Editing Station?

[fuzzynormal]

Held off as long as I can.  One gets attached to an editing platform and it never seems like a good time to make the change...butt...

Now I'm shopping to reset my desktop editing set-up.  Trying to find something decent within a modest budget.  With that in mind I'm going to give Resolve a shot since it's free.  On the hardware side it will most likely be a new 27" iMac with two monitors flanking it.  The iMac is $2k.  Not a great price nor a bad one.  I'd consider it a decent value because of the display.  However, any recommendations for two good-value monitors that handle color professionally that I should consider buying??

As far as that goes, when using Resolve do I transcode to a mezzanine format or stay native?  I'd like to stay native.  My first "big-lifting" with Resolve will involve a series of 6 25 minute docs.  Would Resolve on that iMac hardware run smooth if editing native AVCHD?

Also, if anyone is running or has attempted to run a similar Resolve system I'd love to hear your thoughts.  Or, if you're aware of potential shortcomings with my plan, let me know!

[fuzzynormal]

Well, I'm buying a new computer for editing with (most likely) Resolve.

I've assembled enough PCs in the past to know I'm not at all interested in burning time to do it again.

There's editing to be done; not interested in tweaking bios boot settings. 

[jonpais]

My sister says to have a look at the high end Radeon graphics card.

[tdonovic]

Monitors wise, I use dell a U2415h. Its not huge, 2560x1440 and it cost me ~$400. That is the best option in my eyes. If you want to match the size, go for the 27" dell ultrasharps.

[fuzzynormal]

Looks like I can get a pretty good iMac-w/extra-monitors for around $4K.  A bit on the high side, but I'm going to be living in front of the thing for awhile, gotta make it nice.

• 27" Retina 5K IPS Display
• 5120 x 2880 Screen Resolution
• 4.0 GHz Intel Core i7 (Skylake)
• 16GB of 1867 MHz DDR3 RAM
• 2TB Fusion Drive
• AMD Radeon R9 M395X GPU (4GB GDDR5)

Still, the PC options look nice too and offer the ability to expand to more muscly graphics cards in the future if needed...but dealing with the compatibility issues and tech quirks, it's hard to justify.

My main concern is trying to edit AVCHD.  Haven't heard a clear answer yet wander the internet wilderness.  Some folks say no problem, but I'm concerned as I need to work with a lot more media for documentary stuff; could bog down.  

Also, anyone have an idea how the AMD Radeon R9 M395X graphics card with 4GB of GDDR5 vRAM is at pushing pixels across 3 monitors?  Seems like a lot to ask?

[Justin Bacle]

As I do work with AVCHD too, I have some information.

I am using a custom built PC for editing, grading and VFX. (i7 4790K, 16 Gb Ram, Nvidia GTX 670, 240G SSD for the OS and scratch + 2TB Raid 0 for storage)

I have to say that once you color correct and grade your AVCHD footage in premiere, plus the couple of clips that need a dynamic link to after effects, it gets quite slow (like unplayable). I'll try to encode my avchd files in DNxHD for the next projet too see if there's a difference (but I would really prefer to work with the tiny avchd files).

[Geoff CB]

4 hours ago, fuzzynormal said:

Looks like I can get a pretty good iMac-w/extra-monitors for around $4K.  A bit on the high side, but I'm going to be living in front of the thing for awhile, gotta make it nice.

• 27" Retina 5K IPS Display
• 5120 x 2880 Screen Resolution
• 4.0 GHz Intel Core i7 (Skylake)
• 16GB of 1867 MHz DDR3 RAM
• 2TB Fusion Drive
• AMD Radeon R9 M395X GPU (4GB GDDR5)

Still, the PC options look nice too and offer the ability to expand to more muscly graphics cards in the future if needed...but dealing with the compatibility issues and tech quirks, it's hard to justify.

My main concern is trying to edit AVCHD.  Haven't heard a clear answer yet wander the internet wilderness.  Some folks say no problem, but I'm concerned as I need to work with a lot more media for documentary stuff; could bog down.  

Also, anyone have an idea how the AMD Radeon R9 M395X graphics card with 4GB of GDDR5 vRAM is at pushing pixels across 3 monitors?  Seems like a lot to ask?

I'm running dual GTX 960 4GB paired with a i7-5820K with 32 gb of ram. Has played every compressed codec I've thrown at mostly in real time with a grade on it. I'm using a LG ultrawide 3440x1440 and I LOVE editing on it.

