Mavic 2 Pro Laptop Requirements

[AussieDenis]

Hi Everyone.....i'm really wanting to buy the Mavic 2 Pro....however, and being only a moderate computer geek, i've been reading about issues with the 10 Bit download to laptops. Can anyone please help re laptop specs required (CPU, RAM, Graphics card) and HEVC converters and editing (looking at Adobe Premiere Pro). Heading to Norway in mid November, and want to up to speed before i go. I currently have a HP Envy laptop (i5-6200U CPU 240GHz, 8G RAM)
Thanks

AussieDenis

 

[THE CYBORG]

Take a look at THIS link, all the specifications required for Premiere Pro.

 

[MAVIC_2_YTS]

APP is a heavy duty piece of software. You do not state your previous editing experience, but if this is your first go there are plenty of free (or at the very least, cheaper) options that offer great editing control to learn fundamentals before ultimately upgrading to APP.

On the flip side, just about every option in APP has a youtube tutorial, same with Photoshop, Lightroom, Etc...

Again, if you are already adversed with editing then ignore the above, but if you are new, then it may be a bit less frustrating starting off with something a bit more tame.

 

[ZX14-R]

Need a beefy videocard with lots of ram for processing.

 

[CelticShadows]

If you want a decent laptop, then look up Workstation grade laptops which both give storage and RAM. I use Zbooks myself and you can pick up decent Zbook G3/G4 laptops second hand at reasonable costs. I use an older Zbook 15 G2 with 32Gb RAM and a 1Tb SSD, Core i7 CPU and Quadro mobile chip. It handles DaVinci Resolve editing just fine and outputs to a pro monitor at 10Bits when I last tested it, the number assigned to it refers to monitor size but a Zbook 17 also has a few extra tricks that the 15 doesn't like space for extra storage but overall they are the same. I'd recommend the G3/G4 over the G2 as they're a bit lighter/smaller but also come with Thunderbolt docks but the G2 does me fine as I'm just rough editing in the field to bring back to be processed on the render farm.

 

[MAVIC_2_YTS]

If you want a decent laptop

...Then go with a MacBook Pro

 

[CelticShadows]

...Then go with a MacBook Pro

Avoid any Apple made after 2015, they've had major quality issues with keyboards, batteries and displays (data ribbon for the display was too short). Oh and avoid their customer services (go watch Louis Rossmann over on YouTube if you don't believe me ).

macOS is decent I'll give you that, but hardware? A decently specced Zbook of a similar generation can outperform a Macbook, let alone some of the premium offerings from Dell or HP. Plenty of videos on YouTube showing that from videographers. The glory days of Macs being better are long gone, and Apple is screwing the pooch for everything they can get from those that are tied to the eco-system.

I use a Zbook 15 daily, it's a brick I'll give you that but it doesn't overheat, throttle and then die under heavy workloads. Sure it gets noise and isn't as flashy as a Macbook, but at the end of the day I rather complete a job and go home than wait on a rig that's choking on a video timeline or dealing with a 20 image panorama.

 

[MAVIC_2_YTS]

Avoid any Apple made after 2015, they've had major quality issues with keyboards, batteries and displays (data ribbon for the display was too short). Oh and avoid their customer services (go watch Louis Rossmann over on YouTube if you don't believe me ).

macOS is decent I'll give you that, but hardware? A decently specced Zbook of a similar generation can outperform a Macbook, let alone some of the premium offerings from Dell or HP. Plenty of videos on YouTube showing that from videographers. The glory days of Macs being better are long gone, and Apple is screwing the pooch for everything they can get from those that are tied to the eco-system.

I use a Zbook 15 daily, it's a brick I'll give you that but it doesn't overheat, throttle and then die under heavy workloads. Sure it gets noise and isn't as flashy as a Macbook, but at the end of the day I rather complete a job and go home than wait on a rig that's choking on a video timeline or dealing with a 20 image panorama.

Some valid points for sure, and my remark was more in jest then anything (some guys are Ford guys, some guys are Chev guys kind of deal).

