Can you edit 4K 300Mbps footage stored on a NAS drive over WIFI?

[kye]

I currently edit video on my MBP laptop, with footage on the internal SSD, in various locations around the house, using the MBP display.  When I want to use a larger display I plug it into my UHD panel in my office.  To manage projects I copy footage to/from the internal SSD to my media archive spinning drives via USB.

I'm contemplating buying a Mac Mini for the office and moving to a multi-computer setup, where each computer can edit by accessing the Resolve project database and all the source footage on a NAS (Network Attached Storage).  The challenge would be that the MBP would be accessing the footage, which would be up to 300Mbps Long-GOP, from the NAS over WIFI, and I don't know if that's feasible.

Is WIFI (either 2.4GHz or 5GHz) fast enough for editing video like this?

Thanks.

[newfoundmass]

Accessing the data over wifi and transferring it to an SSD for editing would work, assuming you have a good router, but I think you'd run into issues if you just imported the files from your NAS and tried editing off it. You're not just limited by your wifi speeds but also your NAS drives speeds. You'd probably want to set up a wired home network for something like that, I think. 

[fuzzynormal]

So I gave network editing a try too.  However, A few years ago I couldn't get fast enough networking transfer speeds even when my computer was hard wired to my LAN.

I think it has something to do with networking data packets --and the hardware's ability to switch that data in/out fast enough.  So it's maybe not just about the raw numbers with throughput?  

Maybe some consumer hardware is more advanced these days?

I don't know, but (even if somewhat functional) I'd be skeptical of this being productive overall.

[Michael1]

You would need to transfer it to a local drive.  WiFi is not great at moving large files.  I would recommend hardwired Ethernet.

[kye]

5 hours ago, fuzzynormal said:

So I gave network editing a try too.  However, A few years ago I couldn't get fast enough networking transfer speeds even when my computer was hard wired to my LAN.

I think it has something to do with networking data packets --and the hardware's ability to switch that data in/out fast enough.  So it's maybe not just about the raw numbers with throughput?  

Maybe some consumer hardware is more advanced these days?

I don't know, but (even if somewhat functional) I'd be skeptical of this being productive overall.

The reason that I ask is that it's not easy to calculate.

Here's a summary from https://www.speedguide.net/faq/what-is-the-actual-real-life-speed-of-wireless-374

Quote

 

Below is a breakdown of the various 802.11 WiFi standards and their corresponding maximum speeds. Theoretical wireless speeds (combined upstream and downstream) are as follows:

802.11b - 11 Mbps (2.4GHz)
802.11a - 54 Mbps (5 GHz)
802.11g - 54 Mbps (2.4GHz)
802.11n - 600 Mbps (2.4GHz and 5 GHz) - 150Mbps typical for network adapters, 300Mbps, 450Mbps, and 600Mbps speeds when bonding channels with some routers
802.11ac - 1300+Mbps (5 GHz) - newer standard that uses wider channels, QAM and spatial streams for higher throughput

So in theory, with 802.11n and a fancy router (which I have thanks to my son who is into gaming), you could be getting multiple channels of 150Mbps.

However, the challenge comes in video editing that it's not just a straight throughput.

For an ALL-I codec, to render the first frame after a cut, this has to happen:

• your computer has to open the file from the NAS
• your computer has to read the file type and codec and understand the structure of the clip
• your computer has to request the part of the file that contains the first frame

Then your computer can decode that first frame.

For an IPB codec, to render the first frame after a cut, a lot more has to happen:

• your computer has to open the file from the NAS
• your computer has to read the file type and codec and understand the structure of the clip
• your computer has to find the part of the file that contains the nearest keyframe before the target frame
• your computer has to request the part of the file from the prior keyframe all the way to your target frame

Then your computer can decode the keyframe, then all the frames between it and the target frame.  Depending on the density of keyframes, the first frame after each edit point might actually require several seconds of video to be transferred, which will obviously cause a big lump of data to get in the way of smooth transferral of the stream.

So, basically, not really possible yet.

Wired ethernet can be commonly had at Gigabit speeds (1000Mbps), and higher, which suggests that the above might be possible if your files are a smaller percentage of that bandwidth, say, under 300Mbps.  But that doesn't help me edit in the lounge while my wife watches TV 😂😂😂

Thanks all.

