what video editing software do you use for 4k editing?

[Vance44]

right now i'm using davinci resolve 15  which is ok but i'm looking for something that might be easier for me to us 

i'm trying adobe  premier pro on trial and so far it seems like it runs a little smoother for me and maybe even renders a little faster..

i dont really want to pay  .. their plans are pricey not really a fan of  

so is anyone using something something that works goo for that that's at better price or free? 

 

i've tried a few and nothing seems to work as good as davinci resolve or  adobe premier so i feel stuck because i feel like i would have better luck with premier pro but dont want to pay that much

they want like $40 a month or $239 every year!  wtf? lol 

so i'm most likely stuck with free resolve 

 

any other idea's?   

 

thanks! 

[Mihle]

Davinci resolve runs real time much better if you do "Optimize media"  feature, but it takes more storage space.

Adobe seems faster than Resolve seems weird tho, because all other people I have heard that have tried both say the opposite... 

You can also view at not full resolution when editing, it makes it easier to run.

[Vance44]

And it's good that you say that I have already changed those settings to try to help play back in the editing it runs smoothly until I put in some sort of effect or making edit to the clip then when you try to go back and look at it to make sure it's what you want it runs extremely slow and choppy 

And let me rephrase that a little bit Adobe isn't necessarily faster per se but it seems like it runs a little smoother 

I don't mind using DaVinci resolve in fact competing against Adobe pro and all others it's the best one I can find it's free even if I decide to pay for DaVinci it's still way cheaper 299 for a lifetime versus 249.99 every year 

I've tried power director it won't even let me try 4K videos in trial mode 

And I've tried a few others but none of them seem as good as da Vinci resolved 

at this point I'm just looking at options as of what I can do with my computer to help make it a better experience I've got a high-end GTX G-Force 2070 graphics card thinking about upgrading the CPU going from an i7 8700 to an I-9900X so you're talking about moving from six cores to 10

[Vance44]

Would that be insane I've heard people that have done razor say that in the paid version for DaVinci resolve saying fit it for my acceleration which is supposed to help it run smoother I don't know what the truth of that is I haven't been able to find anything on it

I will have to go back and look at the settings but I've tried to run playback at half resolution so on so forth 

 

[Bakedpanda]

Whats your PC spec?

 

I personally use Premiere Pro for all my editing as I like the integration with the other Adobe apps. I use Resolve for grading when I want to spend some time and make a video look really good. It offers more control than Lumetri in Premiere Pro.

 

I've looked in to moving over to Resolve recently as it utilizes the GPU very well. In Premiere my CPU is at 90-100% with GPU around 10% using an i7 7820x and a 2080Ti.

 

If you're a professional and are likely to be working with other editors, I'd go with Premiere Pro and the rest of Creative Cloud. If you're doing it for fun or by yourself, save the money and put the time in to learning Resolve.

 

Whichever you go for, I'd recommend using a proxy workflow. Here's some links to good videos on that if you need them.

 

 

 

 

[Vance44]

11 hours ago, Bakedpanda said:

Whats your PC spec?

 

I personally use Premiere Pro for all my editing as I like the integration with the other Adobe apps. I use Resolve for grading when I want to spend some time and make a video look really good. It offers more control than Lumetri in Premiere Pro.

 

I've looked in to moving over to Resolve recently as it utilizes the GPU very well. In Premiere my CPU is at 90-100% with GPU around 10% using an i7 7820x and a 2080Ti.

 

If you're a professional and are likely to be working with other editors, I'd go with Premiere Pro and the rest of Creative Cloud. If you're doing it for fun or by yourself, save the money and put the time in to learning Resolve.

 

Whichever you go for, I'd recommend using a proxy workflow. Here's some links to good videos on that if you need them.

