Editing Issue. Please help. Nothing works!

[Cam Chorley]

Hi Guys,

I’m pretty new here so I apologise if this has been posted before.

I recently to the plunge to further my droning and bought a Mavic 2 Pro. I’m extremely impressed with it and the high end footage it is giving me compared to my previous drone.

However, i have a clean 2011 iMac running High Sierra. It has a lot of free storage as I recently did a clean. It also only has three third party applications installed.

I installed DaVinci Resolve and it started a bit slow but otherwise normal. However, when I drop a video in, the program becomes extremely slow and laggy. It’s literally not usable as it’s so jumpy and slow. This happens with any footage and not just 4K unless I bring the quality down way below 720P. This doesn’t seem normal.

I have also followed a few tips from online to try and speed it up such as lowering the optimised media quality but to no avail.

So my question to you guys is, what editing software should I used and do you think my iMac is not coping due to age rather than the storage and graphics card?

I want to get the most out of my footage but before buying the Mavic I didn’t even think about whether my iMac was capable of processing the larger files.

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[steve_lyt]

you need to edit it and then render it. under the delivery tab

 

[Cam Chorley]

you need to edit it and then render it. under the delivery tab

If I do it this way will it process faster and will my iMac cope a lot better?

 

[steve_lyt]

depends on the processor , devinci need a lot of memory and a fast processor to work faster, my editing pc has a xeon 6 core and 32 gig of ram.

 

[Not A Speck Of Cereal]

You really need a newer computer.

But until then, you can edit by proxy, which means transcoding your 4K source files down to something that is usable in Resolve, which means using Resolves 'optimize media' function.

That will produce a small rez copy of your large source file so you can edit it in resolve and see your results on the timeline (before rendering -- If you always have to render to see your work, then you're working blind).

Here's a couple of articles on the subject:

Quick Tip: How To Use Optimized Media In DaVinci Resolve

Is your machine struggling to play back media in DaVinci Resolve at the correct frame rate? If so, you may need to use optimized media.

www.premiumbeat.com

Three Tips to Boost DaVinci Resolve Performance | CineD

Davinci Resolve 12 is the most powerful version yet of the industry's most loved finishing tool. It also has a greedy appetite for GPU power and other system resources. Thankfully there are some clever tools built in to make sure you can still get the job done when Resolve starts to slow down.

www.cinema5d.com

Then when you have everything edited to your satisfaction, you can render it (on the Delivery tab). Go ahead and use some of the presets that not only lowers the resolution, but also uses a suitable compression for the target medium.

On the other hand, you may not be interested in editing: just use resolve to render the file down in that case (don't bother with optimizing the media).

HOWEVER, if you're getting poor playback results even with 720, this points to a slow machine.

Another thing: don't shoot h.265 (until you get a stronger computer). That compression requires the most processing on editing/playback.

Chris

 

[FoxhallGH]

Just a thought - Does the Mav 2 Pro default to using the H.265 codec when recording video?? If so, you might find that your Mac is better at 'crunching' video files that have been recorded using the H.264 codec. This has been an ongoing hardware issue with older PC's ...

 

[Desertjock]

Hi Cam,
If it's any consolation, I have a 2009 imac, 8 gig Ram and just bought Mavic 2 Pro three months ago. Trying to put video on it is a complete waste of time!! I wouldn't even think about editing it!! It just doesn't play properly!! Juddery and horrible. The company gives me an ipad pro, about three years old and that plays just fine but I don't edit much on it!! I'm thinking of treating myself to a new iMac desktop, with just the 8 Gig of Ram and then putting in 24 Ram myself in the slots at the back. (far cheaper) to make it upi to 32Gig Ram. Hopefully, that will solve the problems with dealing with 4K Video. God knows why we're going onto 8K video, I don't think the human eye will be able to tell the difference!! Personal opinion of course at my age!!
Good luck!!

 

[Hegemone]

With an older computer and 4K video, you really should be editing with lower resolution proxy files. I don't know about DaVinci but this is built into Adobe Premiere CC. You set up ingest settings and any time you drag a video from the Media Browser tab into your project tab a lower res file is created that the edits like butter in the previews. When you render your timeline the original high res files are used to create the final.

With more and more people (think "influencers") editing HiRes on portable and underpowered machines Adobe had to make sure they included a workflow that allows mobility. I would google Proxy Workflow DaVinci Resolve to see if it's too hard to set up. (Here is a BlackMagic forum post I found with a quick search.)

I never had good luck with Resolv on my Surface Pro 6 (super unstable and the "optimize media" just didn't do it for me) but Adobe products have been super stable and easy. Before anyone chimes in, Resolv is fine and one isn't better than the other, it's just my preference and experience so hold the comments calling me a fanboy for some other thread.