AMD Just announced the 480, low power, plenty of compute performance and 8gb of VRAM for $225. Comes out end of June. Get that and the best processor you can afford and you should be set.

I would not spend the extra dough on a mac unless you already edit in Final Cut Pro. It's great to be able to upgrade your own system now rather than buying a new computer every couple of years. Though some love the simplicity of a pre-built system.

[jgharding]

I can fully understand people wanting to use Macs, as you don't have to do much to make them work. FCP X is a great system, though of course it's not really native a lot of the time, but hat doesn't matter in practive. It's very fast for AVCHD now. The only issues is you'll probably need to upgrade Mac sooner it becomes underpowered more quickly.

I'm using an Alienware R15 2 laptop, and it's docked to a Graphics Amplifier with a Titan X when I'm at home. It has two M.2 SSDs and a hard disk in it. The five macro keys are bound to editing shortcuts I use regularly. They really are great editing machines, I happily edit Red Raw native with a grade on it.

With such a machine you're approaching the price of a Mac, but it is really bloody fast. OS X is undeniably a nicer OS, but Win10 is also very good now. I would use a Mac, but to get the kind of power listed I'd need to spend a vast amount of cash.
 

35 minutes ago, Geoff CB said:

I'm running dual GTX 960 4GB paired with a i7-5820K with 32 gb of ram. Has played every compressed codec I've thrown at mostly in real time with a grade on it. I'm using a LG ultrawide 3440x1440 and I LOVE editing on it.

Are you in Premiere? Do you see much benefit from SLI at all compare to a single 960? Have you tested? Just curious to see how SLI improves playback. SLI isn't an option for me, but I am interested.

[Justin Bacle]

1 hour ago, jgharding said:

Are you in Premiere? Do you see much benefit from SLI at all compare to a single 960? Have you tested? Just curious to see how SLI improves playback. SLI isn't an option for me, but I am interested.

Same here, I built my system around a motherboard with no SLI capabilities thinking that SLI is useless in premiere. Very interested too see if there are any improvements

[mercer]

I am not nearly as versed with the technical elements the other posters have displayed, but I have edited 4K ProRes files in FCPX in a 2014 MacBook Air with an i5 and 8gb Ram. It bogs down quickly, so that's why I would always convert it to 1080p before hand with EditReady. Not a perfect solution, but it works for the small projects I work on. My point being is that the iMac you're looking at should be more than powerful enough for the task... But I would still consider converting to ProRes if I were you. ClipWrap converts/rewraps avchd footage so lightning fast, and is only 30 bucks, it makes absolutely no sense not to convert it. 

[Xavier Plagaro Mussard]

I am digging Resolve to be able to leave Macs. You either buy the powerfulest iMac that will suit you great in FCP X and really good in Resolve. Or with half the money you buy an already assembled Dell/HP that will only run Resolve equally well or twice better once you add a GeForce 1080. 

About monitors, Dells seems to offer best bang for buck. 

[Mat Mayer]

iMacs are a joy to use. The screens are so amazing and everything works very slickly. You can pay a third for a Windows machine but that $4k iMac's specs sound fine, maybe just add some extra RAM yourself if it is a bit slow and read up on the benefits of switching the 2TB fusion drive for a 500GB SSD. If I wasn't a nomad I would 100% invest in the best iMac immediatley. I used to love using mine so much that I got far more work done compared to using a Windows machine. 

[xenogears]

I'm Mac/PC user, but I really don't like Imacs, if the form factor suite you take a look on this:

http://www.digitalstorm.com/aura.asp

34" screen, better specs (configurable) and reasonable price.

Or go for a used nMac Pro, it can be found online from $3000.

[sgreszcz]

1 hour ago, mercer said:

I am not nearly as versed with the technical elements the other posters have displayed, but I have edited 4K ProRes files in FCPX in a 2014 MacBook Air with an i5 and 8gb Ram. It bogs down quickly, so that's why I would always convert it to 1080p before hand with EditReady. 

I do a similar thing when editing 4k, but I keep the originals on a USB3 external laptop drive and have FCPX generate proxies so I can edit lighter (1080p) files on my laptop's filesystem.  When it is time to export I switch back to original media and export and then delete the proxies.

Although my 2012 Mackbook Pro 15" works fine with 4k without having to use proxies if I want - it's just that I'm running a bit low on disk space these days.