The early (2011 - 2013) 13" MBP's are still solid machines when upgraded and I do still run a 2011 patched so it can run Mojave, with a RAM and SSD upgrade, as well as the newer 2018 MPB for work needs.

Again, really comes down to user preference, as the majority (in my own opinion) of users hardly tap into the full potential of these machines unless of course you have a career in editing, but I am mainly speaking about the "hobbyist" that likes to string together some clips on the weekend.

 

[CelticShadows]

Some valid points for sure, and my remark was more in jest then anything (some guys are Ford guys, some guys are Chev guys kind of deal).

Sorry missed the smiley, I stripped out gfx whilst viewing the forum, but people still fall for the ol' Apple is great schtick hence the post. A hobbyist can pick up a Zbook 15 G2 with a 4c/8t i7, 16Gb (or more), Quadro gfx and a decent SSD for around 600 on ebay. Better value than many new laptops, especially if you have a techy friend who knows how to give it some TLC. Zbook G3 don't go for much more either if you shop around and are a better deal both in size and Tbolt support. In fact most workstation grade laptops since around 2016 onwards have been pretty solid for both Dell Precision's and HP Zbooks.

I used to provide refurbished Zbook's to local students and artists to help with their work, and very few have had issues and those that did was mostly dead batteries.

 

[MAVIC_2_YTS]

Sorry missed the smiley, I stripped out gfx whilst viewing the forum, but people still fall for the ol' Apple is great schtick hence the post. A hobbyist can pick up a Zbook 15 G2 with a 4c/8t i7, 16Gb (or more), Quadro gfx and a decent SSD for around 600 on ebay. Better value than many new laptops, especially if you have a techy friend who knows how to give it some TLC. Zbook G3 don't go for much more either if you shop around and are a better deal both in size and Tbolt support. In fact most workstation grade laptops since around 2016 onwards have been pretty solid for both Dell Precision's and HP Zbooks.

I used to provide refurbished Zbook's to local students and artists to help with their work, and very few have had issues and those that did was mostly dead batteries.

No worries, and great info for the OP to browse, going to have a peak myself as you now have my curiosity.

Thanks!

 

[ChuckNorrisUSAF]

Some valid points for sure, and my remark was more in jest then anything (some guys are Ford guys, some guys are Chev guys kind of deal).

The early (2011 - 2013) 13" MBP's are still solid machines when upgraded and I do still run a 2011 patched so it can run Mojave, with a RAM and SSD upgrade, as well as the newer 2018 MPB for work needs.

Again, really comes down to user preference, as the majority (in my own opinion) of users hardly tap into the full potential of these machines unless of course you have a career in editing, but I am mainly speaking about the "hobbyist" that likes to string together some clips on the weekend.

I run a Mac Book Pro (2012 model) - replaced the HD with an SSD and upgraded the RAM; it runs better than it did before - processes and edits files/videos ( a little slower because of the file format ) but it does the job it needs to do. You don't necessarily need some high end $3K PC to do all the fancy stuff.

 

[CelticShadows]

I run a Mac Book Pro (2012 model) - replaced the HD with an SSD and upgraded the RAM; it runs better than it did before - processes and edits files/videos ( a little slower because of the file format ) but it does the job it needs to do. You don't necessarily need some high end $3K PC to do all the fancy stuff.

It's fine for older file formats but as soon as you move into 4k + or h.265/HEVC then you're going to struggle especially if you're doing anything more than a simple render such tasks like removing noise, transitions, colour grading, transitions and so on. If you're using Final Cut it'll mitigate this but you may be now on a unsupported platform by Apple (depending on refresh). Also your system will be using a s/w renderer for those codecs which will hammer the CPU, whereas if you have a GPU post-2014 ish then it will likely have the native encoder/decoders.

It all comes down to how much patience you have, I still use hardware that's over a decade old, and one PC that's now approaching 25 years (long story). It's also about hardware, there comes a point where you have something that's no longer viable as technology and software evolves and there's been a lot of architectural changes in the last 7 years on both sides such as low-level optimisations, GPGPU compute and so on.

