Editing Station?

[raf702]

I have a late model 2012 IMac 27" with maxed out options paid around $3,500 usd.

As of today, now that I work with R3D Raw 4K files it chokes in Resolve 12+ and crashes every single time. Although my gpu is only 2gb and didn't have a 4gb option when I purchased it. Premiere Pro CC on the other hand seems to handle R3D files fine, since it hasn't crashed yet.

Looking at the the new IMacs now, I can get a custom PC built with better specs/speed for much less than a maxed out 27" iMac. 

So that's the route I'm taking custom PC. And run Premiere Pro CC/Resolve-12+

More bang for your buck at the end of the day with a PC I believe. You should look into a custom PC, and make your comparisons.

[fuzzynormal]

2 hours ago, raf702 said:

So that's the route I'm taking custom PC. And run Premiere Pro CC/Resolve-12+

Is that something you've done, or are doing in the future?  I'd like to hear your testimony regarding a Resolve/PC system.  I've read mixed reviews online regarding stability with Resolve12 on a Windows PC.  

With so many individuals doing custom builds of PC's it's hard to discern if it's a goofy computer problem because someone assembled cheap PC components in a strange way, or the fact that Resolve isn't as stable as it should/could be on Windows.

I just want to get something up and running and then forget about it.  Just have it do the job, you know?

At the very least, I know if Resolve poops out on the Mac I can fall back to FCPX and have a stable way forward.

More important than the expense is the ability to work without issue.  Not only do I need the time to focus on editing, I truly don't want to be trouble shooting computer components anymore, I did enough of that back in the day.  So, the "turnkey" viability of something (PC or a Mac) is super important.

Maybe the better question to my original post should be this:  If any of you have 4-$4.5K to buy and run a relatively glitch free Resolve editing system with 3 monitors, what would be your recommended *works-right-out-of-the-box-stably-system?

( *understood that I would nuke the pre-installed system files and do a clean re-install of the OS )

[Liam]

Yeah, Dave Dugdale was just saying avchd audio doesn't work well at all in resolve on a pc, right? You have to like rewrap it? Maybe that was fixed already, don't know.

Depending on what you need, if you were looking at resolve mostly just because it's the free option, hitfilm express is pretty impressive. You have to buy the ability to use curves and luts and avchd files, but I think that makes it $28, so. That's all I needed add, but there are other packs to purchase.. maybe it would add up eventually or it's more limited than I realize, being an amateur, but I find it really nice and premiere like with stabilization etc, and would run smoother on a dirt cheap machine than resolve easily. Not that you were really looking for advice there

[raf702]

8 hours ago, fuzzynormal said:

Is that something you've done, or are doing in the future?  I'd like to hear your testimony regarding a Resolve/PC system.  I've read mixed reviews online regarding stability with Resolve12 on a Windows PC.  

With so many individuals doing custom builds of PC's it's hard to discern if it's a goofy computer problem because someone assembled cheap PC components in a strange way, or the fact that Resolve isn't as stable as it should/could be on Windows.

I just want to get something up and running and then forget about it.  Just have it do the job, you know?

At the very least, I know if Resolve poops out on the Mac I can fall back to FCPX and have a stable way forward.

More important than the expense is the ability to work without issue.  Not only do I need the time to focus on editing, I truly don't want to be trouble shooting computer components anymore, I did enough of that back in the day.  So, the "turnkey" viability of something (PC or a Mac) is super important.

Maybe the better question to my original post should be this:  If any of you have 4-$4.5K to buy and run a relatively glitch free Resolve editing system with 3 monitors, what would be your recommended *works-right-out-of-the-box-stably-system?

( *understood that I would nuke the pre-installed system files and do a clean re-install of the OS )

I haven't tried Resolve-12+ on a PC yet. I'm literally moments from ordering my custom PC build. Currently my IMac crashes with Resolve 12.3 and 12.5, due to having only a 2GB gpu. It doesn't help that I'm editing 4K R3D Raw files. 

If Resolve gives me issues on the new PC, I still have Premiere Pro as my secondary NLE.

I think Resolve-12 was built mainly for Apple. Seems to work best with sufficient specs of course. 

Fcpx-10 on the other hand is great and stable. But does have its limitations, I just happened to move over to Resolve.

I came from Sony Vegas Pro 9-11 on PC and that was like my bread and butter awesome NLE and super reliable. It did miss a few things I wish it had but worked around it. But hopefully the new company that bought it from Sony will revamp it with more and better features.

If you can find a reliable and reputable computer builder you should be in good hands with a turn key problem free PC.