 

 

 

 

• CPU
  into i7-8700
• Motherboard
  asrock B36m IB-R/socket lga 1151
• RAM
  ddr4 16gb 2666
• GPU
  nividia rtx 2070
• Case
  ibuypower
• Storage
  1tb ssd
• Display(s)
  hp 27es
• Cooling
  corsair h115i pro liquid
• Operating System
  win 10

   

  i've been through alot and those are the 2 best ones i could find 

  but with adobe costing so much i'm going to stick with davinci resolve 

  will upgrade my computer even more in the near future but for now 

  i've found work arounds to help for not 

  i'm converting and compressing to smaller size before import the media into davinci

  then using optimized media dont get me wrong i like adobe but i dont like the cost i dont want to pay that much to yuse it 

  when davinci is only 299 for life time   pay one time and your done 

  if i have lower resolution that im going to film in then i might use the free version of adobe but that's it 

   

[Mihle]

Unless I add like 3D or animated effets, (blur do not count), It plays completely fine on my i5 3570k and RX 580 with 4k 25p 100 Mbit from my Fuji X-T20.

Like I am just adding colour grade, maybe fade in and out, cuts and some 2D text that fades in and out and stuff.

 

That's with creation optimized media tho, if not it run like shit. 

 

Are you using more advanced animation/3D effects or even higher bitrates than me?

[Vance44]

Yeah I'm throwing in some 3D text animations default video transitions switching out my audio for music clips so far that's about it That's really all I know how to do 

But I'm craving optimized media on the clips putting my resolution for playback at at least half I've tried compressing and making the floor mats and files smaller that helps

but not a lot so I've done further testing and when it comes to exporting and rendering the video to get ready for upload on YouTube I find that Adobe is much faster I think that has something to do with the fact that it uses GPU cuticle acceleration where the free version of da Vinci does not where I've heard reviews where they say DaVinci studio the paid version does use it so I'm not sure about that I would rather pay for DaVinci because it's a one-time payment of $299 where Adobe is more expensive much more expensive I like editing and DaVinci better but it's a bummer because Adobe seems faster I have to do some more research because I do not want to pay for DaVinci studio to find out it is not going to use acceleration

[Mihle]

Blackmagic have a forum part for Davinci Resolve, maybe ask there?

 

(They sadly want people to use real names there tho, but you might just use some real names that aren't actually your name if you want to)

[DieselWeasel]

This 4k footage... what camera is it from? If it's from a drone or something the problem might be that that footage is compressed a lot and it takes more power to render. But if the footage is from a proper camera, the limitation might be the media that you are reading the footage from? At least that's what I've experienced when working with RAW footage from these two sources - that the raw footage from something like and FS7 or Alexa is easier to work with than drone footage. (I've read that you use proxies so I don't have much confidence that your problem lies here). I mostly work on the companies'  macbook pro with the i9 and 560x and I never had any problems playing back any raw 4k footage. But once you apply the color grade, transitions and so on you pretty much have to render the whole thing before playing it. (I don't use proxy files.)

 

How much system memory and free space (on the disk that has your cached media)  do you have? The problem might be that your system might not have the space to cache everything.

 

As to what software you should use... I haven't used anything else than Premiere. I've tried Da'Vinci because I've heard a lot of good things about it, but it so different to PP and I don't have the spare time to learn another NLE. Also I've heard that Final Cut with it's continuous rendering works very fast, because you don't have to click render every time and wait for it to finish.

[Vance44]

1 hour ago, DieselWeasel said:

This 4k footage... what camera is it from? If it's from a drone or something the problem might be that that footage is compressed a lot and it takes more power to render. But if the footage is from a proper camera, the limitation might be the media that you are reading the footage from? At least that's what I've experienced when working with RAW footage from these two sources - that the raw footage from something like and FS7 or Alexa is easier to work with than drone footage. (I've read that you use proxies so I don't have much confidence that your problem lies here). I mostly work on the companies'  macbook pro with the i9 and 560x and I never had any problems playing back any raw 4k footage. But once you apply the color grade, transitions and so on you pretty much have to render the whole thing before playing it. (I don't use proxy files.)

 

How much system memory and free space (on the disk that has your cached media)  do you have? The problem might be that your system might not have the space to cache everything.

