A7SIII Footage - What Systems are capable of editing the 10bit 4K 120 footage?

[bern_eK]

I'll cut straight to the point here. I've been looking a lot at the a7SIII as an upgrade from my A7III. The main thing holding me back is deciding what hardware I'll need to be able to edit the footage without transcoding/using proxies. I've heard a lot about many computers struggling with the codecs, and am frankly stuck on what level of machine I'll need for this. I've been looking at a few different machines (I need a laptop for the nature of my work), but can't find much as to what level of laptop I'll need for this. Shall I wait for the new batch of M1 macs, or will a dell XPS 15, or 17 cut it? I'd love to stay with windows, but have been hearing good things about the M1 macs.

 

Help and discussion very much appreciated with this.

[SupaKomputa]

You don't buy the brand, you buy the specs.

Well in that regard, XPS 15 with a 1650 GPU will do it.

Make sure it has a dedicated GPU and plenty of ram.

Upgrade the ram to 32gb if possible.

 

[bern_eK]

1 hour ago, SupaKomputa said:

You don't buy the brand, you buy the specs.

Well in that regard, XPS 15 with a 1650 GPU will do it.

Make sure it has a dedicated GPU and plenty of ram.

Upgrade the ram to 32gb if possible.

 

Sorry if my intro was a little basic - but yes I fully understand that. I currently have a XPS 15 9560 with 16gb and 1050 and it struggles even with 1080 50p 8-bit footage. Hence why I'm hesitant to just dive in on specs without knowing how well that can handle the footage/codecs.

[SupaKomputa]

You can check where the system struggles in task manager.

What programs are you using for editing?

If adobe, make sure you enable mercury engine (cuda).

If the memory are max out, then you need to upgrade to 32.

[bern_eK]

18 minutes ago, SupaKomputa said:

You can check where the system struggles in task manager.

What programs are you using for editing?

If adobe, make sure you enable mercury engine (cuda).

If the memory are max out, then you need to upgrade to 32.

I believe it's thermal throttling and CPU maxing out. I use Premiere Pro with CC enabled. I've been having the problem for a while where the laptop will chugg and go painfully slow - but in the task manager nothing is maxed out. Hence why I want to find a new system that can handle this sort of workflow better.

[SupaKomputa]

9560 has 4 cores right? Yeah intel is hot.

If you go M1, you will need to max it out (limited to 16gb ram), and you have to understand you cannot upgrade.

For the same price you will get a gaming pc.

Get something from with 8 cores AMD Ryzen 4700u or 4800u and RTX2060.

[Blue4130]

20 hours ago, bern_eK said:

I'll cut straight to the point here. I've been looking a lot at the a7SIII as an upgrade from my A7III. The main thing holding me back is deciding what hardware I'll need to be able to edit the footage without transcoding/using proxies. I've heard a lot about many computers struggling with the codecs, and am frankly stuck on what level of machine I'll need for this. I've been looking at a few different machines (I need a laptop for the nature of my work), but can't find much as to what level of laptop I'll need for this. Shall I wait for the new batch of M1 macs, or will a dell XPS 15, or 17 cut it? I'd love to stay with windows, but have been hearing good things about the M1 macs.

 

Help and discussion very much appreciated with this.

Do you need a true laptop (battery operated) or could you get by with a itx sff build and a portable screen? You'd be tethered to a power outlet, but it would help alleviate thermal issues more than a laptop. 

[GDRRiley]

21 hours ago, SupaKomputa said:

You don't buy the brand, you buy the specs.

Well in that regard, XPS 15 with a 1650 GPU will do it.

Make sure it has a dedicated GPU and plenty of ram.

Upgrade the ram to 32gb if possible.

 

its going to struggle with H265 in 4k

if you can get an atomos Ninja V for prores/DnxHR and SSD recording media, you'll save money long term.

 

[bern_eK]

5 hours ago, GDRRiley said:

its going to struggle with H265 in 4k

if you can get an atomos Ninja V for prores/DnxHR and SSD recording media, you'll save money long term.

 

Thanks for this. I'm beginning to realise that there doesn't look to be many ways around this other than using proxies/transcoding or an external recorder - to have a PC that can take that I'll be spending a lot I assume. 

 

The Ninja V is something I have considered. From your perspective, if I go down this route, or decide to transcode everything to ProRes (or use ProRes proxies) what sort of hardware do you think would be appropriate and would comfortably deal with the ProRes files?

[bern_eK]

7 hours ago, Blue4130 said:

Do you need a true laptop (battery operated) or could you get by with a itx sff build and a portable screen? You'd be tethered to a power outlet, but it would help alleviate thermal issues more than a laptop. 

I would absolutely love to do this, but typically (covid notwithstanding) I'm on planes and hopping around, it would be too much of a setup to lug around. If I was more stationary then this would 100% be an option and I'd probably go down the full build route. That would save me money too sadly. 

[bern_eK]

On 3/9/2021 at 6:12 PM, SupaKomputa said:

9560 has 4 cores right? Yeah intel is hot.

If you go M1, you will need to max it out (limited to 16gb ram), and you have to understand you cannot upgrade.

For the same price you will get a gaming pc.

Get something from with 8 cores AMD Ryzen 4700u or 4800u and RTX2060.

Understood, and I would prefer to stay away from the apple ecosystem if I can. But as mentioned, it has to be a laptop (I would build a PC in a heartbeat if I didn't need to portability). 

 

Any laptops you would recommend for this kind of work/workflow?

[GDRRiley]

10 minutes ago, bern_eK said:

Thanks for this. I'm beginning to realise that there doesn't look to be many ways around this other than using proxies/transcoding or an external recorder - to have a PC that can take that I'll be spending a lot I assume. 

 

The Ninja V is something I have considered. From your perspective, if I go down this route, or decide to transcode everything to ProRes (or use ProRes proxies) what sort of hardware do you think would be appropriate and would comfortably deal with the ProRes files?

m1 macbook pros will edit it easily in reslove 17.

I edit 4k and 2k pro res/DnxHR on a 2700x+RX580 8gb+32gb ram

[Skykiller]

On 3/10/2021 at 8:29 AM, bern_eK said:

Understood, and I would prefer to stay away from the apple ecosystem if I can. But as mentioned, it has to be a laptop (I would build a PC in a heartbeat if I didn't need to portability). 

 

Any laptops you would recommend for this kind of work/workflow?

But when you really want to switch to Prores Apple might be the best way. I mean of cours you cloud go for a PC and edit Prores with no problem but then i really would recomend getting a desktop pc. But when you still want a Laptop i might really would choose a Mac with M1 . Beocuse he performance on this with Prores or Prores RAW will be better than on most ofthe Windows laptops out there. Even in peremiere just becouse the Format is better supported