Hands down a custom PC with a $4-5k budget, I wouldn't be able to get the specs I want from a custom Mac Pro unless I paid nearly double a custom PC budget.

[The Chris]

Fuzzy, I think you have to decide PC or Mac.

Personally, got tired of updating drivers and dealing with the Adobe bugs while my 2009 MacBook Pro just kept chugging along without major issues. I threw in the towel went all in with Apple when I bought my Mac Pro last year. Everything just works, don't care if I paid way more than a larger, more power hungry and noisier PC, my time is valuable and I'm done wasting it with nonsense like trying to figure out why a CC update suddenly kills the audio in Premiere and Audition. The fact that all of the vital components of a PC are a mishmash from different companies with drivers that try (and don't always succeed) to mesh with the OS and everything else as opposed to a closed system is worth it for me. FCPx is much faster than Premiere too.

I'm done with windows myself, and I've never been happier with my editing station. The only disappointment is Apple whacking Aperture, it was so much better and faster than Lightroom, which sadly is still faster and more powerful than the alternatives. Once I can dump LR, I'll be Adobe free too. 

[fuzzynormal]

41 minutes ago, The Chris said:

Fuzzy, I think you have to decide PC or Mac.

Indeed.  At the moment I'm waffling mightily.  While I think that an iMac system would be nice and easy, when I price out what you can do with a PC system, it's just bonkers price-to-performance (on paper).

If I wasn't burned so many times in the past with Microsofts OS', I think I'd be more "gung-ho!" to give Resolve on Windows a shot.

For instance:

The HP z820 can be had for 2K.  It includes Dual Intel Xeon Six Core Processors E5-2640 @2.5GHz, 128GB RAM, and the graphic card is NVIDIA Quadro 4000 2GB PCI Express.  I think I'd also like to add the new GTX1080 and have 3 Dell UltraSharp U2515H 25-Inch monitors.

That's 2k for the PC + $700 for the extra GTX1080 card + $370 + $370 + $370

So, is it fair to assume this would be a very robust and stable system to effectively handle Resolve, edit 25 minute docs shot in the mp4 4k format, and run the 3 monitors?

This set-up would still be cheaper than an iMac system running 3 monitors, and arguably much faster.

But what about stability?  Does Resolve crash often on Windows or has it proven to be rock solid?  Don't know yet, still trying to suss it out.  Plus, if I go PC, then I don't have the FCPX safety net to fall back on if Resolve has any issues.

I don't know what to think of Adobe these days.  I've used Premiere a bit but it just feels clunky.

[jonpais]

On June 8, 2016 at 9:36 AM, Zach Goodwin said:

That comment that got attention appeared as you were mocking me, I'm sorry it did to me.

 

My brother works at Best Buy and is usually the salesman at the computers section. Do I need to take a picture of a uniform without his permission or something just to prove sanity, because what I said appeared blatant?

 

It relates to the context, because Fuzzy prefered Macs and is worried about what Mac to get or what computer to get so going by my brother's advice I told him directly there is no worry when it comes to the new Macs possibly because of the new processing power that I tried to mention. Won't make the same mistake, but you would not like it if I acted like that to your comments?

 

I may just be paranoid, but usually someone who I am with who talks like that is making a snide sarcastic remark.

 

That comment read in tone to me: "IDIOT YOU DON'T GO TO YOUR SIBLING FOR A SOURCE! I'M MOD YOU ARE NOT SO I GET TO TALK TO YOU LIKE THAT!"

 

If you reread it in that perspective it is patronizing.

Sorry Zach, but a salesman at Best Buy hardly qualifies as an authority I would trust when it comes to purchasing any electronics. And this is in no way meant to disparage your brother.

[Edit] Actually, your brother's comment that any new Mac would do is exactly the type of nonsense I would expect to hear from a salesperson at Best Buy. 

[fuzzynormal]

Here's a decent argument for PC:

https://youtu.be/7rkZTTRdiWA

Also, another wrinkle is that I'd like to have a system for the assistant editor to work on simultaneously.  The cost of 2 modest PC's that'll handle 4K, vs. the cost of 2 high-end iMacs that'll handle 4K... well, the number between the 2 systems really starts to get, let's say, "unfortunate."

On the other hand, I really like OS X, the FCPX option, and ProRes.  But, I don't know if those "likes" are worth +$3.5K.  As much as I am loathe to admit it, unless yore editing with FCPX, I think the Apple products are not terribly competitive at the moment.