 

As to what software you should use... I haven't used anything else than Premiere. I've tried Da'Vinci because I've heard a lot of good things about it, but it so different to PP and I don't have the spare time to learn another NLE. Also I've heard that Final Cut with it's continuous rendering works very fast, because you don't have to click render every time and wait for it to finish.

well i have 32gb ram i'm only working with i7 6core processor so i know that dont help me any lol 

but the footage is from gopro hero 7 black 

i've been using handbrake to cut down file sizes 

i've been playing back in half res and using optimized media  (proxy) to try to help 

here's where i feel stupid lol .. i realize that its playing back crappy b.c those edits i put in in the time line have to render lol duh! just realized that's whey its doing what its doing  .. it probably dont help that i dont have a faster processor lol 

 

other wise everything else works ok just takes time i guess 

 

[Bakedpanda]

On 3/31/2019 at 4:07 PM, Vance44 said:

• CPU
  into i7-8700
• Motherboard
  asrock B36m IB-R/socket lga 1151
• RAM
  ddr4 16gb 2666
• GPU
  nividia rtx 2070
• Case
  ibuypower
• Storage
  1tb ssd
• Display(s)
  hp 27es
• Cooling
  corsair h115i pro liquid
• Operating System
  win 10

   

  i've been through alot and those are the 2 best ones i could find 

  but with adobe costing so much i'm going to stick with davinci resolve 

  will upgrade my computer even more in the near future but for now 

  i've found work arounds to help for not 

  i'm converting and compressing to smaller size before import the media into davinci

  then using optimized media dont get me wrong i like adobe but i dont like the cost i dont want to pay that much to yuse it 

  when davinci is only 299 for life time   pay one time and your done 

  if i have lower resolution that im going to film in then i might use the free version of adobe but that's it 

   

I wouldn't recommend converting and compressing before you import. Just import the full res media to resolve and create optimised media. By compressing first, you are loosing lots of information in the clip.

[Vance44]

3 minutes ago, Bakedpanda said:

I wouldn't recommend converting and compressing before you import. Just import the full res media to resolve and create optimised media. By compressing first, you are loosing lots of information in the clip.

ok i'll try that .. see i'm not familiar with all of these video formats so that's where i'm lost 

 

i just figured if i try to make them smaller they would be better to work with 

in some cases .. i'm finding that's not the case 

 

i'm glad you say that bc that makes sense 

 

[Vance44]

9 minutes ago, Bakedpanda said:

I wouldn't recommend converting and compressing before you import. Just import the full res media to resolve and create optimised media. By compressing first, you are loosing lots of information in the clip.

what about up or downscaling 

record in 2k but export in 4k or vice vers? 

[DieselWeasel]

Avoid upscaling (I'd say over 120%) and if you have the option downscale. Lets say you are uploading to youtube. I wouldn't export in 4k for youtube, because once you upload the video they transcode it again, into files that are optimised for space and streaming.  

So have your timeline set to 1080p and scale your 4k footage to 50%. Then you can further adjust the scale to lets say 60% and re-frame the footage so that the point of interest is in the middle of the screen (or wherever you want it). 

 

I work in a production that mostly does ads (TV and web) and 90% of our work is exported in 1080p while 80% of the footage is shot in 4K 

 

Your current i7 and 32gb of ram and 2070 are quite fast enough for video editing. I don't think you need to upgrade so early on. 

 

Into what file format did you transcode with handbreak and what settings did you use ? And working with GoPro footage will be slower whatever you use, so I think you should just use the raw footage that your gopro makes.

[Vance44]

1 hour ago, DieselWeasel said:

Avoid upscaling (I'd say over 120%) and if you have the option downscale. Lets say you are uploading to youtube. I wouldn't export in 4k for youtube, because once you upload the video they transcode it again, into files that are optimised for space and streaming.  

So have your timeline set to 1080p and scale your 4k footage to 50%. Then you can further adjust the scale to lets say 60% and re-frame the footage so that the point of interest is in the middle of the screen (or wherever you want it). 

 

I work in a production that mostly does ads (TV and web) and 90% of our work is exported in 1080p while 80% of the footage is shot in 4K 

 

Your current i7 and 32gb of ram and 2070 are quite fast enough for video editing. I don't think you need to upgrade so early on. 

