4k video editing bottlenecks

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Having recently acquired an OMD E M5 III, I'm keen to try some video. Unfortunately I never built my PC with video in mind. It's an I5, 8Gb of Ram, and a Geoforce GT710. It was really meant to run only Lightroom 5.7 and CS2 both of which are getting a bit long in the tooth now but still work.

What I've discovered is that 4k viewing or editing is a no no but it will manage 1920x1080. It's at the very limits of everything but it will do it but 4k just stutters badly and max's out the processor and memory if I do any editing and the exported results are somewhat patchy.

What I'm trying to understand is where the bottleneck that's causing the stuttering is (besides everywhere). Right now I'm not in a position to build another PC, so if I could make this one work, even if it is at it's limits I'll get by with that until I can build a new one. I'm thinking if I can capture in 4k but output in 1080 for now I could live with that.

As I understand it, I think that if I change my video card to something which supports HVEC and not just H.264, this will do two things, 1. run 4k videos smoothly and 2. allow Premiere Elements to use the GPU and not max the processor out but I'm not sure and I'm looking for someone with more knowledge of video who can answer this and tell me it will work or I'm wasting my time?
 
Does the camera have any 'easier' file formats usually even quite basic Pcs can at least play 4K unless it is 10 bit and 4.2.2 but some cameras can do alternative 8 bit.
Try this player it usually manages better than almost any other with 4K - https://mpv.io/
To be honest if you can't play 4K, editing is going to be at best very tedious, even a mid-spec newer laptop should mange reasonably well nowadays and might cost less than attempting to make what you have viable.
 
Take a look at " wondershare Filmora11" editing suite for editing in 4K. I had the same problem with stuttering using a graphics card not up to the job so got a Geforce GTX1050TI which solved the problem, obviously by now even than has been superceeded. Another cause could be shutter speed v frame rate . if shooing at 25fps then the shutter speed should be at least double that.
No point in videoing in 4k if you don't have a 4K monitor either .
 
In my (limited) experience you need to upgrade a lot, and your best starting point may be to get advice from a good computer mechanic, who knows how to check what's compatible with your motherboard. For example, my own computer is running a GTX960 card that fits into a lot of older computers, https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/28467616...rsgLwsw0WN1aC2oHQM8FcaBjezWTEymAaAtWQEALw_wcB
it won't run modern games but is fine for editing. Also, you may be able to increase the RAM (I now have 64GB) and you should be able to fit a more powerful processor cooler, and maybe modify the case if necessary to prevent thermal throttling, none of which are expensive and will make a massive difference.
 
8gb ram, decade old basic GPU and I'm guessing CPU of same vintage. I'd rather get a whole complete new laptop or PC. 4k basic editing is no problem for any recent machine just make sure ram is 32gb or bare min 16.
 
Thanks for your replies. I think I'm barking up the wrong tree with the codec part as the EM5 uses h.264 as does the DJI Mini I have. The Mini does 2.7k and my computer happily runs that, it just stutters with the 4k. The 4k video is smooth on the camera and in OMD workspace, so I think my capture is fine ( i have the shutter set to double the frame rate). It's also fine on uploaded platforms like Youtube, so it's just my PC.

The CPU is not as old as the graphics card, it hits the minimum standards for Adobe Premier, so so far everything is pointing at the graphics card. One of my limitations is I originally built this on a micro atx platform and one of the reasons I ended up with a Gt710 was because it fitted. I wasn't interested in video back then but that's come back to bite me now.

I might just hit ebay later and see what's available 2nd hand to see if I can cheaply swop out the card and see if it improves things.

I haven't decided on my final output yet, I'm literally just sorting it all out in my head and experimenting with different frame rates and quality so I can understand what's what
 
Another thing that may help is not to load too much material into the timeline. Just load enough for a few minutes, then render it, and when it's all done just insert all of the rendered clips and render them again. I'm making 35-minute "how-to" videos, and even very high-spec machines can struggle with that.
 
realspeed said:
No point in videoing in 4k if you don't have a 4K monitor either
Click to expand...
I just wanted to clarify what you meant by this because on the little test clips I'm doing, just taken from my desk or using the DJI footage I've taken, there seems to be a clear difference between video captured at a higher quality and downsampled to 1080 and video taken at 1080 only. The former is far better and I'm not viewing this on a 4k monitor just a 2560x1440 (A Benq240), so it seems to be well worth capturing in as high a quality as you can even if you're downsampling later?