Of course, this assumes that a home-built PC will be as stable as a Mac system.  That's still the wild card I can't figure out yet.

[jhnkng]

Just thought I'd throw in my 2 cents.

A couple of years ago (can't remember when, it was around when Resolve 10 came out) I built a bang for buck PC for my workstation. For context I'm a photographer who also shoots video, so I wasn't out to build a full on editing/grading powerhouse, just one that let me edit and grade 4K material from a GH4 for 1080 delivery. I'm also a Mac guy through and through, though as a kid I built PCs for gaming so I know the ins and outs of building PCs. 

I spent about $1800 AUD in total, and went with an i7-4770, 16gb RAM, an nVidia GTX770 card with 4gb video RAM, an SSD as a system drive and a 3x 2TB RAID 0 array for storage. I also had a 4TB drive running as a backup using File History (hourly backups kinda like Time Machine, more on this later.)

I'm happy to say that hardware wise it has been rock solid, it's still more than fast enough for my purposes running the latest Premiere Pro and Resolve 12.5. Where it's less stable is in the software. I don't know if it's Windows, or just that Windows apps are less stable than their Mac counterparts, but weird niggles seem to come up more often than on my macs. Windows itself has come a long way and it's perfectly fine to use, I never see the whole OS go down in flames, but I do find myself restarting more often because of some weird thing with one program or my Wacom would stop working. I've never lost any work though, and I've been just as productive on Windows as on OSX. 

A few things to note though:

- I run my PC off the internet pretty much all the time, only putting it online when I need to update stuff or access Dropbox. I (now) never ever access the web with it -- the last time I did I somehow got some spamming virus that injected ads into every web page I went to, and that took half a day to clean out. I still run antivirus software, which is universally an awful experience. 

- File History is not as robust as Time Machine, if your file name has characters not supported by Windows, or the file path is too long, it won't back it up. It won't even tell you it didn't back it up, it'll just put an entry in the log and that's that. Totally idiotic. But it seems that the only trouble mine has is with the default apps that was downloaded through the Windows Store, so it hasn't affected me. Still, one more thing to worry about. But I always keep a master backup of all my work elsewhere, so this doesn't worry me much. 

- There are some weird inconsistencies in software features in both Premiere and Resolve. Resolve Windows doesn't support MP3s, and has no audio plugins at all, while on the Mac it uses the Core Audio effects built into every mac. And Premiere doesn't currently read Prores without Quicktime, and QuickTime is now discontinued with a massive security hole, so if you need Prores you're outta luck on Windows. Native Prores support is coming soon apparently.

Overall though I'm happy to have built my workstation, it saved me a ton of cash at the beginning and have worked very well thus far. Obviously Your Mileage May Vary, etc etc. If money wasn't an issue I'd probably go with a 5K iMac, but it's $5600 Australian for a spec'ed up version, and then you'd need to get some kind of external storage array to work off (at least another $1000 for something thunderbolt and fast). For that kind of money you can build a 6 core i7, maybe even an 8 core i7. The new GTX10XX series are so powerful that for balance you’re better off adding extra CPU cores with your money than to go SLI (from memory the free version of Resolve only supports 1 GPU only anyway).

On the other hand, I was just overseas shooting a personal project on the BMMCC and I only had my 2 year old 13in MBP with me, and I managed to come home with a rough assembly just off the MBP. I was shooting Prores which played just fine but it dropped to 12fps with LUT applied, so I used EditReady to transcode to ProRes proxy with a LUT applied and edited off that. Worked a treat, and EditReady did the transcode overnight like a champ. It was a workaround to be sure, but it worked pretty darn well.

[Justin Bacle]

On 6/9/2016 at 6:26 PM, fuzzynormal said:

On the other hand, I really like OS X, the FCPX option, and ProRes.  But, I don't know if those "likes" are worth +$3.5K.  As much as I am loathe to admit it, unless yore editing with FCPX, I think the Apple products are not terribly competitive at the moment.

I remember seing that adobe is working for a native implementation of ProRes in the creative suite. This would make ProRes editing miles better on Windows.

However, Avid's DNxHD is a better option IMO (for anyone using Windows).

[fuzzynormal]

4 hours ago, jhnkng said:

Just thought I'd throw in my 2 cents.

 

Wonderful insight. Thanks!

[Chris Bernard]

Maybe checkout Maingear and their Quantum Shift X99 line. https://www.maingear.com/ Probably the best custom built PCs you can buy if you don't want to build.

 

[fuzzynormal]

2 hours ago, Chris Bernard said:

Maybe checkout Maingear and their Quantum Shift X99 line. https://www.maingear.com/ Probably the best custom built PCs you can buy if you don't want to build.