 

Into what file format did you transcode with handbreak and what settings did you use ? And working with GoPro footage will be slower whatever you use, so I think you should just use the raw footage that your gopro makes.

Okay this is actually very helpful and it depends I've tried different sets by that would I mean is taking a 4K file and trying to reformat it to a 2K scale so that it comes out smaller at MP4 h264

I've even tried taking a 2K and reformatting it to 4K mp4h.264 or even h.264 nvidia NVE

But I'm trying to stay away from doing that all together like you said taking your advice I think I'm just going to start uploading the media that go broke gives me directly and try to work more that way so I'm not losing as much data and formatting ...

So basically what you're saying is take my 4K video upload it to the timeline play it back in 1080p and even export it in 1080p? If I do it that way I won't lose any quality and the video? 

And when you say scale footage to about 50% by that you mean drop the frame rate? 

I'm still a newbie with all this so you have to bear with me lol 

I mean I kind of understand what you're saying but as I'm reading what you're saying I'm trying to picture how this is done?

[DieselWeasel]

3 minutes ago, Vance44 said:

So basically what you're saying is take my 4K video upload it to the timeline play it back in 1080p and even export it in 1080p? If I do it that way I won't lose any quality and the video? 

Yes, import the raw footage into premiere, but in the sequence settings set the resolution to 1920x1080 - when you drag the footage on to the sequence the first time, it will ask you if you want to change the settings or keep them. Choose keep the settings (that is if you are confident that you have already set the sequence settings right) or choose change the settings (if you are not sure that everything was not set up right- then at the top go to - Sequence - sequence settings  and change the resolution to FHD and the frame-rate to 25fps (if you are using the european standards)  or  23,97/24/30).  That means that if your footage was shot at a higher frame rate you can change its speed to get slow-motion. 

If you make these changes you WILL "loose" some data. The data you will loose comes from downsampling - the camera recored in 4k which is 4 times as many pixels as FHD.

 

But what I wanted to say in my previous post is that i my opinion this loss in data is not significant enough for the purposes of youtube and you don't have to upload big 4k video files that are your final export.  The FHD video will be smaller in size but with correct settings FHD video still looks very good.

7 minutes ago, Vance44 said:

And when you say scale footage to about 50% by that you mean drop the frame rate? 

I'm still a newbie with all this so you have to bear with me lol 

I mean I kind of understand what you're saying but as I'm reading what you're saying I'm trying to picture how this is done?

No I was referring to the "physical" size of the frame that your footage represents in the sequence. In premiere pro, in the  effects control window, under motion there will be a setting called scale. If your footage is 4k in a 4k sequence the entire screen is filled with that footage and the scale will read 100%, if your footage is  FHD and the sequence is 4K the footage will only fill 25% of all the pixels - you would have to scale it to 200% for it to fill all of them - there is "loss of data" because you are stretching 1 pixel over 4. If the footage is 4k in an FHD sequence the footage will spill over the frame of the sequence. Once you scale it to 50% the whole footage will be in frame

 

[Bakedpanda]

On 4/3/2019 at 1:59 PM, Vance44 said:

ok i'll try that .. see i'm not familiar with all of these video formats so that's where i'm lost 

 

i just figured if i try to make them smaller they would be better to work with 

in some cases .. i'm finding that's not the case 

 

i'm glad you say that bc that makes sense 

 

You have a couple of options really.

 

The one I use is to import the camera footage in to your editor as is. For smaller projects this is generally fine. If you notice poor playback performance you can create proxy files. These proxies are lower resolution than your original footage and in an edit friendly codec. The best codecs to use are ProRes (Proxy or LT) or Cineform as they are less compressed and are easier for your CPU to playback. These files are linked in your editing software to the originals so the software sees the original resolution but plays it back lower. When you come to export, the software will ignore these proxy files and render from the originals.

 

The other option is to transcode all your camera footage to an edit friendly codec. For this I would use ProRes 422 or Cineform. This will be easier to edit than your original camera footage but higher resolution than the proxies. This also makes larger files so storage space needs to be taken in to account.

 

On 4/3/2019 at 2:04 PM, Vance44 said:

what about up or downscaling 

record in 2k but export in 4k or vice vers? 