As I say, I'm quite new to video though.
 
I have no idea about computer innards but 18months ago I had a friend build me a computer with this list of stuff to run and edit 4k video in Premiere Pro and it does it effortlessly.

Ryzen 7 3rd Gen processor 3800X 8 core 16 tread 4.5GHZ max 3.9GHZ base.
EVGA 700 GD-700w power supply.
Corsair Vengance LPX DDR4 2 x 16GB-3200MHZ memory cards
Seagate 500GB Barracuda 510 M.2 PCLE Gen3 x4 NVME SSD
Nvidia Geforce GTX 1660 super graphics card
Gigabyte X570 gaming X motherboard.

If any of the above makes sense to anyone your welcome to it, as it doesn't mean a thing to me.
 
I'm struggling to find a card which will fit in my case which has got a fighting chance of performing well enough to be worth taking a punt on. A Nividia GT 1030 seems to be the only low profile card I can get, after that the better performing cards are definitely not going to fit. There's few 2nd hand on ebay for around 60, I'm trying to decide if it's worth going for one. I'm beginning to remember why I lost interest in video around about the time of Hi8 and Premier 5.1.

Garry Edwards said:
Another thing that may help is not to load too much material into the timeline. Just load enough for a few minutes, then render it, and when it's all done just insert all of the rendered clips and render them again. I'm making 35-minute "how-to" videos, and even very high-spec machines can struggle with that.
Click to expand...
That's a good tip. Currently I'm just playing with short 10 or 15 second clips. I'm having some success with 4k and 2.7k files output to 1080p, I can probably live with that if that's all I can manage under current circumstances. I might try a short project and see if I can do everything I might want to do in it, my needs are currently simple, and if it works settle with that.
 
I’m my experience using premiere pro for video editing, the main bottlenecks are disk read/write speed, available RAM and CPU power. Premiere only seems to use the GPU for some tasks.

Of all of these disk speed has been the main problem. I’d start with downloading the free black magic speed test app and seeing what that tells you. It will let you know how fast your disk is and based on that what videos sizes HD or 4K and codecs you can use.
 
realspeed said:
Take a look at " wondershare Filmora11" editing suite for editing in 4K. I had the same problem with stuttering using a graphics card not up to the job so got a Geforce GTX1050TI which solved the problem, obviously by now even than has been superceeded. Another cause could be shutter speed v frame rate . if shooing at 25fps then the shutter speed should be at least double that.
No point in videoing in 4k if you don't have a 4K monitor either .
Click to expand...
That Wondershare software is amazing. At a stroke it's solved most of my problems. It actually utilizes my GPU so my hard disk and memory is just not stretched. It's also easy to use, fairly intuitive and gives me more export options which Premier Elements doesn't have. It still doesn't solve the 4k stutter on my PC, though there's no stutter when editing 4k footage, so that's a big bonus. I can export at 2.7k for instance, which is the output of my mini SE. It also looks a bit more grown up than Premier Elements and is cheaper. I think I'm sold. I've tested at least 5 video editors so far and that's easily the best. I just need to examine all the functionality but in truth I don't need much, titles, fades, audio, nothing more really.
 
I started a youtube channel 2 weeks ago, recording at 4K. My PC can edit and render the files with ease. But a 20 minute video at 4K takes around an hour to render. Uploading to Youtube around 8 hours.

I use Davinci Resolve 18 beta. It's a learning curve if you're a beginner, but with youtube videos you'll get the hang of it. There's a free and paid version availalbe.