[Matins 2]

First of all, 300 Mbps equals 37.5 MB/s, meaning that a 3 GB file takes 80 minutes to transfer.

[Matins 2]

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[Matins 2]

14 minutes ago, Matins 2 said:

First of all, 300 Mbps equals 37.5 MB/s, meaning that a 3 GB file takes 80 minutes to transfer.

Correction: ~1.3 minutes for a 3 GB file. I don't see how this can be done smoothly.

[fuzzynormal]

10 hours ago, kye said:

The reason that I ask is that it's not easy to calculate.

A work around is to do proxy editing with proxy files on your hard drive and keep the source file on your NAS.  You'll only access the source files when it comes time to render and the network access speed won't be a big issue for that process.

[kye]

15 hours ago, fuzzynormal said:

A work around is to do proxy editing with proxy files on your hard drive and keep the source file on your NAS.  You'll only access the source files when it comes time to render and the network access speed won't be a big issue for that process.

That's my current process, but I was thinking about switching.  I've started shooting 1080p ALL-I on my GH5 so they edit beautifully on my laptop, but the file sizes are actually larger so are definitely still prohibitive, especially as I'm working on multiple projects at once, plus the Mac Mini I'd get would be the M1 which should be able to handle the IPB stuff I've been shooting for years now.

If you have machines that can edit the native files then getting away from managing a proxy workflow, and not rendering proxies either, would be great.  With Resolve I approach editing in a much more integrated way, rather than the sequential approach of old.

For example, here's a few scenarios that I can't do while editing with proxies:

• if I'm selecting clips then I want to know if I missed focus on one
• I might also want to know if a clip can be stabilised sufficiently to rescue it
• or maybe I want to know if it can be stabilised over a particularly big bump, because if so then I'll include the shot for longer in the edit, which means I change the pacing of the edit and maybe include or drop other shots, so that effect would ripple through the edit (if you'll pardon the pun!)

Often people think of editing as a low-resolution activity and then colour grading as a higher resolution activity, but to my work, where often a lot of it is scenic and often a lot of it is being filmed under relatively difficult situations, the visual of the shot may well be borderline and knowing that impacts the creative process.

The alternative is just to have the Resolve database and footage on an enormous SSD, but it would cost many thousands of dollars to store all my active footage on SSDs, whereas for almost the same funds I could probably get a Mac Mini and a RAID controller to work with my spinning disks which would be fast enough with an SSD cache.  The bottleneck, of course, would be the wifi, which leads to this thread.....

[Yannick Willox]

The question is, how big are all your active projects ?

I have an internal U2 8tb drive, and two 2tb M2, and sometimes (rarely) it is not enough for all active projects. Then I move stuff around during the night. I can, because everything is on my NAS, and has double offline copies.

I can edit off my NAS with a standard 1 GB ethernet connection, but that is not something I want to do regularly, and certainly not with +3 multicam projects. 10 GB ethernet would probably work fine.

So, if your NAS is quick enough and has a 2,5 GB ethernet option, you could try that ?

However, a Samsung T5 2 TB is only 220 euro...

Another option could be a Qnap TB-464 with M2 drives, but that would still not be wireless.

IMO that is the biggest flaw of the new MBP - 8 TB is 2500 euro extra ! I bought my internal U2 drive for 850 euro. If Apple's pricing strategy wasn't based on gluttony, I would probably buy a MBP.

[Yannick Willox]

The newest MBP have WIfi 6, which should be quick enough. The problem would then be upgrading your NAS so it would actually get that speed and connect to a wifi6 access point.

[kye]

Not exactly sure how much footage I have, but I've almost filled my 12Tb drive and that doesn't have everything on it.  I think that's right anyway.

The problem is that I've shot a bunch of trips and events and I just want to pick up my laptop and think "I'll edit project X for a bit" and not want to wait an hour or more as it copies.  Plus I don't want to have to string a blue cable through the house just to edit.  My son did that for some time to improve his ping times for gaming, and let's just say it's not something that brings hope and good cheer to everyone!

It sounds like the tech just isn't quite mature yet.  I can wait.