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New Mac for 4k video
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Doc HM
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Feb 3, 2024, 11:28 AM
 
Ok anyone who has any experience of 4k video editing? I'm in the market for a new system to replace a 2013 MacPro that has a 4tb ssd and 128gb ram. To be used for 4k video. Not professional but I guess semipro, high end consumer.

My initial thought was Mac Studio M2 Max. Probably 2tb SSD ( there's 64TB of thunderbolt 3 RAID to store achieved and paused projects on). Maybe 64GB RAM?
Pair that with an Apple Studio Display?

Am I wrong? And If I should spec anything up extra at order what? I assume extra GPU cores would pay for themselves over RAM?
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subego
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Feb 3, 2024, 02:46 PM
 
If you’re just editing, this is actually major overkill. Editing mainly taxes your I/O. We edited our last 4K project on a 1st gen M1 with 16GB of RAM. That was plenty.

Once effects, motion graphics, grading, and the like get folded in, then it becomes a question of how powerful the rest of your computer is. You should be good though.

Edit: GPU vs RAM depends on the software. With After Effects for example, that would much rather have more RAM. My understanding is that’s probably an exception, and GPU would be a better investment.

Edit 2: The ASD’s big draw is 10-bit. This is certainly nice to have, but the utility is debatable if almost everyone watching the finished product has an 8-bit screen. If you’re fine with 8-bit, an LG Ultrafine will save you some dough.
( Last edited by subego; Feb 3, 2024 at 07:07 PM. )
     
Doc HM  (op)
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Feb 3, 2024, 07:03 PM
 
It’s not just editing. Some basic compositing / after effects work and a fair amount of grading.
A long project might come in at about 90 mins.
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subego
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Feb 3, 2024, 09:10 PM
 
Our stuff almost always gets turned black and white, so we don’t grade in a traditional sense. I’m assuming that leans on the GPU. Likewise, I don’t know anything about the nifty interface possibilities for it.

As you may be aware, After Effects playback is from RAM, so more RAM means longer playback. It’s a no-brainer to max out the RAM on a dedicated rig, but if it’s not central to the workflow, 64GB should have you covered. FWIW, my current rig has 64GB, and After Effects is central to my workflow. I make do.
     
MacNNFamous
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Feb 3, 2024, 10:18 PM
 
Most content is viewed on phones and 4k is sort of pointless. Just my opinion.
     
reader50
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Feb 3, 2024, 10:30 PM
 
I watch movies & TV on my 4K monitor, and (from monitor viewing distance) I can definitely see the difference between 2K and 4K. However, it's not as much of a difference as I'd expected. 1080p still registers as a sharp picture, unlike my old SD shows.

Pull up episodes from the DVD days, and they're awkward to watch. They seemed so sharp at the time. Paramount needs to get with the DS9 and Voyager remasters. Along with many other shows.
     
ghporter
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Feb 3, 2024, 10:39 PM
 
The "power level" of the hardware you need, as subego points out, depends on what software you're using to do what you're doing.

I recently discovered that where it looks like a fairly sound Early 2015 i5 MBP with 8GB of RAM should handle simple video editing without a hitch, your definition of "without a hitch" may not be how things work out.

It took about 3 hours for iMovie to export a 6-minute, 720P MP4 file - with the machine not doing anything else. What I would consider here is a combination of what your editing software says its hardware requirements are and the machine's ability to push data around - both for the digital composition tasks and the output tasks.

You understand how the hardware works, so keep in mind your experience with what a Mac is supposed to be able to do compared to what it does in reality. I'd be pretty cynical about interpreting hardware requirements, and "over-spec" whatever machine you go with, especially how much RAM you get.

Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
     
reader50
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Feb 4, 2024, 01:06 AM
 
Glenn, you're running into both thermal throttling and a lack of cores. Notebooks have small heat sinks, and your 13" only has 2 cores (4 virtual). While RAM is likely a bottleneck, you're being choked multiple ways.

Also check Activity Monitor, see if iMovie is using a single thread for the export. I did an old-fashioned iDVD burn awhile back. Terribly slow rendering on a hopped-up 2009 Mac Pro ... because it used a single thread. If only it had used the 24 threads I had available. The actual burn was fairly quick, after it spent hours on the rendering.
     
Doc HM  (op)
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Feb 4, 2024, 04:48 AM
 
This setup is replacing a 2013 Mac Pro trashcan which has a 4tb ssd (bought at the time from OWC) and 128gb ram.
I’m not sure what the major limitation is but it is unimpressive and my client wants to upgrade. It’s also limited by OS and also the ssd is actually two raided drives so full os updates are a real pain involving replacing the original drive and then cloning. Bloody macOS refusing to instal on raid volumes!! He’s not shy of spending but it needs to be worth it. The trash can replaced his old Mac Pro and it was fine but it never really lived up to his expectations so his main concern is the new machine really flying.
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OreoCookie
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Feb 4, 2024, 05:29 AM
 
Originally Posted by Doc HM View Post
Ok anyone who has any experience of 4k video editing? I'm in the market for a new system to replace a 2013 MacPro that has a 4tb ssd and 128gb ram. To be used for 4k video. Not professional but I guess semipro, high end consumer.
While the Trashcan Mac gets a lot of derision, I always like it a lot. I had one on my desk (8 cores, 64 GB RAM). No matter the load, that thing never slowed down. Even other machines that were faster (2019 MacBook Pro) and sported 8 cores as well did not feel like that.