 

[steve_lyt]

divinci requires a really good spec pc or mac to run effectivly , my spec is a xeon 6 core processor and 32 gig of ram , using ssd drives

 

[Not A Speck Of Cereal]

As long as we're listing specs: a good video card, one with at least 6-8GB graphics memory, with a GPU on it that is designed to process h.265 / HEVC (like a GPU in the Pascal architecture class).

I have a Pascal GPU video card, but it only has 4GB. I wish it had at least twice that much, so I'm saving up.

As Steve mentions, the CPU is important as well, at least an I9/9th gen. And as much system memory as you can afford (the computer I'm typing on now has 64GB). Someone said 8GB in a comment above -- I wouldn't even want to run Photoshop on that little of memory.

Chris

 

[FoxhallGH]

With an older computer and 4K video, you really should be editing with lower resolution proxy files. I don't know about DaVinci but this is built into Adobe Premiere CC. You set up ingest settings and any time you drag a video from the Media Browser tab into your project tab a lower res file is created that the edits like butter in the previews. When you render your timeline the original high res files are used to create the final.

I use 'Wondershare Filmora 9' and it also allows the use of the lower resolution proxy files. It's not as full-featured as DaVinci and Adobe, but certainly does a lot without seeming to hammer my PC's processing power, and at a very reasonable license cost.

 

[Marty Markoe]

As long as we're listing specs: a good video card, one with at least 6-8GB graphics memory, with a GPU on it that is designed to process h.265 / HEVC (like a GPU in the Pascal architecture class).

This is the answer. I built my PC in 2012 with 16 GB RAM, the fastest Intel CPU, and an on board graphics chip. It was near impossible to edit video. After adding a Radeon RX 580 card video editing was seamless.

 

[Garilla]

Hi there had exactly the same issue with Resolve and this is how I fixed it buy optimizing media first, my pc is about 4 years old and I'm using H.265 as a source file...

The first step in improving your Resolve playback performance is to change the optimized media and render cache settings. To do this, go to your Settings panel. Under the Master Settings Tab, look for the section labeled Optimized Media and Render Cache.

All media becomes buttery smooth to use when you do this.

 

[timgangloff]

Hi Guys,

I’m pretty new here so I apologise if this has been posted before.

I recently to the plunge to further my droning and bought a Mavic 2 Pro. I’m extremely impressed with it and the high end footage it is giving me compared to my previous drone.

However, i have a clean 2011 iMac running High Sierra. It has a lot of free storage as I recently did a clean. It also only has three third party applications installed.

I installed DaVinci Resolve and it started a bit slow but otherwise normal. However, when I drop a video in, the program becomes extremely slow and laggy. It’s literally not usable as it’s so jumpy and slow. This happens with any footage and not just 4K unless I bring the quality down way below 720P. This doesn’t seem normal.

I have also followed a few tips from online to try and speed it up such as lowering the optimised media quality but to no avail.

So my question to you guys is, what editing software should I used and do you think my iMac is not coping due to age rather than the storage and graphics card?

I want to get the most out of my footage but before buying the Mavic I didn’t even think about whether my iMac was capable of processing the larger files.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Your computer will struggle. It's ancient for 4k video. Watch some YouTube videos on using proxy's, but even then I'm guessing your computer won't be able to handle 4k. It's just 4k is extremely taxing on even new computers. And that is one reason proxy's were created. My good 2015 MacBook struggles. I use my powerful desktop PC for video processing.

 

[Thomas B]

It is an 11y/o iMac with an old OS.
Forget 265.
While your saving for a new computer try iMovie. The native app may work better for you.

 

[paulatkin73]

drop mac. for davinci resolve to work fast you need to get a PC, not mac. build it on the AMD 3900x cpu and RX 5700XT card. to make Resolve to use your video card resources for rendering you need to use paid version of the resolve - it opens card supported renders modes and will produce video in minutes instead of hours.

learn how to use optimized media, of course, it is a must.

 

[Thomas B]

drop mac. for davinci resolve to work fast you need to get a PC, not mac. build it on the AMD 3900x cpu and RX 5700XT card. to make Resolve to use your video card resources for rendering you need to use paid version of the resolve - it opens card supported renders modes and will produce video in minutes instead of hours.

learn how to use optimized media, of course, it is a must.

Both apps work quickly and just fine for me on IMac. Use the OS you’re most comfortable with is my advice.

 

[scdronemedia]

I had the same issue with H265 on my old laptop. H264 ran slowly but H265 took 15 minutes to stutter through a one minute video.

I upgraded to an HP Omen with i7-9750H CPU, 16Gb RAM and a GeForce RTX 2070 graphics on board it it now runs like a dream. Also, in lightroom, a 45 shot HDR Pano renders in about 20 seconds (as opposed to an hour on my old laptop!!).