My PC Specs:

Case: Corsair 5000D Airflow
Operating System: Windows 10 64bit
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 12 Core (3.7GHz-4.8GHz 70MB Cache/AM4)
MOBO: ASUS ROG STRIX X570-F Gaming
RAM: 32GB Corsiar Vengeance DDR4 3600MHz (2x16GB)
GPU: 12GB Geforce RTX 3060
STORAGE: 1TB PCS 2.5" SSD, 6GB (520MB/R, 470MB/W)
500GB SEAGATE FIRECUDA 520 GEN 4 PCIe NVMe (up to 5000MB/R, 2500MB/W)
1TB INTEL® 670p M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 3500MB/sR | 2500MB/sW)
PSU: CORSAIR 850W RMx SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
CPU Cooler: Corsair H150i RGB PRO XT Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler
 
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Using a MOV file format zoom starts a few seconds in
I was check up to export to youtube in 4K and came across this
export at 2160 at 30fprs- and resolution of 2560x 1440
This will need to be set in the customs section of Wondershare

seems to have worked but better in flikr. anyway here is the youtube 4K version
youtube 4K

flikr 4K version
https://flic.kr/p/2nkaAqH

Your 4K stutter I bet is down to the graphics card Gforce GTX1050TI is what I have
 
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realspeed said:
Using a MOV file format zoom starts a few seconds in
I was check up to export to youtube in 4K and came across this
export at 2160 at 30fprs- and resolution of 2560x 1440
This will need to be set in the customs section of Wondershare

seems to have worked but better in flikr. anyway here is the youtube 4K version
youtube 4K

flikr 4K version
https://flic.kr/p/2nkaAqH

Your 4K stutter I bet is down to the graphics card Gforce GTX1050TI is what I have
Click to expand...
Ah, interesting, that's quite good. I might experiment a bit more with outputs, definitely better on flickr.

And I discovered I can fit the Nvidia GTX1050Ti you have in my case. I had misremembered the available sapce, which I suspected I had, so took the case off to re-check and was delighted to find I had a double slot of room, it's only the length which is limited

I also found a magic list which shows all the Nvidia cards which support encoding and decoding of H.264 and H.265, of which the 1050 is on, as you might expect.

So I will start with the graphics card and upgrade the memory and processor in the future. All's well that ends well.

Many thanks for all contributions, while I thrashed around looking for a way to solve my problem.
 
I often export for youtube at 1440 as they treat it like 4K with higher bitrate than 1080p
In the example above the black border could be avoided by scaling unless it was intentional
 
I used a mid 2011 MacBook Air to edit 4k footage for years, albeit only cutting and basic levels adjustments, plus audio levelling. So nothing hard core.

The internet will tell you it's impossible but all I had to do was let it create proxy files, which meant leaving it for ages, then work with those before switching back to main files to export. Zero issues other than the long wait for the initial proxy files to be ready.

Getting the M1 was an absolute revelation
 
Obsima said:
I'm struggling to find a card which will fit in my case which has got a fighting chance of performing well enough to be worth taking a punt on. A Nividia GT 1030 seems to be the only low profile card I can get, after that the better performing cards are definitely not going to fit. There's few 2nd hand on ebay for around 60, I'm trying to decide if it's worth going for one. I'm beginning to remember why I lost interest in video around about the time of Hi8 and Premier 5.1.
Click to expand...
Forget that old old old pc. It will be the best thing you can do
 
LongLensPhotography said:
Forget that old old old pc. It will be the best thing you can do
Click to expand...
:)

Actually it's not that old, 3 or 4 years and I built it to a spec in a cooler master case which sits on my desk, rather than on the floor sucking up dog hairs, hence the mATX motherboard. Yes it's an I5 but a top i5, a 7500 and only 8Gb of RAM but I had examined carefully just how much cpu and memory I generally used before I built it. It's got a super quiet cpu fan and two silent fans sucking air in and out and sits very nicely at temperature, even in summer. Plus in-built wifi for the mesh network so I could dispnse with powerline adaptors and cabling and bluetooth so I could use a simple, quality, bluetooth speaker. It was all thought through, I just didn't have video in mind.

And it's an m.2 SSD on the motherboard, which also needs upgrading. Storage size has gone up for the price since I bought mine.
 
