Please Explain for non computer literate h.264 codec

[Learning Pilot]

Hi I realise this topic has come up before but reading so many different opinions on here has done my head in and led me to post this. I have just filmed my first video on Mavic Pro in 4k to be honest I don't know why I'm not trying to be a professional thats just what the settings said. I do not understand codec talk or bitrates or why 30 fps should be used instead of 60 fps i just want to edit the movie in iMovie on a Imac that has 4 gig ram i think its a intel 2.66ghz? As many have said before the playback is laggy can some one explain to me the steps in Laymans terms how to fix this issue by layman's i mean like explaining it to your grandfather as I am sure some other people who are new to Mavic Pros are feeling the same by the way tried calling apple no solution. If i don't fix the lag in playback will the video after its uploaded still be the same or is it only when editing? If I film in 1080 do I still have that editing codec problem?lost and confused.
p.s Im not a grandfather Im just looking for simple steps and help appreciated.

 

[IflyMavic]

I can't answer your whole question because I personally don't use an apple computer, but I do know computers and I can at least explain why playback isn't as smooth as you'd like it to be.

So from what I understand from your post it seems like you're trying to edit 4k video on your iMac. Important specs being Intel processor (guessing i5) at 2.66GHz and only 4 gb ram. As important as your processor is, ram is even more important. There is a youtube channel I follow called LinusTechTips, and the high end computers that he builds have trouble playing back 4k video completely smooth. What I recommend is seeing if you can turn down playback settings, film in 1080p, or make hardware changes to your computer. I think making any or all those changes should help, but if you do end up making hardware upgrades then you can skip the first two.

A codec is a program that compresses a video file then decompresses the same video file so it can be played. Different codecs can compress or decompress different video files. So when the film is recorded and saved a codec compresses the file like .Mp4 or .mkv. When you go to edit, or view the file a codec then decompresses the file to be viewed on the player or to be edited in the program you use. The bitrate is the amount of data being streamed per second in your video. A higher bitrate means more data is being processed which means you're going to need more power to be able to keep up. A higher bitrate also means that the images that your video is made up of can hold more information leading to better picture depth, but at higher file sizes. Lastly, the comparison between 30 and 60 fps is really just the amount of frames per second that the video plays at. The higher the number the smother the picture. However, more frames means that you have to process more frames. Twice as many frames means twice as large file sizes. Your step up would be trying 1080p at 30fps -> 1080p at 60fps -> 4k at 30fps -> 4k at 60fps. Although 4k at 60fps is going to need a beefy computer to handle.

I hope that made things a little easier to understand.

 

[Learning Pilot]

Thankyou this clears up most things, so from what your saying if I get a better computer this will help? where I was getting confused was the forums I read kept saying that the codec for mavic pro was not suitable for editing in iMovie and I needed to compress it from 4k to 1080 to make it easier to use in editing then a hundred different ways to do this. I live in Australia so I set the drone to PAL and .MOV because they said it was more compatible with iMovie. I didn't understand the Compressing thing before editing.Thanks for your help