 

[gnirtS]

an i5 really is low end. i7 is more useful but more importantly, an 8th generation or above to get hardware h.265 acceleration.
On top of that a good, fast SSD, 16gb or more ram and a dedicated GPU like Nvidia 1050 or above will do the job.

"New" macs tend to use old hardware so you'll never get the performance equivalent to a PC for anything like the same price.

 

[Gizmo6257]

You will be fine. Use Divinci and use proxy. I have a I/3 HP and it is a little slow but works fine. I also have I/5 Desktop and it flies with 16gb ram. SSD hard drive is a must though.

Hi Everyone.....i'm really wanting to buy the Mavic 2 Pro....however, and being only a moderate computer geek, i've been reading about issues with the 10 Bit download to laptops. Can anyone please help re laptop specs required (CPU, RAM, Graphics card) and HEVC converters and editing (looking at Adobe Premiere Pro). Heading to Norway in mid November, and want to up to speed before i go. I currently have a HP Envy laptop (i5-6200U CPU 240GHz, 8G RAM)
Thanks

AussieDenis

 

[Gizmo6257]

Hi Everyone.....i'm really wanting to buy the Mavic 2 Pro....however, and being only a moderate computer geek, i've been reading about issues with the 10 Bit download to laptops. Can anyone please help re laptop specs required (CPU, RAM, Graphics card) and HEVC converters and editing (looking at Adobe Premiere Pro). Heading to Norway in mid November, and want to up to speed before i go. I currently have a HP Envy laptop (i5-6200U CPU 240GHz, 8G RAM)
Thanks

AussieDenis

Divinci is free and has just as much if not more in Divinci 16. Watch you tube videos with Jay Lippman. He is great and switched from Premiere Pro. I have used both, but Divinci is easier, faster and doesn't crash all the time. Plus it saves you 25 bucks a month.

 

[Housenotes]

I run a Mac Book Pro (2012 model) - replaced the HD with an SSD and upgraded the RAM; it runs better than it did before - processes and edits files/videos ( a little slower because of the file format ) but it does the job it needs to do. You don't necessarily need some high end $3K PC to do all the fancy stuff.

I use a 2013 MacBook Pro Retina Display 2.8GHz intel Core i7 processor with 16 GB ram and an intel Iris 1536 MB Graphics card. Seems to be jerky when I download and try to view my videos from my Mavic 2 Pro. What editing software are you using. I'm looking to find something free to experiment with and then maybe buy what others are recommending but I don't like the idea of a yearly subscription.

 

[Sockeye]

regardless what sticker is on it or which OS you are using, if want to use a laptop for video editing HVEC 10Bit footage the CPU needs native built in support for it. The magic word you need to look for is INTEL QUICKSYNC. If the Cpu has it built in it will work fine, if not you will have a hard time.

 

[Johnmcl7]

an i5 really is low end. i7 is more useful but more importantly, an 8th generation or above to get hardware h.265 acceleration.
On top of that a good, fast SSD, 16gb or more ram and a dedicated GPU like Nvidia 1050 or above will do the job.

"New" macs tend to use old hardware so you'll never get the performance equivalent to a PC for anything like the same price.

i5 is not low end at all, although Intel's core i series naming is all over the place most i5's offer similar performance and feature sets to i7's for much lower cost. In many cases with the laptop versions, the i5's and i7's have the same core counts and featuresets but the i5's have a slightly lower boost speed and cache which makes for a small performance improvement for a large difference in cost which may be better invested in other parts of the system for a better performance boost.

The low end processors are the Atom, Celerons and Pentiums with the current progression for consumer processors from slowest to fastest being Atom, Celeron, Pentium, Core i3, Core i5, core i7 and core i9.

 

[paazel]

...8th generation or above to get hardware h.265 acceleration.
On top of that a good, fast SSD, 16gb or more ram and a dedicated GPU like Nvidia 1050 or above will do the job.

Actually Intel 7th Gen Core series and above have h.265 hardware encode/decode acceleration.

 

[PS01]

iPad Pro 2nd generation works very well, for both replaying and editing 4k 10bit 265 DLog. And it's only $500 now? I'm not sure how much it is now, but used to be $649.