PC upgrade for native h265 editing

[Stab]

Hi guys. I'm looking at upgrading my PC.

I'm considering the Ryzen 5900x and 5950x at the moment. It would be paired with 64 GB of ram @ 3200mhz. My current GPU is a 1070ti and because of the low supply of current gen GPUs that will probably go back in there as well. Does anyone of you have experience with these CPU's with Adobe Premiere on Windows and the h.265 files from the S5 / S1H?

I'm a wedding videographer and will only shoot in 4k 50 fps 10-bit 4:2:0 h265 codec from this season onwards. If there will be any season 🙂
Transcoding is not an option for me and I would really like to stick to Premiere (on Windows), which I know both are not 'optimal'.

But I figured, one of these high end CPU's might do the trick. So, how is the timeline playback performance? Are there any dropped frames? What about 2 or 3 video tracks stacked on top of each other? And with some color grading and scaling?

Anyone that has experience with this or a similar setup? Or maybe h265 files from the a7s3 or R5? Which are 4:2:2 I believe as opposed to 4:2:0, I don't know how much of a difference that makes.

Thanks!

[Emanuel]

You're only able to freely succeed dealing with 4:2:2 H.265 files on new M1 non-Windows architecture for now. No hassles for 4:2:0 from a powerful PC CPU-based on Premiere, GPU-based on Resolve, though.

[Stab]

Right, so you think that for 4:2:2 a M1 is necesarry. But for h265 4:2:0 a powerful CPU (such as a 5900x?) might be enough on  Premiere?

Couldn't quite figure out what you meant to say.

[Emanuel]

Exactly as you said : ) Properly spec'd, obviously :- )

[fuzzynormal]

So I'm a big proponent of proxy editing and use it on huge documentary edits. You say transcoding isn't part of your desired workflow.  Any particular reason why you're dismissing this option and giving yourself a cheap and easy way to cut?

[EphraimP]

I've been running a machine with a similar spec for a year or so, 3950X with 64G ram and a card upgrade to a 2080 Super. No experience with the S5/S1H though. I do edit H.265 files from an M2P and H.265 files from X-T3s and T4s, which are both 10-bit 420. Doing simple edits to a few clips is fine, but I find the machine gets cranky if I am really layering the H.265 files and doing color grades plus heavy effects live warp stabilizing. I agree with @fuzzynormal that proxy editing is the way to go. It's pretty simple and quick to load your batch of files into your Premiere project and then batch create proxies. If storage is an issue, you can trash all the proxies when you finish a project and just remake them if you use the footage again at a later date.

[Emanuel]

Yup, proxies lifesaver is a good way to have the job done in a way or another :- )

[zerocool22]

12 hours ago, fuzzynormal said:

So I'm a big proponent of proxy editing and use it on huge documentary edits. You say transcoding isn't part of your desired workflow.  Any particular reason why you're dismissing this option and giving yourself a cheap and easy way to cut?

For long documentary edits it might work, but if you got 4 hours to edit a video its a waste of time that uou dont have. Which is the common time amount over here for cheap 1k corporate videos over here. (Other half day is the shoot itself)

[MrSMW]

When I was using my XT3 which my PC and Premiere hated, I 'simply' auto batch converted all the footage to Pro Res overnight, ie, didn't take me any time other than perhaps 1 minute to set it up.

That way, as soon as I was ready, the next day or whenever, I could just get on with the job.

No problems with the equivalent footage from my S5 however, ie, no conversion needed.

I do need to get myself a laptop for next year as I will be working on the road quite a bit so looking at something M1 as it seems just the ticket.

[Stab]

4 hours ago, MrSMW said:

When I was using my XT3 which my PC and Premiere hated, I 'simply' auto batch converted all the footage to Pro Res overnight, ie, didn't take me any time other than perhaps 1 minute to set it up.

That way, as soon as I was ready, the next day or whenever, I could just get on with the job.

No problems with the equivalent footage from my S5 however, ie, no conversion needed.

I do need to get myself a laptop for next year as I will be working on the road quite a bit so looking at something M1 as it seems just the ticket.

Hmm maybe the bitrate is higher on the xt3? 

And do you shoot h264 or h265 on the s5? And which cpu have you got? 

[MrSMW]

Intel i7 6700 K 4GHz, 16 GB RAM

Shooting S5 4k 50p 420 LGOP 200 Mbps

Was shooting XT3 4k 50p 420 LGOP 200 Mbps

Both h.265 I think...?

[Emanuel]

40 minutes ago, Stab said:

Hmm maybe the bitrate is higher on the xt3?

Yeah, bitrate will truly have an impact on the performance of your machine. The same for H.264 files as for instance.

[TomTheDP]

All-i vs LONG GOP makes a big difference too with H265.

