ghz 8-core Intel Xeon W.

I spent the extra thousand or so just so I wouldn't have these issues. lol.

Every apple person I've spoken to says my computer should scream. I didn't max out my specs, but I did ask Apple if my machine would edit video like this, and they said, no problem.

Thanks for the advice. I've optimized clips, not optimized, been around so many trees trying to figure it out. I think there's an issue with FCPX and Radeon, but I can't find any info on it. I sometimes edit four angles with an hour long or more.

I'm considering going back and picking up Premiere since I already have it, ugg. (vent over)

Did I miss the post where you told us what your hard drive set up is? All those specs and not a mention of your drive(s) set up, that I can see.

Hey Pete,

I do have a newer computer, about two years old. An iMac Pro with 64 gb of memory, a Radeon Pro Vega 64 with 16gb of ram, and my processor is 3.2ghz 8-core Intel Xeon W.

I spent the extra thousand or so just so I wouldn't have these issues. lol.

Every apple person I've spoken to says my computer should scream. I didn't max out my specs, but I did ask Apple if my machine would edit video like this, and they said, no problem.

Thanks for the advice. I've optimized clips, not optimized, been around so many trees trying to figure it out. I think there's an issue with FCPX and Radeon, but I can't find any info on it. I sometimes edit four angles with an hour long or more.

I'm considering going back and picking up Premiere since I already have it, ugg. (vent over)
Now knowing the specs then I'd say yes that computer should edit 4k (as long as it isn't 4:2:2 h265). If it were me and I wanted to save money I would back my stuff up do a fresh install. I would also consult Apple what is the best OS to run. It might be an older pre Catalina is necessary. Then if that didn't fix things I would bring it to an Apple store or reputable certified repair shop. Could be a bad component or something as simple as it's clogged with dust and causing the computer to over heat and throttle.

We would love to find the answer but it's a bit like asking for a medical diagnosis or trouble shooting your car over the phone. You need a hands on test from a professional. So best of luck hope you get it working.

Thanks. Yes, I thought I had posted my specs. I'm using scandisks SSDs, I reached out to Scandisk, ran tests on my drives, they came back with a 900mbs throughput. I've had this same problem no matter what drives I use. Even drives from g-tech. Thank you for reminding me I wasn't clear. I apologiize.

I thought about a fresh install as well. That might be worth a shot.

That rules out PC. 4K is still overrated for most people.
Also you never quoted your budget.

A number of NLEs now have Apple ProRes Decode/Encode Certification​ for use on PCs.