 

Since I need to have two edit stations, I just can't afford two well-spec'd Macs.  Sorry Apple.  Gotta go.  I know you won't miss me, but I'll miss you.  Time to assemble...

[Phil A]

So a month has passed and I'm curious what you came up with. I used to work with my 2012 Windows machine with i5 CPU but upgraded my whole setup last week.

i7 5930k at 4.5 Ghz (liquid cooled)
AMD R9 390 8GB
32GB DDR4-2400 RAM
Bunch of Samsung 850 Pro SSDs

I also took the jump and got a Blackmagic Intensity Pro 4k so I can finally monitor full screen in Davinci Resolve. GUI is on a calibrated Dell u2711 and an iPad Pro 9.7" via Duet Display, grading output on a Panasonic Viera 42" FullHD Plasma.

I know that BMD say you can't/shouldn't rely on the GUI for grading but even now with the external screen (I know, it's not a reference monitor) I struggle a bit with the workflow. I only create content for the web (YouTube, Instagram) but it's annoying with all the color and gamma shifts you get at the different points, especially when using Quicktime based codecs on a windows platform so I'm looking to change my export format.

I've now configured my TV to look as close to the iPad screen as I could as I guess most watching is on some Apple device or a generic computer screen (which could mean anything). It's easier with pictures, you just develop on a calibrated monitor which has 100% sRGB and then pray that who ever looks at them online uses a browser that considers color profiles.

[Kurtisso]

Hackintosh anyone?

http://lifehacker.com/the-always-up-to-date-guide-to-building-a-hackintosh-o-5841604

Cheap build like a PC, but osx and run all your fav mac stuff on there. 

[AaronChicago]

I'm surprised with trends in popularity that a startup company hasn't launched a 3rd option over PC/Mac, and Android/iOS. I know there is Linux and Blackberry etc, but I mean a full hardware/software company. I'm guessing that is what Xiaomi is trying to do hardware wise? It must be hard as hell to write operating systems.

[Geoff CB]

2 hours ago, Kurtisso said:

Hackintosh anyone?

http://lifehacker.com/the-always-up-to-date-guide-to-building-a-hackintosh-o-5841604

Cheap build like a PC, but osx and run all your fav mac stuff on there. 

...and more unstable than either of the standard options. I did this for awhile until an OSX update made my sound card stop working, with the only fix being a hardware update. 

[fuzzynormal]

On July 20, 2016 at 8:11 AM, Phil A said:

So a month has passed and I'm curious what you came up with. I used to work with my 2012 Windows machine with i5 CPU but upgraded my whole setup last week.

PC: i7 6700 3.4 GHz. 32GB ram, GPU GTX1080.  Premiere 2015.3.  I also downloaded Resolve for any in-depth color work.

Tried to make the editing work on Resolve, but it couldn't meet the demands of what I needed for my doc work.  "Optimized" (aka in-app proxy creation) editing was flaky and incredibly unreliable with long GOP footage.  And Resolve couldn't handle real time editing with native h.264 files.

Premiere is...okay.  It behaves pretty close to FCP7, so that makes things relatively painless.  It cuts through h.264 4K without issue and if I need it the proxy workflow has been solid.  Seems a bit bloated and unintuitive in places, but nothing that's a deal breaker.

My wife is also doing assistant editing so I'll soon put together a less "juicy" PC build for her.  Ultimately we'll be NAS editing between the two PC's.  All in all I'm comfortable where things are at.  Spent a good chunk of change, but not a ton, so that's good.  I don't really like Win10, but it's not horrible.

[Kurtisso]

2 hours ago, Geoff CB said:

...and more unstable than either of the standard options. I did this for awhile until an OSX update made my sound card stop working, with the only fix being a hardware update. 

Good to know. It must be pretty difficult to troubleshoot too. Can't just hand it over at the "Genius Bar" 

Do you have any experience with running OSX in a virtual machine on PC? I've run Windows in a virtual machine on OSX a bit before but that was buggy as hell.

[Liam]

3 hours ago, AaronChicago said:

I'm surprised with trends in popularity that a startup company hasn't launched a 3rd option over PC/Mac, and Android/iOS. I know there is Linux and Blackberry etc, but I mean a full hardware/software company. I'm guessing that is what Xiaomi is trying to do hardware wise? It must be hard as hell to write operating systems.

For the really simple stuff, chromebooks are awesome. Kinda funny how even Windows couldn't compete at all with their phones.