[The Chris]

If its a desktop, you can get a Mac Pro with a 4k monitor in the same price range. The 5k iMacs have a fan that I found annoying, if you're editing/rendering video or anything else that's processor intensive its on a lot. They also get really hot because there's so little space for air to move. You can get a 6-core with the dual 3gb graphics cards for $3400 from the refurb store. I have the same matching, bumped RAM to 64gb and it plows through everything. Plus you get more ports and its whisper quiet, it sits on my desk next to my monitor and I never hear it. 

 

[fuzzynormal]

4 hours ago, xenogears said:

http://www.digitalstorm.com/aura.asp

That does look interesting, and yeah, the form factor is impressive.  Still, not much info on the IQ of the monitor...And doesn't even ship until August, so it's a non-starter.

Ugh.  I like the idea of having a cheap PC I can just keep swapping components in and out as needed for upgrading, but my history of doing that back in the day really makes me uncomfortable.  Such a PITA when it doesn't work right or gets a little glitchy.

[Tarik Dobbs]

@fuzzynormal Have you considered building a Mac? I don't know if this is a stupid question, but I have always considered following tonymacx86's CustoMac Pro guide, and there's a new list of components he updates every month. Though I can't personally vouch for how reliable it might be, I've followed his stuff for a while. http://www.tonymacx86.com/buyersguide/may/2016

 

For May the specs for the pro are pretty solid for about $1,500 on Amazon:

• Crucial Ballistix Sport LT 64GB Kit (16GBx4) DDR4 2400

• Zalman CPU Cooler

• Intel Core I7-6700K 4.00 GHz

• Gigabyte LGA1151 Intel Z170 ATX EATX DDR4 Motherboard

• Corsair RM Series, RM650, 650 Watt (650W), Fully Modular Power Supply

• Corsair Carbide Series Black 300R Windowed Computer Case

• TP-LINK N900 Wireless Dual Band PCI Express Adapter

• Gigabyte GeForce GTX 950 Xtreme 2GB

 

[fuzzynormal]

39 minutes ago, Tarik Dobbs said:

@fuzzynormal Have you considered building a Mac?

I'm considering a lot of options, but I think it's just more practical at this time, with the project I have, to buy a nice sedan rather than building a hot rod, if you know what I mean.

[Tarik Dobbs]

1 minute ago, fuzzynormal said:

I'm considering a lot of options, but I think it's just more practical at this time, with the project I have, to buy a nice sedan rather than building a hot rod, if you know what I mean.

Yep, it could be pretty temperamental.

[Geoff CB]

22 hours ago, jgharding said:

 

Are you in Premiere? Do you see much benefit from SLI at all compare to a single 960? Have you tested? Just curious to see how SLI improves playback. SLI isn't an option for me, but I am interested.

Definitely effects playback and rendering with codecs that utilize GPU acceleration. For H265 files from my NX1 if I ad Film Convert I cannot playback in real time with edits with a single card, but it plays back smooth with two. Rendering h264 time drops by about ~1/3 with the second card so there are benefits.

Resolve runs way better with a second card and has full SLI support.

 

14 hours ago, Tarik Dobbs said:

@fuzzynormal Have you considered building a Mac? I don't know if this is a stupid question, but I have always considered following tonymacx86's CustoMac Pro guide, and there's a new list of components he updates every month. Though I can't personally vouch for how reliable it might be, I've followed his stuff for a while. http://www.tonymacx86.com/buyersguide/may/2016

 

For May the specs for the pro are pretty solid for about $1,500 on Amazon:

• Crucial Ballistix Sport LT 64GB Kit (16GBx4) DDR4 2400

• Zalman CPU Cooler

• Intel Core I7-6700K 4.00 GHz

• Gigabyte LGA1151 Intel Z170 ATX EATX DDR4 Motherboard

• Corsair RM Series, RM650, 650 Watt (650W), Fully Modular Power Supply

• Corsair Carbide Series Black 300R Windowed Computer Case

• TP-LINK N900 Wireless Dual Band PCI Express Adapter

• Gigabyte GeForce GTX 950 Xtreme 2GB

 

Updates to OS X can brick these systems, it's fine for someone who does office work that wants to use the mac interface but I HIGHLY do not recommend doing this for a setup you want working 100% of the time. I did it for about half a year and just got sick of maintaining the setup and just went fully PC.