I personally never downscale my footage before the edit. If I'm shooting in 4K or higher and delivering in 1080, I will scale the footage in Premiere or any other software to 1080. This means I can zoom in and reframe if needed. 

 

As for upscalling, the general rule is DONT DO IT. There are exceptions, such as using archive footage, but if you have 1080 deliver in 1080. If you have 4K, you'll probably still be delivering in 1080 unless there is a particular need for 4K. I've been shooting 4K since 2015 and probably 95% of my work has been delivered in 1080. If I need to deliver in 4K, I'll try to shoot in 5K or 6K so that I have the flexibility to reframe if needed. 

 

I hope this helps

 

[Vance44]

1 hour ago, Bakedpanda said:

You have a couple of options really.

 

The one I use is to import the camera footage in to your editor as is. For smaller projects this is generally fine. If you notice poor playback performance you can create proxy files. These proxies are lower resolution than your original footage and in an edit friendly codec. The best codecs to use are ProRes (Proxy or LT) or Cineform as they are less compressed and are easier for your CPU to playback. These files are linked in your editing software to the originals so the software sees the original resolution but plays it back lower. When you come to export, the software will ignore these proxy files and render from the originals.

 

The other option is to transcode all your camera footage to an edit friendly codec. For this I would use ProRes 422 or Cineform. This will be easier to edit than your original camera footage but higher resolution than the proxies. This also makes larger files so storage space needs to be taken in to account.

 

I personally never downscale my footage before the edit. If I'm shooting in 4K or higher and delivering in 1080, I will scale the footage in Premiere or any other software to 1080. This means I can zoom in and reframe if needed. 

 

As for upscalling, the general rule is DONT DO IT. There are exceptions, such as using archive footage, but if you have 1080 deliver in 1080. If you have 4K, you'll probably still be delivering in 1080 unless there is a particular need for 4K. I've been shooting 4K since 2015 and probably 95% of my work has been delivered in 1080. If I need to deliver in 4K, I'll try to shoot in 5K or 6K so that I have the flexibility to reframe if needed. 

 

I hope this helps

 

What kind of results do you get with this I've tried to take 4K footage and deliver in 10 and 80 but the quality wasn't very good? 

You're doing that just for faster upload?

[Bakedpanda]

4 hours ago, Vance44 said:

What kind of results do you get with this I've tried to take 4K footage and deliver in 10 and 80 but the quality wasn't very good? 

You're doing that just for faster upload?

In what way wasn't the quality very good? There shouldn't be any quality loss from putting 4K in to a 1080 timeline.

 

Mosy of my clients don't need 4K. 

[Vance44]

12 minutes ago, Bakedpanda said:

In what way wasn't the quality very good? There shouldn't be any quality loss from putting 4K in to a 1080 timeline.

 

Mosy of my clients don't need 4K. 

or sorry must understood and miss read 

 

yea .. thats no problem 

 

i thought you were saying export 1080 ... duh!   sorry lol

 

[Mihle]

I personally would always export to 4K for YouTube even if the original footage is 1080p. (4 pixels are just acting as 1). 

The reason is that if you watch the video in 4k Even if the original footage is 1080p, you get higher bitrate, and it does look better.

How many of the watchers that actually select 4k om YouTube is something else, but I do it so...

[Vance44]

1 minute ago, Mihle said:

I personally would always export to 4K for YouTube even if the original footage is 1080p. (4 pixels are just acting as 1). 

The reason is that if you watch the video in 4k Even if the original footage is 1080p, you get higher bitrate, and it does look better.

How many of the watchers that actually select 4k om YouTube is something else, but I do it so...

ok thats good to know ... but i most likely will never shoot in 1080 always 2k or 4k 

but i'll keep that in mind when shooting in 2k as well i would think that same should apply for 2k ? 

[Mihle]

9 hours ago, Vance44 said:

ok thats good to know ... but i most likely will never shoot in 1080 always 2k or 4k 

but i'll keep that in mind when shooting in 2k as well i would think that same should apply for 2k ? 

I think so, but I have only experience with 1080p and 4k really (and it's not actually that much experience, just some)