The only downside was lack of support for 5k Retina displays.
Originally Posted by Doc HM View Post
My initial thought was Mac Studio M2 Max. Probably 2tb SSD ( there's 64TB of thunderbolt 3 RAID to store achieved and paused projects on). Maybe 64GB RAM?
Why not wait for the M3 Max model? Or are you in such a hurry?
I'd go for 64+ GB just to be future proof.
Originally Posted by Doc HM View Post
Pair that with an Apple Studio Display?
There are very few options for true Retina displays on the market. I had an LG at my old work, which was fine. UltraFine. But not great. I preferred the hardware of an old Apple Studio display.

I'd bite the bullet and get the Studio Display.
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subego
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Feb 4, 2024, 05:56 AM
 
Originally Posted by MacNNFamous View Post
Most content is viewed on phones and 4k is sort of pointless. Just my opinion.
This is like saying it’s pointless to draw something large and reduce it because people will only see the reduced version.
     
OreoCookie
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Feb 4, 2024, 06:58 AM
 
Originally Posted by MacNNFamous View Post
Most content is viewed on phones and 4k is sort of pointless. Just my opinion.
Depends on what you do. Babylon 5 was shot in 16:9 which was overkill then. Now it really works. House of Cards was shot in 4k. Now most TVs sold are 4k+.

Besides, if you stick with hardware-accelerated codecs, even the M1 (without modifier) can easily deal with 4k streams.
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subego
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Feb 4, 2024, 05:01 PM
 
Originally Posted by Doc HM View Post
the ssd is actually two raided drives
If I’m understanding correctly and this is RAID 0, ironically it might be introducing a bottleneck. Standard practice with video is to have multiple, separate drives. Ideally, one for the system, one for data, and one for scratch files. Then, the computer can simultaneously take care of system overhead, data I/O, and temp file I/O. With the current setup, that’s all getting shoved through one (admittedly wide) pipe.

Of course, it also doubles the chance of drive failure. Not recommend.
     
reader50
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Feb 4, 2024, 05:25 PM
 
I agree with subego - an SSD typically maxes out the interface. So a RAID 0 does not add anything but capacity. If it's an older M.2 that hasn't kept up with PCIe speeds, it's better to get a faster M.2 than do RAID.
     
subego
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Feb 4, 2024, 05:30 PM
 
Well, I assume it would add speed since it gets to max out multiple interfaces for the same action.
     
reader50
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Feb 4, 2024, 06:14 PM
 
For some reason, I was picturing a RAID card maxing out in a PCIe slot, or a port-multiplier drive enclosure maxing out a SATA port. If SSDs use separate slots or native SATA ports, you do still get a speed increase.

That said, I personally tried upgrading from native SATA 3G ports (250 MB/s) to a 6G card (500+ MB/s). Then a basic M.2 gave 1.5 GB/s via a $20 adapter via a PCIe slot. And that's slow for an M.2, due to my PCIe2 slots. If you have a system with PCIe 4 slots, you can exceed 7 GB/s to a single M.2 in a single slot.

My takeaway: if you need throughput speed, get some fast M.2 storage. Save the RAID for HD backup volumes. SATA isn't fast today, and you'll quickly run out of slots putting a single M.2 in each. If your system has a TB port, that should give M.2 speeds for only 10x the price.
     
subego
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Feb 4, 2024, 06:33 PM
 
For a little inside baseball on video editing, the drive I/O speeds are going to be a determining factor in whether a real-time process (like editing) can use the masters. If the drive can’t handle it, then you’re forced to use proxies. Those have to be generated, stored, kept up to date with any alterations to the masters, and then finally swapped out at the end. It’s an enormous pain in the ass.

However, masters are ginormous and SSDs are not. If the entire project won’t fit on the drive the need to constantly shuffle everything around may well be more effort than the proxies.

Along those lines, we ended up using proxies on the series even though our setup could likely have handled the masters. The “drive I/O” bottleneck there was the 20 up I get on my Internet. It would have taken too long to push revisions through it if they were master-sized.
     
ghporter
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Feb 4, 2024, 10:28 PM
 
reader, I’ll have to check the next time I redo one of those videos. Today iMovie froze solid when I tried to revise one, but I haven’t looked at the log to see what happened.

Also, this was a good lesson in why some things are better done on bigger machines. Sure, you can do all sorts of cool things with a laptop, but doing many of them won’t be optimal…

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Doc HM  (op)
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Feb 5, 2024, 10:06 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
If I’m understanding correctly and this is RAID 0, ironically it might be introducing a bottleneck. Standard practice with video is to have multiple, separate drives. Ideally, one for the system, one for data, and one for scratch files. Then, the computer can simultaneously take care of system overhead, data I/O, and temp file I/O. With the current setup, that’s all getting shoved through one (admittedly wide) pipe.

Of course, it also doubles the chance of drive failure. Not recommend.

I agree. The drive was bought back in 2013 when Apple did not offer a large internal drive for this machine. Nowhere in the specs did it say that OWC were RAIDing two SSDs onto one card. It's been a right pain and yes I suspect a lot of performance issues arise from this not just OS update pains.
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ghporter
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Feb 5, 2024, 12:31 PM
 
I don’t withdraw my suggestion for maxing out RAM, but I do withdraw the shade I cast on my MBP. After iMovie froze, I restarted the machine, opened iMovie and tried to do the same edit (change the VHS clips to “fit” instead of “crop to fill”). It started going nice and quick, and Activity Monitor showed it was using at least 41 threads to do the job. So my previous problem wasn’t the machine itself, but something hogging RAM, CPU and/or other resources.

Doc, it looks like your storage issue is something you’re getting a handle on, but I agree with subego about the storage pipeline being critical to performance. Having a RAID layer between the a00 and the storage can’t be good…

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