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Obsima said:
Yes it's an I5 but a top i5, a 7500 and only 8Gb of RA
Click to expand...
That makes it a 5 year old base spec office / instrument pc. There's no escaping the fact
 
4wd said:
Does the camera have any 'easier' file formats usually even quite basic Pcs can at least play 4K unless it is 10 bit and 4.2.2 but some cameras can do alternative 8 bit.
Try this player it usually manages better than almost any other with 4K - https://mpv.io/
To be honest if you can't play 4K, editing is going to be at best very tedious, even a mid-spec newer laptop should mange reasonably well nowadays and might cost less than attempting to make what you have viable.
Click to expand...

I've only just got around to trying this and it works very nicely and plays 4k video smoothly on my PC. I've re-associated .mov and .mp4 files with this player now

Damian Brown said:
I used a mid 2011 MacBook Air to edit 4k footage for years, albeit only cutting and basic levels adjustments, plus audio levelling. So nothing hard core.

The internet will tell you it's impossible but all I had to do was let it create proxy files, which meant leaving it for ages, then work with those before switching back to main files to export. Zero issues other than the long wait for the initial proxy files to be ready.

Getting the M1 was an absolute revelation
Click to expand...

Filmora allows me to create proxy files as well and it does it quite quickly, this has also helped, so all in all I'm temporarily up and running without any changes to the PC for the moment. Which is fine gives me a bit of time to assess more what I'm going to do with video.

Once again thank you for all suggestions.
 
I have a "gaming" laptop with a label on which reads RTX2060. It's an i7 (9th gen if that makes any difference) and has a 1TB SSD. Not sure what the RAM is but many is my guess. With .MOV 4k files I can edit about an hour of footage down to 20-30mins (footage is on a Samsung T5). I'm running Resolve and my PC just about manages.
It seems video is very resource hungry. Perhaps a case of more really is raw in this arena?
 
realspeed said:
No point in videoing in 4k if you don't have a 4K monitor either .
Click to expand...

tut tut :)

I shoot at 4k on a gopro so I can zoom in (if needed) when editing and render the cropped video at 1080p
 
KIPAX said:
tut tut :)

I shoot at 4k on a gopro so I can zoom in (if needed) when editing and render the cropped video at 1080p
Click to expand...
sorry you lost me there . I have both a 4k and 1080 monitor both by Dell and both the same size. I can assure you there is a very noticable difference between them in picture quality with the same 4K photo/video
 
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realspeed said:
sorry you lost me there . I have both a 4k and 1080 monitor both by Dell and both the same size. I can assure you there is a very noticable difference between them in picture quality with the same 4K photo/video
Click to expand...


I only produce 1080p content.. But I will shoot in 4k... At a fixed focul length.. so if i need to i can zoom in by cropping then output to 1080p

you said no point shooting 4k unless you have a 4k monitor.. i dont but i can view them and crop accordingly..
 
you missed the point completely. a 4k monitor produces a better clearer picture due to pixel density
 
I do think you’re talking at cross purposes. Both points are true, no:
- 4K screens have more detail
- filming in 4K to produce HD content makes sense.
 
I agree with TimHughes: there are two separate issue here
  • shooting in 4k (whether or not you have a 4k monitor) is advantageous because it gives you more wiggle room to crop and zoom whilst editing
  • Whether or not you render your finished video to 4k
I shoot in 4k on my Canon R (mainly natural hestory, especially macro stuff of insects). I have a "2K" monitor (2560x1440 native resolution). I render my finished videos at 1080p H.264 for upload to YouTube or Vimeo.

At the moment, I see little point in uploading 4k videos to these platforms. The Steam hardware survey for May 22 says 2.57% of their users have a 4k monitor - and gamers are likely to be well ahead of the general population is this sort of aspect. There is some debate over whether uploading 4K to YouTube produces a better end reult. The majority do seem to believe the results look somewhat sharper. A free account on Vimeo limits you to uploading 500mb / week - so the much bigger file size might be an issue. YouTube doesn't have such a limit although the max file size for upload to a free account is 15 min run time and 128Gb!
 
Youtube gives best results playing at 1080p if they downscale from something larger, I often upload at 1440.
In other words no matter how good your 1080p upload is you will see more smoothing and artefacts in shadows than if you uploaded at 1440 or 4k played at (their)1080p
Your 1440p video can be a smaller (mb) file size than 1080 with high bitrate, but it will still look better played at 1080p on their site.
 
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