[Video Hummus]

I'm really excited for M1X or M2 powered Macs, especially a refreshed future Mac Mini. As far as video editing is concerned, the MBP 13" just eats H265 without breaking a sweat...on battery power for 3+ hours with 20% battery remaining.

The performance (video editing) is amazing, but the power efficiency is what really impresses me the most and what really makes the new M1 powered Macs impressive. I have an Anker USB-C PD battery bank that can output 30W charging, adds 94Whr on top of 58Whr internal battery in the MPB, and could probably power this laptop for over a week or more, even with some video editing sessions. Which might be handy for people that might be off grid or traveling where mains power is either spotty or non-existent. 

I can't speak for Premiere Pro but in FCPX I have background rendering turned off and viewer set to Better Quality. I can throw in 4K H265 10-bit 4:2:2 at 480Mbps ALL-I (from R5), apply the Canon Rec709 WideDR LUT and even Image stabilization and play back with no dropped frames. Everything cuts and slices and moves around the timeline without any hiccups. Its so so nice.

PC will get there and probably surpass performance but probably not power efficiency. So exciting times for Mac laptops in any case.

 

[fuzzynormal]

22 hours ago, zerocool22 said:

For long documentary edits it might work, but if you got 4 hours to edit a video its a waste of time that uou dont have. Which is the common time amount over here for cheap 1k corporate videos over here. (Other half day is the shoot itself)

OP is doing weddings. Probably not a 24hr turnaround. 

but, yeah, I’m still kind of curious as to why they’d want to go with cutting edge hardware when proxies would help immediately for no extra costs...but if that’s what he/she wants, nothing’s wrong with that. 

[arson519]

i have 5900x 2060 64gb of ram

i have S1 playback on timeline is no problem. i can even color grade while play back in Realtime same with my Mavic 2 drone footage which my old pc had a tough time playing on timeline. Never tried stacking footage but I'm sure it can handle it 

[Lux Shots]

On 2/19/2021 at 5:35 AM, Stab said:

Hi guys. I'm looking at upgrading my PC.

I'm considering the Ryzen 5900x and 5950x at the moment. It would be paired with 64 GB of ram @ 3200mhz. My current GPU is a 1070ti and because of the low supply of current gen GPUs that will probably go back in there as well. Does anyone of you have experience with these CPU's with Adobe Premiere on Windows and the h.265 files from the S5 / S1H?

I'm a wedding videographer and will only shoot in 4k 50 fps 10-bit 4:2:0 h265 codec from this season onwards. If there will be any season 🙂
Transcoding is not an option for me and I would really like to stick to Premiere (on Windows), which I know both are not 'optimal'.

But I figured, one of these high end CPU's might do the trick. So, how is the timeline playback performance? Are there any dropped frames? What about 2 or 3 video tracks stacked on top of each other? And with some color grading and scaling?

Anyone that has experience with this or a similar setup? Or maybe h265 files from the a7s3 or R5? Which are 4:2:2 I believe as opposed to 4:2:0, I don't know how much of a difference that makes.

Thanks!

Hello!

I exclusively use Premiere Pro and run with 32GB of Ram with a Ryzen 1700X with the Vega Frontier Edition 16GB Video Card, and I edit 5.9K H.265 from my S1H, albeit at the minimum reduced resolution. The performance is not optimal, as there are tons of dropped frames, but I also edit video straight off of my NAS drive over a 10GB SPF+ connection. If I copy a project locally onto my SATA drive, performance improves quite a bit. I also get a big performance boost if I have only 4K 60p footage.

Here is a screenshot of my typical sequence, which I consider moderate complexity.

I would have thrown in a 5900X or 5950X by now, but my motherboard doesn't currently support it 😞.

[Davide DB]

On 2/19/2021 at 11:35 AM, Stab said:

I'm a wedding videographer and will only shoot in 4k 50 fps 10-bit 4:2:0 h265 codec from this season onwards. If there will be any season 🙂
Transcoding is not an option for me and I would really like to stick to Premiere (on Windows), which I know both are not 'optimal'.

Have you ever considered switch to Edius?

Probably it's the most used NLE from wedding videographers for its speed.  With your PC specs it will literally flies. It can even create proxes on the fly or setting lower resolution to speed up editing.

[Lux Shots]

21 hours ago, Davide DB said:

Have you ever considered switch to Edius?

Probably it's the most used NLE from wedding videographers for its speed.  With your PC specs it will literally flies. It can even create proxes on the fly or setting lower resolution to speed up editing.

Once you get into the Adobe Ecosystem, it's hard to leave. Whether it's for application specific plug-ins, like noise reduction or it's seamless integration with Audition and After Effects, switching is a bitch. At least I don't have the ability to do it, without a large time investment which runs against said productivity gains.